Beneath Innocence (Deception #2.5) (4 page)

“Baby…” I murmur already knowing the answer,

“Shh, we can discuss everything when you’re more awake.”

“Is she well enough to tell us what happened?” Voices ask, coming and going.

“She’s still not talking to anyone.”

“The Baby, the blood was our baby.” I cry.

“What? Shhh, it’s okay, don’t speak Martha. Shit, I can’t believe you did this.”

Reality floods in and I’m being carried out of the shower by Greg, sickness burns my throat but I don’t have the energy to retch.

“Fucking help me!” I hear him call as he descends the stairs. Dad’s whore’s screams echo through my head and a wave of ‘fucks’ and ‘call an ambulance’ boom from the men who work for my Father.

I’m dying, the darkness has come back to claim me.

And I welcome it, so very much.

“Just let them do their job, Jen. For fuck’s sake. What the hell is it with you?” Cade shouts, finally losing it with me. “Are you hell bent on destroying not only yourself but the band? Your friends? Kimberly?”

I push at the nurse, quickly moving her aside as she tries to insert the syringe for the fourth time when I fly for Cade.

His head bounces off the wall, the sound of his back slamming against the brickwork loud and heavy in the cold clinical room. “Don’t you dare fucking preach to me!” I spit out, fury taking over. His eyes are wide, stunned. Yeah, eat my wrath you condescending asshole. “This is your fault, Cade. I did it for you! I did it all for you!”

He’s staring at me, but I ignore the slight wetness to his eyes as he witnesses my breakdown, the shattering of my mind that has been threatening for way too long.

I’d woken in this room two days ago, the stench of blood and chemicals scorching the hairs in my nostrils. It was all so clean, so damn fucking white! Everywhere I looked all I could see was a blank canvas for my mind to paint pictures on, a clean sweep for too many pictures to assault me with. It was like one of Faye’s blank canvases for me to fill with one color. Blue. Blue’s blood. Blue’s tears. Blue’s torture. Blue’s love, or lack of.

They’d even sent a fucking fuckwad of a ‘head’ doctor in to see me. Dr Hilary Van Gohan. What a fucking name, how the fuck they expected me to take her seriously with a ludicrous name like that was beyond me.

Not only had the people in white coats penetrated my mind as the ones in blue penetrated my skin, but ones in black had toyed with my emotions. What the hell was wrong with these people? Why couldn’t they just leave me to reach the end of road I was on? The road I hoped led me to hell because I knew it would be a better place than the damn purgatory I was in right now.

“Jen…” he begs, the pain of realising what he had done finally crushing his face. “I…”

“Don’t!” I scoff, “Don’t act like you care now. You didn’t care when you destroyed my life, when you used Blue for your own fucking gain, to save your precious Faye… all at the expense of everyone else’s happiness.”

Unable to look at the devastation and guilt, the mirror image to mine, on his face any longer, I push him out of the way and head for the door.

“Mr Hallam, if you would just…” She gasps when I glare at her.

“Move the fuck out of my way, before I move you!”

“Jen!” Cade tries.

“MOVE!” I bellow, my temper fraying with everyone. I need to get out before they all send me into that little black spot in the back of my mind, the spot where nothing matters, not even breathing and living.

Quiet follows me after the sound of the door hitting the wall when I barge through. I at least expected Cade to come after me. Yeah, once again I was alone, left to deal with my shit alone. Just like always.

I know the outside will be swarming with media, paparazzi that will think Christmas has come when they see me leaving the building in nothing but a blue gown, my cute little ass poking through the open back, but right now, I don’t care. I don’t fucking care.

It’s late in the day but the hospital is still busy, alive with nurses, people, all of them rushing about their daily lives like everything in the world wasn’t sick and twisted. Fuck them and their rainbows, let their unicorns shove them up the ass with their nice pointy horn, because I was done. I was out.

This lie I was living had eaten its last truth. Because I wasn’t living, I wasn’t even existing. I was just breathing. Just filling one lung at a time with fuel that kept my brain working. Well I don’t want my brain to work anymore because all that it grants me is torture. Heartache and cruelty.

