Faithless #2: A Tainted Love Serial

C
opyright
© 2014 by K.B Nelson

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No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

F
AITHLESS
#2- A Tainted Love Serial

She’s a stripper. He’s a preacher.

Her name’s Faith, and he’s been faithless

since the day she went away…

W
ritten by K.B
. Nelson

Cover by K.B. Nelson

Edited by Rogena Mitchell-Jones

A
safe sits
on crumpled sheets, pushing the mattress deep against the frame of the bed. It’s an old safe with cracked paint along the sharp edges of faded metal. The door hangs open where the box is able to inhale the last bit of summer air it’ll see for the next five years.

I pace before an open window. The breeze is hot, just as the sun is as it begs to set in the distance. “Are you sure you want to do this?” I ask Luke as he enters the bedroom waving the post-dated check in his hand.

“Don’t you trust me, Faith?” he asks with a smirk. “I’m a hundred percent reliable—that’s what everyone’s always said.”

“I do, and that’s why I’m asking. Is this really necessary?”

“That’s the thing about insurance,” he says and passes the check into my hands. “It’s a pain in the ass until it’s the one thing saving your ass. You never know where we’re going to end up down the road, and who’s to say five years down the line, I won’t be such an honorable person?”

The very idea that could be a distinct possibility causes a raise in my brow. “You don’t have it in you.”

“You never know.” He shakes a pointed finger at me. “People change all the time.”

“True,” I mutter under my breath and flashback to a few days ago when Noah was standing in the driveway. Then I wonder if he’s ever coming back. And if he does, who’s he going to be?

I lay the check gently against the floor of the safe, being careful as if the check itself might shatter into a million pieces. That’s a consequence of recent events—everything’s become so damn fragile. So even the things that should be safe from the weight of tragedy must be protected.

I push the door shut, and hear the lock clicking into place. Only I know the combination. “All set,” I say and step back. A ray of sun catches my eye and I turn to face it, throwing a palm above my eye so I’m able to see the hills in the distance. The sun has always baffled me with how strong it is—a visible God to replace the one you’ll never get a chance to meet.

Luke moves to the bed and scoops the safe into his arms. He grunts but manages to force a smile as he carries it from the room.

I turn back to the window, this time seeing the sun for what it is with no palm held to shade me from the blistering truth—dangerous.

The floor creaks and I spin on foot to see Luke re-entering the room and plunking down on the bed.

“That was quick,” I say. “You can’t hide it in the house.”

“I didn’t. It’s waiting in my room to be hidden when I figure out where I’m going to put the damn thing.”

“Do you ever think he’s coming back?”

“Noah?” His palms reach out, caressing the tangled sheets. “Give him time.”

It’s fucking cold. I pull the covers tighter, folding them against the curves of my body like a glove. I’m rolled up like a mummy, but with half the satisfaction of being mummified. When I open my eyes, I’m met with the reality that Noah has abandoned me in the middle of the night.

I sit up in bed, seeing the bare-bones décor of his room for the first time under the light of the glowing sun. But unlike that morning five years ago, the sun is now cold—and powerless.

The wind whistles underneath the door, sweeping a curling freeze into the room.

“Noah?” I call out and swing my legs off the bed. My feet land against the ice-cold floor, sending a shiver through my entire body. “Noah?”

I get dressed in a hurry, throwing one of Noah’s sweaters on and pulling a pair of his sweatpants over my jeans. I push the bedroom door open and am met with a winter wonderland straight out of a children’s book.

But even as a child, I hated snow.

And I hate it now. Through the broken window pane, snow, carried by the wind has been dusted across the floor. With the power still out, the only heat in the entire loft comes from my body. But it’s draining fast.

I take a look around the room, noticing the way nature has destroyed the safe haven of his apartment. And then I see a door—one I hadn’t seen before. It’s right beside Noah’s bedroom, and so it must be another bedroom.

I grab the knob and push it open.

The bed is made.

The room is tidy.

It’s a picturesque scene where the only thing out of place is a broken picture resting on the nightstand. A picture of Luke, Noah, and me smiling before our souls were stolen from us.

And a football trophy that stands tall right beside the photo.

