The Edge of Heaven (20 page)

Emma finally screamed.

Too late to do any good, but finally, she screamed.

Mark stood over her, shovel in hand and the ugliest look she'd ever seen on his face. Rye was out cold, sprawled on top of her.

At least, she hoped he was only unconscious.

She put her hands against his head, searching for the bruise, and they came away with blood on them.

"Oh, my God," she said. "Rye."

Had Mark killed him? Had Emma gotten him killed with her own stupidity?

"Get up," Mark growled.

Emma whimpered. She'd been reduced to a shaking, whimpering mess.

"I said, get up!"

"I can't," she tried.

"Sure you can." He took Rye by one arm, dragged him off her, and dumped him on the floor. Rye didn't make a sound. He felt like dead weight.

Please, God
, she prayed,
don't let him be dead.

"For the last time. Get up."

Mark hauled her to her feet, nearly pulling her arm out of its socket, then kept a brutal, biting hold on her arm, the one he'd bruised four days ago.

Had it only been four days? Had her life sunk into sheer chaos in just four days?

Mark finally let her go. He backed up one step, then two, the shovel still held in his right hand. He swung it aimlessly back and forth like a kid might swing a bat to warm up before a big hit, as if he couldn't quite decide what to smash next. He looked dazed and a little bit crazy, so different from the person she'd thought she'd known.

"Dammit, it didn't have to be like this," he said finally.

"What?"

"This," he said, gesturing between them and vaguely toward Rye.

He hadn't moved. Emma tried not to think about that, because she had to concentrate on handling Mark. Her wits were all she had to help them both.

"What do you mean?" she asked, trying to calm down, to calm her voice.
Let him talk,
she thought.
Find out what he plans to do.

"Things just get so messed up sometimes." He was pacing back and forth now, his movements faster and jerkier, increasingly agitated. "That idiot chemistry professor of mine..."

He wanted to talk about a class? Standing here swinging a fireplace shovel in her face after breaking into her house?

Okay. Talk. "What did he do?" Emma asked, her eyes following him warily.

"He flunked me. I'm premed. I can't flunk organic chem."

She'd had no idea he was flunking chemistry. She didn't care in the least, but she could pretend. "I thought you were doing fine."

"I was, and then... Oh, hell, I don't know what happened. I got a little behind, that's all. Everything would have been fine, except for that one test. No way I did as bad as he said."

"Well, he must have made a mistake," Emma said, turning with him slowly as he circled her. "That's all. We'll talk to him. We'll straighten it out."

"You have no idea how hard it is to get into a good med school, and it's got to be the best for me," he said, still pacing. "It's always been that way. The best. All along. I can't flunk chemistry."

"Of course not."

"My dad... You didn't get to meet my dad." He glared at her.

"I know. I'm sorry."

"They're still there. They're waiting for you. I told them something came up, some family thing, and that you'd be back, because you really wanted to meet them. They're counting on meeting you. I was counting on that."

"I was, too," Emma lied.

"They would have liked you." He kept going, round and round. She did, too, not wanting her back to him. "I could have straightened out that idiot professor, and I just dropped the other class. I was doing fine, but I dropped it. Things just got so hectic. But I can hold them together. I always have. People just don't listen to me sometimes, that's all. If they'd all just listen to me, everything would be fine."

"I know," Emma said. She knew his father could be a real jerk, and he set the bar high. This was the first she'd heard about any problems at school.

"You should have listened." He pointed the shovel like a scolding finger.

"You're right. I should have. I don't know what came over me. I was just nervous about meeting your parents, I guess. I wanted everything to be perfect."

"I told them all about you, about how well everything was going. When you weren't there, they had all kinds of questions for me. About everything."

So, it was all her fault, was it?

"Well, then... If they're still in Chicago, let's go," Emma said. "I'll tell them it was all my fault. Family emergency. We'll fix everything."

Mark stopped and looked down at Rye. God, he still hadn't moved.

"I saw you rolling around on the floor with him when I came in," Mark said. "You're not supposed to do that, Emma."

"I know," she said, thinking she had to get him out of here. Rye was unconscious. He didn't have a prayer of defending himself. She just had to get Mark away from him, and then she'd think about herself.

"You're mine," Mark said.

"I am. I know that now." He swung the shovel in front of Emma. She felt the whish of air as it passed and imagined what it would feel like if it hit her. "I'm sorry, Mark. I'm so sorry. I won't ever do anything like that again."

"No," he said. "You won't."

She was thinking he meant she wouldn't be around to do anything like that again, that maybe he was going to kill her and be done with it.

Emma had never really thought about dying before. She'd always thought about surviving. When her father hit her mother, that one time when he had hit her. When her mother died. Emma went right on. She had no idea what to do now.

"Please, Mark, let's just go. Now. I want to see your parents. I want to tell them all about us and all that we have planned."

"You'd be a good doctor's wife," he said, coming a step closer. "You'd be perfect. They want things to be just perfect for me, and I don't know what happened. That idiot in chemistry..."

"We'll straighten it out. All of it. But we have to go to Chicago."

"We could," he said. "If you were there, we could make it work."

"Of course." So she was part of the image he thought he had to maintain, the best grades, the best school, and a perfect little moldable woman as wife material. "Let's just go."

Mark had a sick look on his face as he looked down at Rye. "He hasn't moved. Do you think... He's not dead, is he? Because, if he is... How would we fix that?"