Blue wasn’t just my woman, she was my soul. I’d destroyed her and in that, destroyed myself. I didn’t deserve to live, not after what I’d done.

Funny how you see things when you’re not high, or have your dick dipped inside a wet cunt. It’s funny how you realise that this world doesn’t actually hold the pleasure you thought it did when your brain is actually functioning on undiluted oxygen instead of other substances.

And if the world only revolved around heartache and pain, then why the fuck was I still breathing? What the hell was the point anymore?

I was ready to taste hell now. Heaven was a pipe dream for me. I’d killed, taken the soul from someone, even if he had deserved it. But the thing was, I would do it all again, for her, for Blue. And if that made me a bad person, well then, may Satan prep my bed for me.

The hospital is like a maze, corridors taking you the wrong way, doors leading to empty rooms, all of them enticing you to postpone the inevitable. Like Satan is tormenting me, delaying my homecoming. Well he doesn’t know me, he doesn’t realise quite how fucking ready I am to shake his hand. Fuck it, I’ll even tempt him to a game of chess before the night is over.

I shift aside, holding my back to the wall and hiding my ass as a team of medics burst through a pair of double doors at the end of the corridor, random shouts and instructions blasting the quiet and making the ache in my head wince again. I watch them pass, a team of four, one in blue scrubs knelt astride the patient’s chest on the gurney as he desperately tries to resuscitate whoever is slipping into the depths of hell before me. Do they actually deserve to be saved? I know I don’t.

Quiet fills me once again, the corridor that was alive seconds ago now eerily quiet. A door is ajar opposite me, a waiting room. Muffled sobbing fills the quiet, but it’s a gentle sobbing, a weeping that is full of grief, heartache. I want to console whoever is in there, but there’s a part of me that wants to yell “Accept it! Accept death because it’s the only guarantee of fucking quiet your head will ever get!”

But I don’t. I can’t. Who am I to preach when I have taken someone’s life? I have taken a mother’s son from her. Fair enough, a monster most probably birthed by a sane and fairly normal woman, but still, it was my choice and I have no right to comfort anyone.

It’s the first time in months, maybe a year that my head is clear enough to realise who I am. What I am. And I’m not sure I like who I have become. I blamed Cade, but in the end, he didn’t hurt Blue. It wasn’t Cade that tore her apart, or who took her from me. It was myself and the man who is now fish food. I have no one to blame but myself.

My chest hurts. I don’t realise I’m crying until the waiting room door opens slowly and an old woman is staring at me, her wet blue eyes full of sadness. “Oh my dear.” Her voice is gravelly but soft, soothing and coaxing. Her hand reaches to mine and she pulls me gently. I allow her to lead me into the room, her movements slow as her old weary legs shuffle in front of me. She sits me down on the sofa, her leathery hand never letting go of mine.

“You lost someone too,” she whispers.

I can’t answer her, I’m not able to feel, never mind talk. Her eyes drop to our joined hands. “My Herb just left me. Cancer.” The sound of her voice makes my insides hurt for her. But looking back up at me she smiles, softly, almost…almost gratefully. “Pain is a funny thing,” she says quietly, sensitively, as her eyes fix on something over my shoulder. “He was in so much pain that I agonised over it. His pain became my hell, my own physical agony.” Although I can tell she is well into her eighties, her bright blue eyes are so very young, full of life and love for her dead husband. “But his love had the power to overcome it all. The way he loved me told me that he would fight to the end for me, hold on to the thing that pained him to stay with me. But in the end, we all choose the right path for our loved ones. We all help them in how they want to go. And we all do anything to make that love last till the end. Even if it guarantees us a place in hell.”

My eyes snap to hers. Is she telling me she helped kill her husband? She shrugs faintly but smiles as if she’s aware of my silent question. “We all have demons, my dear. It’s how you choose to fight them that matters.”

“I don’t…”

“Shhh. Death isn’t the end. It’s the beginning of a journey, a journey none of us are willing to face but very ready to accept.”

“I would die for her.” I’m not sure what made me say it, I’m not even sure if I did say it but the lady smiles once again, the wrinkles beside her eyes making her expression soft and warm.