This is Luke’s room, and he was living with Noah. I draw a palm to my face, running it along my jaw as my mind races through a thousand different scenarios. I drop to the floor and scan underneath the bed with my eyes, finding nothing but sprinkles of dust.

No safe in sight. I stand back up.

The front door opens and slams shut, stealing my attention as I spin on my foot and exit the room. “He lived here?” I ask a surprised Noah, who cradles a log of rolled plastic in his arms.

“Luke?” He leans the plastic against the wall and stuffs his hands into his jeans. “He was evicted from his apartment and had nowhere else to go. It wasn’t easy for him.”

“How long?”

He shrugs. “Does it matter?” I begin to speak, but he cuts me off. “It doesn’t.” He pulls his hands free from his pockets and grabs the plastic, lifting it into his arms and carrying it to the window. It’s not too heavy, but it’s long and awkward to carry, so I give him a hand.

I grab my end of the plastic log and lift it into the air, right above the broken glass of the window. My feet press into the snow and I pray this doesn’t take long.

“Hold it there,” he says and places a roll of tape into his mouth. “Now, slowly unroll it until it hits the bottom.”

“Why don’t we just cut the plastic first, and then tape it across the window?”

His tongue rolls across his lip contemplatively. “Yeah…” he mumbles, defeated.

I let out a light laugh. “You were always so damn complicated.”

“Nothing I don’t already know,” he says and swings the log to the floor.

A patch of red catches my eye and I almost drop the plastic. “What is that?” I question Noah, referencing the blood-like stains on the stretch of his hand.

He shakes his palm and smirks then removes the tape from his mouth. “This? I cut my hand loading this stuff into the back of the truck.”

Thinking back to last night when he drove me home in his car, I’m forced to question that statement. “You don’t have a truck…”

He forces a smile, but the grief is apparent. “Luke did.”

“Will it always be like this?” I move and take a seat on the arm of the couch. “Will his name always stop us dead in our tracks no matter what we’re doing? Will it always hurt?”

“Hey, hey, hey,” he whispers and steps to me and then on bended knee so that his face hovers next to mine. Softly, he lifts my chin with his fingers. “You can’t let his death define you.”

As he wipes away a solitary tear I hadn’t even realized was rolling down my face, I take note of the hypocrisy in his words. “How can you say that to me when it’s obvious that you’ve done the exact opposite?”

He bites into his lip then presses his tongue against his cheek. “Because you still have a soul worth saving.”

BAM! Like running into a sea of bricks—that’s how it hits me. There was darkness over him, the same darkness that I had referred to last night. The same darkness he said didn’t exist. The same darkness his actions proved otherwise. It’s there, always there, and he denies it because the harsh reality of the truth can be devastating.

“So… you want to help me fix this window?” he asks, pretending he hadn’t just said what he did.

I rub my palms against my sweatpants and hop to my feet. “Yeah,” I say through a forced smile.

We’re both pretending now.

W
e sit on the couch
, admiring our work—a collage of wrinkled plastic stretched across a broken window. Leonardo da Vinci would be jealous. The power kicked back on, but the furnace went into heart failure. Two electric heaters that Noah had purchased are running on the highest setting, providing just enough heat so that my body was no longer shivering.

There was measurable space between us, enough room that if I stretched out my arm, I wouldn’t touch him. Nervously, I dig my fingers into each other. “It’s quiet.”

“I could turn on some music,” Noah suggests.

I turn to him with a smirk and a raised brow. “Are you suggesting we listen to gospel music?”

“I’d rather be dead.” He leaps to his feet and crosses to the bar, his feet padding against the now-dry wood floors. “How about a drink?”

“It’s not even noon.” I point my finger to a clock.

He shrugs. “What else are we going to do on a snowy Monday?”

“Point taken.” I nod and throw my arm over the edge of the couch.

Noah throws ice into two rum glasses then turns to me modeling an expensive-looking bottle of whiskey in his palm. “I’ve been saving this one—promise you won’t waste it in a tearful fury?” He laughs. I don’t. “Not funny?”

“Not funny,” I mumble.

He turns back to the bar and pours the drinks. I catch my fingers drumming against the side of the couch, playing a familiar beat that haunts me. Luke was more than a first-rate charmer; he was talented at everything he attempted. As well as being a football star, he owned the piano like nobody I had ever heard.

