Fatal Attraction (Dark Desires 4)

Finally, I can see her. Well, sort of. My vision is blurry, I can’t really see more than a shape, but I know that it’s her. That’s her smell, her presence, her aura. All I want to do is reach out and touch her, I need her to hug me, but it’s like I’m pinned to something. I can’t move, however much I want to. It’s a nightmare.

“Oh, Cici, darling. You’re in the hospital. I don’t know if you’re aware of that already, but you are…”

The word hospital evokes a lot of terrible feelings inside of me. People don’t go there when all is good. Is it me hurt? Or someone else? God, I hope so badly that it isn’t someone else. I would take any bullet for them.

“Shall I get a doctor? Do you need someone to check over you? Oh no, what can I do?”

“W… water,” I pant out. I don’t want to see any medical professional until I know where I stand. “Drink.”

Mom presses a glass to my lips and I suck back the ice cool water like I’m in the middle of the desert and I’m desperate. I suppose in a way that might be the case. The coolness brings my organs back to life, reviving me from the brink of death… or at least enough for me to feel a lot more aware anyway. I want a conversation.

“Mom,” I rasp out while looking up at her. “What happened? Where’s Jordan?”

“Oh, your baby boy is fine, don’t you worry about that. He’s with your Auntie Mary and Michelle. They’re in the dining hall right now getting something to eat. That boy is hungry and he’s growing well.” Her eyes hang low and she grabs onto my hands. “I know that you’ve been feeding him yourself, but you’ve been out for four days and we had to make a decision.” I shake my head, letting her know that’s okay. “We had to look after him.”

So, Jordan is okay, Michelle is alright, but what about Will? I suppose Mom might not know about him, or she didn’t before, but she must do now. She at hasn’t mentioned him and that scares me.

“You… you had a bad time, didn’t you?” Mom muses as she continues. “I can’t believe I didn’t know what was going on. I did think it was strange that you didn’t want to talk about Jordan’s father… but I didn’t know why. Now, I’ve heard the whole story and I know that you had to do it to keep Jordan safe. Us too. I guess I’m just upset that you went through all of this alone. It can’t have been easy for you.”

I make a little noise, trying to let her know that I’ve survived it. It’s okay. I don’t really want to think about this anymore, I just want to move past it. I can’t do that until I know about Will.

“And Will… well.” Mom shakes her head which makes me feel sick to my stomach. “He’s a lovely guy, isn’t he? A little gruff to begin with, but he’s good. He’s been wonderful with us all in the hospital anyway.”

Is. That’s present tense which is wonderful news. “Where is he?” I ask as forcefully as I can manage.

“He’s at the police station at the moment. I think he’s got a lot of paperwork to get through, what with everything that’s happened. I gather it’s one of the biggest cases that they’ve ever had and there’s a lot to get through. But he did tell me that he’ll be back here soon enough. I know he wants to see you.”

I feel like I should be able to relax now, I don’t know the full details of anything but it’s all very good news. Knowing that everyone I care about is okay should make all of this much easier to digest, but it doesn’t. There’s still a tight knot, my stomach feels all weird, everything is flip flopping inside of me. I don’t know why.

Oh… Landon… all of a sudden, another memory comes back. Him telling me that Annabelle ordered for me to be killed. Not just me but my child as well. After everything that we’ve been through, she doesn’t care for me at all. She wanted me dead and buried so she could continue on with her drug empire.

“Annabelle?” I ask, bracing myself while I wait for the answer. “Landon?”

“Well.” Mom shifts uncomfortably on her chair. Now that my vision has returned, I can even see the tight expression on her face. I don’t think this is something she wants to discuss at all, but I need to know. I can’t even think about myself and my health until I have found out as much as I can. “As you may or may not remember, Landon was killed in the… scuffle.” I almost laugh, aside from the fact that it isn’t really funny. Only my mom could refer to something with a lot of cops and guns as a scuffl

e. “Landon was killed, I gather he threatened you and Will directly and he tried to carry out that threat, so Will had to take him down.”

“Oh wow…” That isn’t good. I mean, it’s better for him to go than Will, but he forced his best friend to shoot him and that’s something I know for sure that Will is going to struggle with. “That’s heavy.”

“Oh yes, I know. None of this is ideal. It’s a terrible mess really.”

“Yeah… I can’t believe that we’re in the middle of it. Who would have thought it?”

“Well, maybe we should have been more vigilant since Annabelle was such a big part of it.”

“Oh.” I feel like shit, even worse than before. Annabelle did want me dead and I hate that. Every positive childhood memory that I have with her, before things got weird, is now tainted. All the playing, all the fun, all the mischief that we used to get into together… it’s all gone now. I helped her marrying the guy who she then ordered to kill me. How fucked up is that? She was important to me. I can’t believe she did that. “I see.”

“Now, she’s denying it. She kicked off like crazy when the police officers arrested her, but they’ve found evidence that she was more than a part of it.” Mom looks sad. “I can’t believe it, can you?”

“I don’t know…” Nothing feels real anymore. “I don’t know what to think.”

“Well, I don’t think she was involved with the drugs side of things, but she definitely knew about it. I think she might have been somewhat involved in the money laundering. She sure as hell spent it.”

“Landon said she wanted me dead.” Mom already isn’t impressed with Annabelle, I feel like she might as well know it all. I don’t know if I’ll tell Auntie Mary that side of things, I’ll have to make a judgement call on that. “Apparently, she asked him to get rid of me and Will. Jordan too. She asked for us to die.”

Mom nods. “I have heard that. I don’t know if you knew that, but yes. Of course, Annabelle is denying that like crazy, but I suppose we’ll never know for sure. It’s a he said she said thing, and he is dead.”

Fuck. That’s messed up. I know I’ll never be sure, but I have a funny feeling that I do know. Annabelle has gone so far over to the dark side that she wanted me dead. Everything that we’ve ever shared is dead now. I don’t ever want to think of her again. She’s in the past. I need to move forwards.