“And I know that if that is the case, then you’re worth it. Not many of us ever get to touch love, some of us are not lucky enough to ever see inside another’s soul, but when we do, it’s the only thing that leads us to our death because we never let it go, never. And we take that piece with us, through life, and even through death. My Herb will never leave me, he’s just moved ahead, but he’s waiting for me. We’ll meet again.”

I can’t say anything. My throat is so tight I’m sure I’m choking right in front of her.

“But that’s the thing, you see. Love. It makes us hold on. It allows us to face anything because love is all the drug we need, and to get the high from it is like nothing else.”

How she seemed to see inside me was inexplicable but for some unknown reason, I knew she could.

She pats my hand then stands and makes her way out but before she closes the door behind her she turns back to me. “Just hold on, my dear. It will find you. And not before you’re ready for it.”

The corridor is silent and empty when I emerge out of the room sometime later. Darkness has descended, the lights from the activity on the street below causing frequent flashes to bounce off the glass of the windows.

Another burst of doors and I once again move aside. A team of three this time, all of them running. My eyes lower to a trail of blood following them, the thin crimson line someone’s life-force.

“Stem the bleed you idiot! Seal the damn wound!” one of the white coats shouts to a nurse. He nods frantically, grabbing onto the pale wrist that has dropped off the edge of the trolley. Another nurse, a female, is running alongside holding a bag of fluids, her hands virtually squeezing it to push it through quicker.

Long hair falls from the head of the trolley and I’m strangely mesmerised by it. It’s long and thick, like Blue’s but without the streak of blue running through it. I smile to myself, picturing how I would always run my fingers through that particular part after we’d blown each other’s minds.

“Pulse is dropping!”

“We’re losing her!”

“Damn it, move! Move!”

I feel sad. It was obvious this person had slit their wrists, wanted to end their own life like me. What made this person any less deserving of life than me? Here I was, a murderer, a killer, and someone had taken their own life because maybe their boyfriend was an ass, or maybe their husband was cheating on them. Who at the end of the day controlled you enough to make you want to end your life?

It’s then that they pass me. It’s then that I look down at the poor girl on her way into heaven or hell. It’s then that my life finally ends. Because it’s then that I realise it’s Blue who is leaving this sick and twisted world before me.

Am I still out of it? Is this all a dream?

I run after them, my legs almost failing me, Blue’s blood leading me to her. “Blue?” I croak out. This can’t be right, why is she here, how is this possible? Did I die and this is hell? Did I not wake up after the drugs swallowed me into their world?

“Move out my fucking way,” Some guy pushes past me and I grab onto his arm to make sure he’s real and this is not me still tripping out. He tries to push me from him but my grip is too strong.

“Is that really Blue? Martha?” I choke out and his brow furrows.

“Jenson?” I hear barked. I turn to see her Dad Liam coming towards me, worry lines marring his forehead and that’s when I realise this isn’t a dream, that really was my Blue, bleeding out again. She can’t die. Was this fate sending me a message?

I’m going to pass out. The air leaves me and my surroundings close in on me. Large hands grip on to me before I can hit the floor.

“You need to let us monitor you,” A heavyset nurse huffs at me as she tries to put a blood pressure cuff around my arm. Whoever helped me deposited me on a gurney and left with Blue’s Dad. I need to get to Blue, “Cade!” I call out in a manic shout.

“You need to calm down Sir, I will sedate you.”

Like fuck she will. “Cade,” I call and get no answer for a few silent beats and then the curtain draws back and Faye stares at me.

“Oh God Jenson, I could hear you from the waiting area, Cade left to try and find you, what’s going on?”

“It’s Blue, I need you to tell this nurse to get off me now.”

The nurse is standing open-mouthed staring at Faye, she clearly didn’t recognize me and I’m not surprised, I don’t even recognize my own image in the mirror but Faye is as stunning as she always was and getting recognized for her was normal. “Please just give us a minute?” Faye asks. The nurse tells her of course and leaves with a hurry.

I rip the cuff of my arm and jump down from the bed. Faye opens a bag she’s holding and pulls clothes out and hands them to me, I could kiss her if I wasn’t slowly sinking into a black abyss every second I didn’t know what was happening with Blue. “I brought some of Cade’s, but I have Kimberly bringing some things from your dressing room.”

