Ten Thousand Words (55 page)

“What…what are
you
doing here?” I asked.

“It’s okay,” she gushed. “You’re going to be okay—”

“This is
your
fault!” I said, angry and…
scared
. “
You
did this!” I tried to sit up, but my insides felt as though they’d caught fire.

What did she do? There’s something very wrong here. I
know
she did something to hurt Xanthe!

Panic seized me.
I have to find my love!

“No, don’t move,” said Gabriella’s head with Xanthe’s voice.

The bright light started to dim, but my memory returned. I glared at Gabriella. She had tried to take Xanthe away from me. Her selfishness, her petty ego, had sent a lunatic after Xanthe.

How the hell did she get here, in our home? In
our
bed?

“I hate you!” I told her.

Shadows shifted around us. Gabriella reached out to me.

“Don’t fucking touch me!” I screamed, feeling the fiery pull on my vitals. “Don’t you ever come near me again! It’s all your fucking fault, you stupid, arrogant bitch!”

She gasped in pain, and it pulled on me, too, scorching tugs on my heartstrings. It wasn’t right, hearing my love’s voice coming from that face. It was some ploy to persuade me to choose Gabriella over Xanthe; I knew it.

Darkness sucked me in, cold and lifeless. I felt no pain the further I descended, so I let it happen. I wanted out of this vile creature’s presence. Even my anger at having her fouling up our bedroom, our space, was retreating as I sank deeper into oblivion.

Xanthe

My world crashed and burned around me as the nurses rushed in.

“It’s all your fucking fault, you stupid, arrogant bitch!”

I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t move. I could only stare in horror as Oliver fell back onto the pillow, held down by one nurse while the other delivered a sedative. Ricki’s arms were around me, pulling me back, giving them room to do what they needed to keep Oliver calm down.

“He wasn’t awake, Xanthe. He didn’t mean it. You know that.”

“It
was
my fault,” I whispered, horrified. “Ricki, he never left my side until yesterday. I promised him, Jaime was coming, that I wouldn’t be alone…”

Ricki’s arms hugged me tight. “If it’s anyone’s fault, it’s mine.”

Once Oliver settled, one of the nurses came up to us. “She’s going to have to leave, Ricki. If he’s going to have a quick recovery, it’s for the best.”

“Sure thing,” said Ricki.

“No!” I protested. “Please—”

“It’s okay, Xanthe. I’ll be with him until he’s discharged. I’ll have Rex come get you, and I’ll call you with updates when I can.”

“But—”

It was no use. Ricki all but dragged me from the room. Walking me to the lobby, Ricki took my badge from around my neck and handed it to the receptionist behind the desk. We waited there, sitting in silence, until Ricki’s phone chimed about twenty minutes later. Standing, he escorted me outside where Rex was waiting in the Mini Cooper.

“Xanthe?” said Ricki as I opened the passenger door.

“Yeah?” I asked harshly.

“There is
nothing
Oliver loves more than you. When he wakes up, I’ll tell him what happened. I promise, he had no clue what the fuck was going on. The drugs they use here are bloody strong.”

I nodded before getting into the car. Ricki shut the door for me, and I strapped on the seat belt.

“You okay?” asked Rex.

“No,” I replied.

Saying nothing more, he pulled out, and we were on our way.

A few minutes later, he asked, “Do you want to stay with me and Trey? Or I could take you to Aunt Ellen’s? She’s really worried.”

“I just want to go home,” I said. The problem was, I wasn’t sure where that was.

“Ronen went back to Ollie’s and locked up. Ricki said that he didn’t do that when they left yesterday. He’s got the key…
shit
.”

“What?”

“He’s sort of not in the country at the moment. He’ll be back tomorrow night.”

I wasn’t going to ask why Ronen wasn’t here. “Is it safe for me to be alone?”

“It is.”

“Just take me back to the house then.”

“I’ll call Jaime—”

“I want to be alone,” I told him flatly.

“Okay.”

Half an hour later, Rex pulled up in front of our old house. I didn’t have my key. He walked with me to the door and unlocked it.

“I can stay, Xanthe. I’ll grab some clothes and come back.”

“No. Just…leave me alone.”

The hurt in his eyes didn’t even touch me.

Emotionally and physically drained, all I wanted was to crawl into the dark cave of my mind and simply lose myself. Donovan and Lindsey were there. Maybe they could help me escape in the wonders of their world.

“I’ll let Ellen know you’re okay.”

“Yeah,” I replied.

Closing the door and locking it behind me, the first thing I noticed was the harsh chemical smell coming from the kitchen. Refusing to look in that direction, I walked past toward the stairs. On the floor sat the box of notebooks and loose pens and pencils that I had tossed in my anger. Defeated, I made my way up to the shell of my room, a place I used to belong to and one I couldn’t find the heart to love anymore. But I couldn’t go to where I belonged because I wasn’t sure I was welcome there.

It was purgatory.

Crawling beneath the covers, I hugged the pillow that Oliver used. I smelled his shampoo and beard oil. Closing my eyes, I could almost imagine he was here with me. I felt safe and loved, and I drifted into a sleep that took me away from everything and everyone.

Ollie

When I opened my eyes, I was somewhere I didn’t recognize. Cold all over, numbed, and somewhat crusty, I was stiff from not moving. My guts felt crunchy and brittle. Pushing myself up, I gasped as pain shot through my left side.

I was hooked up to machines, and there was an oxygen hose resting in my nostrils. Glancing down, I saw an IV drip in my right inner elbow.

