Love the Way You Lie (Stripped 1)

The shock reverberates up my arm. Kip falls like a tree, shaking the ground, falling against the door frame, body rocked by the powerful electric shock. It’s Kip who’s hurt, Kip who I leave on the floor.

I barely have time to whisper I’m sorry before I’m gone.

Chapter Fifteen

I practically run back toward the motel room, out of breath.

Even at full speed, hurdle jumping turned trash cans and puddles of dark liquid, I can’t forget the way he looked, his big body hurting, incapacitated, at my hands. Why do you care what happens to him? Kip said that to me once. But I do care. Guilt is something I’m used to by now, but it doesn’t get any easier.

I glance back, but the streets behind me are empty. No Kip. And no one else.

I run toward Clara, trying to make it back before she leaves.

Maybe she is better off running anyway. I can’t get the thought out of my head. Like pushing a baby bird out of the nest because she needs to fly. But I can’t do it. I can’t let her go. Maybe that’s my weakness. Maybe that’s her downfall.

Or maybe I’ve learned lessons from my father too well.

That’s what we do to the women we love, isn’t it? We tuck them in a room, give them food and books, tell them to be happy. Sometimes it works. But other times the woman fucks a guard. Other times the woman doesn’t like her fiancé’s fists. Other times they run. Then what will you do?

I did the same thing to Clara as my father did to me. I locked her in a tower.

I take a long roundabout way back to the motel. If I see anyone, anything suspicious, I won’t go back. I’d let myself be taken first. But the streets are empty. Barren.

Finally I let myself slip into the Tropicana from the back. The bricks are lit by Christmas lights, the palm trees dark and sinister. I pause in the little walkway between our building and the next. Something is different.

The Madonna. It’s not in the window anymore. It’s gone—and so is Clara.

Everything in me slows. My heart. My head. I even blink slower, eyelids dropping, blotting out the sight of that empty window. I’m swaying where I stand, off balance, and I don’t care. That was our signal. If she was ever to run, she would take the Madonna with her. Then the wall is behind me, cool brick holding me up. I lean my head back and let the guilt and shame and sorrow wash over me.

There’s gladness too. Relief that s

he’s gone, away from me. She’ll be safer without me.

Maybe I have always known she would be.

I hadn’t been able to let Clara go, though. I loved her too much, needed her more than she knew. Or maybe she did know, because she fought me about leaving. Every time she’d tell me no. But it looked like she listened to me anyway.

Dawn broke over the tallest buildings, rays fracturing around broken spires, bathing every crack in orange and pink. And she left, just like I told her to.

Kip can’t get to her. He’ll never find her.

And neither will I.

Something moves in the room. A brush against the drapes. They sway, just slightly. I wipe my tears so I can see more clearly. Is she still there? Have I caught her before she’s left?

I take a step toward the room. Another.

“Clara?” I whisper.

The landlord wouldn’t have started clearing out our room already. Clara wouldn’t have stopped to tell him she was leaving. And anyway we’re paid through the week. Cash, of course.

Then the door opens. A man stands in the doorway. I would recognize him anywhere. Hadn’t he stood in the doorway to my room enough times, blocking me, frowning?

Daddy. This time I don’t whisper. My lips move, but I don’t make a sound.

He looks up anyway, right at me, where I stand in the shadows. He sees me. His body shifts, moves toward me. He is old now, with knees that ache, and back problems, but he was a warrior once. A killer.

He still is.