And my fingers remember his greatest creation more than my mind. I drum faster, trying to remember the words.

“What… are… you doing?” Noah turns around with a glass of alcohol in each hand.

“Trying to remember.”

“Don’t,” he says softly and hands me a drink. “I can’t bear to hear that song right now.”

I look up to him, taking stock of the sorrow written all over his face. “Do you remember the words?”

“How could I forget?”

“I have.”

“That’s probably a consequence of running off for three years and starting a new life,” he says deadpan.

My body freezes, but he’s right. I wanted to forget everything, and all the good memories were collaterally destroyed in the fire.

He pinches the bridge of his nose and closes his eyes. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”

“You’re too honest for your own good.” I raise the glass to my lips and take a long gulp, relishing in the bitter burn against my throat. “But you’re right.” I finish off the glass, chugging the whiskey until the last drop trickles against my throat.

“What was that about not drinking before noon?’ he quips.

I shrug. “I have an addictive personality. It’s a flaw.”

M
y eyes are heavy
, opening to see a clouded blur of the frosted—and plastic—windows of Noah’s loft. He stands in front of the makeshift window with his back turned to me, his hands stuffed into the pockets of his jeans. He wears plaid well, almost as well as Luke used to.

“How long was I out?” I ask and push myself up against the back of the couch, tossing a blanket off me in the process.

“The real question is how long were you gone?”

I scratch my head. “Do you mean how long was I asleep?”

“No,” he says and turns around. “How long were you gone?”

My throat sinks into my stomach. “Noah said you were dead.”

Luke smiles and rubs the back of his head, but his smile soon fades into something else—a haunted look. “His head’s not right, Faith.”

“Yeah, he seems a little off.”

He twists on his foot and falls back into the cushions of the couch, savoring the way the cotton rubs against his skin. “It’s so easy to forget about all these material things, like this couch and how comfortable it is.” He rests his eyes with the apparent goal of drifting off into slumber land.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t here for you.”

A smile rips across his face, but his eyes remain closed. “Don’t be. You had to travel your own path.”

“You don’t need to make excuses for me.”

“No.” His eyes blink open and he pivots where he sits, placing a palm gently against my thigh. “I get it. But here’s something else to consider.” He grabs a pillow from behind him and places it in his lap. “Nobody could ever accuse us of making the right decisions all the time, but your instincts have always been on point… trust them.”

“What are you saying?”

He bites his lip, and his eyes trail to the floor—away from me.

“Luke…”

He turns back to me, his face paler than before. “Noah isn’t the same man you remember. He’s tainted.”

My head sways back and forth, trying to process what he’s saying. It’s cryptic, but from within the deepest parts of me, I know he’s speaking the truth. “How—why are you here?” I ask.

“Do you think you’re dreaming?”

I sigh and comb my fingers through my hair. “I don’t know what I believe anymore.”

He points a finger squarely at me. “Remember you just said that.” He smirks. “The next time you see Noah—probably at the church—he’ll say the same thing. That he doesn’t know what he believes.”

“Well, if that happens, I’ll be forced to believe in ghosts.”

“Oh,” he says, “it’ll happen. It’s what you do after that—that’s what’s going to count.”

“What does that even mean?”

“It means,” he sighs, “that you aren’t in on the biggest joke in the universe.”

“Care to enlighten me?”

“Your name is Faith, right?”

“Yeah…”

“It’s ironic, isn’t it?” He rises to his feet and stares out the window and into the horizon. But the city view has been replaced with the rolling hills that are planted adjacent to the farmhouse. “They call you Faith, but you’re the most faithless girl in all the world.” A sudden blast of blinding sunlight curls around his body and he turns back to me. I can barely make out the features of his face. “And I’m not talking about believing in God or bunnies that pass out candy. I’m talking about something else entirely… something that really counts.”

“Something else?”

“That’s for you to figure out.”

And then he’s gone... along with the sun. The darkness begins to settle back in.

I
wake
up in a cold sweat, throwing the blankets off me and launching to my feet. “Luke?” I ask weakly, hoping reality shatters and he comes back. “Luke?” I call out louder, but the only response is my own voice echoing off the brick walls.

I’m shaken. I’m alone. And Noah appears to be long gone. I’m left with a lingering regret—why didn’t I ask him where he hid that damn safe?