“What the fuck?” my voice croaked.

Off to my right, Ricki shot up. Surprised, my jaw dropped. He had been sleeping on a foldout bed.

“Hey, man,” he said, rubbing his eyes. “You awake?”

I could tell he wasn’t, not really. “Where the hell am I?”

“Don’t worry about that. Do you remember what happened?”

“I…”
What did happen?
“I remember…that motherfucker—George. And…Gabriella? She had something to do with it?”

Ricki nodded. “Yeah. After she was fired from FairFawkes, she started stalking you and Xanthe. She found out about George and hunted him down. I guess she was under the impression that he would kill Xanthe.”

My heart rate spiked, setting off a monitor. It was attached to the foam clamp on my finger, and I yanked it off to shut it up.

“George kept some pretty descriptive journal entries. I had Jones raid his room at the hostel. He was
obsessed
with Elaine, wrote to her multiple times a day. He…he was really sick, even with the meds he was taking. They made him lucid enough to be able to pretend to be sane in front of his doctors and authorities.”

A chill shivered down my spine. “He had a knife in his hand. He was going after her,” I said, the memories flooding back now. “I jumped him.”

“You were fucking
annihilating
him,” said Ricki, a note of pride in his voice.

I looked up to see him smiling.

“He was about to go down, too. That was fucking awesome, man. Where’d you learn how to fight?”

Blood rushed up my neck and cheeks. “Oh. I practice capoeira.”

“No shit,” he said, still smiling. “Xanthe never told me that.”

“I’m not sure she knows. I practice when I have downtime at work. We, uh…have a gym in the studio.”

“Why didn’t you tell her?”

I shrugged, wincing as I felt the pull deep in my belly. “It’s just something I do to keep in shape. It’s not a big thing. We learned when we were kids. It’s like people who do yoga.”

“Yeah. So, George was going after her with a knife, and you got bloody stuck with it. Man, one more knock to his head, and he would’ve been out, but he twisted around and poked you in your gut. You passed out.”

My eyebrows rose in surprise. “Really?”

“Like a little twat.”

“Shut your face. I did not.”

“You did. I don’t blame you. It fucking sucks, getting a knife of any size in your belly.”

“When did this happen? How long have I been here?”

“A few days. You’ve been kept sedated to make sure you heal fast. Your lower intestine had a few slices, but the surgeon got you patched up just fine. I think you have to be on liquids for a little while. I’m not sure. They’re going to sedate you again when we leave. It’s for the best that you don’t know where this place is. The Locals know that you know about the organization, and they’re kind of pissed. But seeing as Xanthe’s never broken protocol before, they’ve decided to just keep tabs on you.”

“We’re not in a hospital?”

“No. We couldn’t risk the press getting wind of this. No one knows. Trey has fixed it with your work, saying you have a stomach bug or some such shit.”

Something still wasn’t right. “So, George is dead?”

“He is.”

“And Gabriella?” I asked. As much as I hated that woman, I didn’t think I wanted her dead.

“Ah…”

After they had taken care of George, Ronen and Rex had taken his head—for which I was appalled yet extremely happy about at the same time—and gone in search for Gabriella. Ricki’s boy, Jones, had found her and tailed her. She had been in an upscale bar, celebrating what she thought was the imminent demise of Xanthe.

Jones had reported that, as the hours had passed, Gabriella had grown increasingly impatient and ended up leaving the bar and heading for home where Rex and Ronen were already waiting.

With George’s head plopped dead center on her kitchen counter.

“Is decapitating people what you guys do for this organization?”

Ricki looked uncomfortable, but hell, I was having a conversation with a man who had murdered someone not too long ago—and had bloody gotten away with it, too.

“If it’s in the job description,” he muttered. “But that’s beside the point…”

He continued with the rest of the story. When Gabriella had seen the head, she’d fainted. She’d woken up tied to a chair and gagged. Terrified, she’d pissed herself. Rex and Ronen did a fantastic job of mentally torturing her. She’d had no idea whom she was dealing with. They had kept ski masks on the entire time.

In the end, they’d told her that, unless she wanted to end up the same way George had, she would have to leave Holland and never return. She was to board a plane within five hours, her one-way ticket to Brazil already purchased. They assured her that one of them would be flying with her, and if she tried to skip out, the other one would be waiting to kill her and dump her body where it’d never be found.

Gabriella had left. Ronen had gone with her to make sure she did as she had been told even though she never knew who on the flight had held her hostage. Just another mental piece of fuckery for her to contend with. Ronen had returned the night before last.

With that out of the way, I had to ask, “Where’s Xanthe?”

“Ah…yeah.”

My heart spasmed. “What? Is she okay? Did he—”

“She’s fine, man. She was here with you the first night. But you started to come to, and…”

There was no way in hell I would have ever blamed my love for what had happened. I didn’t remember whom I had blamed or what the entire situation had entailed, but I needed my woman now. She was hurting, and it was on me.

“She hasn’t left her room since Rex dropped her off a few days ago. Jaime’s been sleeping over there.”

“Please,” I begged, my heart breaking, “let me talk to her.”

“Her phone’s dead. She hasn’t spoken to anyone.”

“We have to go,” I said, pushing myself up. I gritted my teeth against the pain as sweat popped out all over my body, and I quickly became winded.

“Just relax, man. She’s depressed, is all, and she’s been spending most of her time sleeping. Jaime would let me know if she were in any danger.”

“Can we leave then?”

“I’ll ask the doctor,” he replied.

“How long have I been here?”