“No these are fine, thank you.”

“What were you saying about Blue, Jens?”

“She’s here, they just brought her in.”

Her little gasp and then sceptical look makes me question my reality again but the hole growing in my chest is telling me I didn’t imagine it. My woman, whether she wanted to be it or not, was here and she was leaving me again, leaving me for good.

****

“How much fucking longer?”

“Jen, calm down. The doctors said they would tell us when they have anything to tell us.” Cade grabs my upper arms to stop me pacing, his hold tight but I don’t feel it. I’m too numb. Faye went outside to call him and he was back here within seconds, commanding everyone to leave me the fuck alone and making sure the Doctors included me in the information they were sharing about Blue’s condition, but the last piece of news we got was ages ago and gave us no real information.

My knee wouldn’t stop bouncing up and down, sweat from withdrawals and the aches accompanying them was making me feel nauseous. 

“I should have seen it,” Greg or whatever his name is again, mumbles. He was the guy I grabbed hold of in the corridor, he was pacing and running his hands through his hair, his worry genuine and showing signs of real affection for Blue. I wanted to know who he was to her but I couldn’t control my emotions and actions in this fragile state. If he told me something I wouldn’t want to hear I don’t know if I’d punch him or burst into tears like a little bitch.

“I should have seen it coming,” he blurts.

“We all should have seen it,” Slicer, Blue’s dad hisses. I felt his guilt as my own. Although I hadn’t seen her for so long I knew my actions played a part in her destruction.

“It’s been too fucking long. What the hell are they doing, having coffee? Doing the fucking crossword?”

Cade shakes his head sadly and slumps onto the sofa. My pain is his; it’s how it’s always been. Sitting beside him, I nudge him with my knee. He turns to me, the black lines under his eyes now visible that my eyes are actually focussing on life. “I didn’t mean what I said.” He frowns, confused. “About you and Faye being to blame.”

He smiles and shakes his head. “I know.”

I didn’t deserve him. Friends are there for one another, yeah, but Cade, he wasn’t just there for me, he was
with
me. I return his smile weakly and nod my head, thanking him without words for… well he knows what for. He was my brother, blood or no blood, he would stand by me and me him through everything.

The door opens and we all stand like fucking soldiers on the Queens entry. “May I speak openly?” The doc asks Slicer, his gaze travelling around the room as he asks for consent to speak in front of us all. Slicer gulps but nods.

“We’ve managed to stop the blood. Martha has had a transfusion and her body is already responding to that treatment.”

“Oh thank God,” Slicer whispers, his eyes closing for a moment in relief.

“However,” the doc continues. “Currently, we are more concerned with your daughter’s state of mind. It is obvious this was a cry for help and there is evidence of… of self harm.”

“What?” All eyes move to me when I step forward, my heart clamping tight at the thought of what Blue had gone through. Cade grabs my arm. I allow it this time. “What do you mean she’s been self harming?”

The doc looks at slicer who nods, giving his go ahead for him to talk to me. “By the looks of the scars on her body, along with some wounds from her attack, there is frequent cut marks consistent with someone who self harms.”

“Fuck!”

He turns back to Slicer. “As her next of kin, I need your permission to section her. She won’t allow it, they never do, but Martha needs help Mr Grant.”

“She’s okay, Jen,” Cade whispers in my ear as he looks at me, his dark eyes appealing to me. “She’s going to be okay.”

I need her to be okay but she hasn’t been, she’s been in emotional pain, pretending to everyone that she’s strong enough to cope with what happened to her but no one could. They fucking destroyed her over and over and that taints the soul, how could we just expect her to get over it. She was hurting herself, my soul was weeping for her. I need to help her heal and to do that I need to help myself. I was also self-harming in a manner of speaking, escaping the pain through medicating myself on narcotics. I was still just as broken up over everything that happened and never really processed it all. 

I nod then pull him over to the edge of the room as the doc and Slicer make arrangement for Blue’s admission.

Cade looks at me, his expression full of worry when he senses my despair. “I need help, Cade. I need you to do me a favor.”