"He's not." Emma refused to believe he could be.

"We can't just leave him here."

"We can. I want to. I knew it was a mistake to go, the minute I left you."

"You did?" Mark looked hopeful at that.

"Yes."

"But you wouldn't come back," he said, swinging that shovel once again and advancing one step toward her. "I begged you, Emma. I begged you to come back."

"And I should have." If she'd gone, this wouldn't have happened.

"You're going to have to learn to listen to me," Mark said, closer still. "I can take care of you, but you have to listen."

"I will," she said, tears pouring down her cheeks.

"I don't know if I believe you, Emma," he said, a breath away. "'You let him touch you. I can't just let something like that go. You can't let anyone else ever touch you like that again."

"I won't," she said, wanting to back up, but there was nowhere else to go. She tried to look contrite and not so afraid. He was sweating and breathing hard, his face bloodred, close enough to hurt her now.

"You have to learn, Emma."

He drew back his hand and smacked her across the face. The blow propelled her backward. She fell and fell and fell. It seemed to go on forever. And then her head smashed into something and everything went black.

When she came to, she was whimpering. What a pathetic sound. She couldn't believe it was coming out of her. She lay there, frozen, and he was standing over her, the shovel still in his hand.

Hide,
she thought, as she had when she was little.
Just hide, Emma. Make yourself invisible.
How had she done it back then?

He grabbed her and jerked her to her feet. She shrank back from his touch, still thinking that if she could somehow just make herself as small as possible it would be okay.

"Look at that." He pointed to her face. "You made me do that. Do you understand. You made me. And your face... Jesus, Emma, what are you doing? I can't take you to Chicago looking like that. How am I going to explain that?"

He blamed her for it? Her head felt like it was about to fall off it hurt so bad. What was he going to do now?

"No," Mark said. "There's no way now. We can't hide that."

She watched, seemingly in slow motion, as his hand drew back and then started swinging forward, toward her.

He was going to hit her again, and she hated him. Absolutely hated him.

And she had to stop him.

She dropped to the floor, thinking that was the fastest way out of the path of that fist, and still she braced herself for the blow.

But it never came.

Mark fell instead, his legs coming out from under him.

They both went down together.

Emma didn't understand at first. They both landed on the floor side by side. She stared at him, waiting for him to come after her, and then she looked up and saw Rye standing over them.

It happened so fast from that point, a blur of fists and harsh, angry voices. The sound of fists hitting flesh, bodies hitting the furniture and the floor.

Emma just scrambled to stay out of the way, and was too dazed at first to think about anything other than the fact that she wasn't going to die today and that Rye hadn't either. She made it behind the side of the couch, shaking and rocking back and forth, and when she found the courage to peek around the arm of the sofa, she saw Mark lying on the floor, Rye on top of him, fists flying.

Mark wasn't doing anything to even try to defend himself now, just rolling with the blows.

Emma wondered if she'd looked like that, when she'd been too scared to even move. Finally, she realized what was happening had gone long past stopping Mark from hurting anyone.

"Rye," she said, her voice hoarse and tight.

He didn't even look up.

"You bastard," Rye said to him. "Want to pick on women? Want to hurt them? How does it feel?"

"Rye?" She didn't think Mark could have made a sound now. His head was rolling back and forth. And still Rye didn't let up.

"Hey. It's over." Emma walked toward them both, got too close in fact.

She came up on Rye's blind side, and the next thing she knew, he grabbed her hard, something absolutely wild and fierce in his eyes.

"Rye," she whispered. "It's me."

"Emma?" His grip tightened on her for a minute.

She winced. "Rye, my arms. Let go. You're hurting me."

There was a sick look on his face, as he stared at her as if he just then realized who she was. He stared at his hands, still on her arms, then down to the floor to Mark. His face was a mess. Emma knew what a man's fists could do. She'd seen her mother's face when it was a mess, but this... His lips were swollen and bleeding, his eyes red and swelling, too, his nose bleeding, his jaw lying at an awkward angle, and he was moaning and making a choking sound.

"Are you okay?" Rye asked.

"Yes. Are you?"

He nodded.

"Your head... You're bleeding. We have to call someone. We have to call for help."

Rye's arms finally dropped to his side, and he sat down hard on the arm of the sofa, his eyes closing. "Did I kill him?"

"I don't think so," she said, still afraid to get any closer to Mark.

"I'm sorry, Emma," Rye said in a voice devoid of all emotion. "I'm so sorry."

"So am I." Sorry she'd gotten him into this and sorry for the way Mark looked right now, sorry for everything she feared would happen next.

She called the sheriff, talked to him herself and told him what had happened, and he said he'd radio for an ambulance. Then she sat down on the sofa, her on one end, Rye on the other.

They didn't say anything.

Mark was scaring her now with the sounds he was making, the rough, rumbling, wheezing sounds like all of his insides were broken and scrambled.

She couldn't make herself go to him. She was afraid of everything.

It seemed to take forever for help to come. She seemed to live a lifetime in those few minutes. It reminded her of when she was a child and her father beat her mother. It had been hard to know for sure when it was over, when it was safe. She'd sit huddled in a corner, and after a while, the blows would cease. Her mother might be moaning or crying, but she'd try to be quiet. Emma would, too. Her father would keep swearing and yelling. It wasn't really over until he got quiet, too. Until he passed out.