I couldn’t look down at my body as the water in the tub enveloped me. Tears streamed down my cheeks, stinging the small cuts, but I didn’t move to wipe them away. I let them flow, doing nothing to stop the dam from falling. I was a captive of my thoughts, and nothing could free me.
“Lola?” I flinched at Brody’s voice from the other side of the door. “Do you want some help?”
Yes. No. I didn’t know. I couldn’t vocalize my thoughts. My mouth wouldn’t work, so I stayed silent.
“I’m coming in.”
I still didn’t answer him as I heard the
bathroom door open. There was a calmness to Brody’s lake house that had been there the first time he brought me here, and I was glad this was where he’d taken me. He’d told me back then he hadn’t been here in fifteen years, which meant neither had Moira. It was our place. Our own little slice of heaven. But right then, I felt like I was in hell.
His boots appeared at the side of the tub, and then his knees as he crouched down. “Let me help you,” he whispered, his voice a broken stutter. I couldn’t do or say anything. I was too far into my own head, and I wasn’t sure if anything he did could fix it.
My body was limp inside the tub, my arms hanging loosely with my hands plunged into the water. He picked up a sponge, squirted some body wash onto it, and foamed it up. And, all the while, I sat there, staring at nothing and thinking of everything.
What if I had kept my cell in my pocket back at the apartment? I could have called Brody. He’d have come, and Hut would still be breathing. I squeezed my eyes closed, but they sprang open a second later when all I could see was Hut’s body draining of blood and life.
“It’s okay,” Brody said, placing the sponge on my arm and swiping it over my skin. I shivered from the contact and tried my hardest not to flinch away, but I knew he noticed when he paused. “It’ll be okay, I promise.”
I couldn’t tell him I wasn’t sure it would be. I couldn’t tell him I’d always feel different after taking someone’s life. My voice refused to work. My head was screaming at me to latch on to him, to ask him to hold me as tight as he could so I didn’t fall apart, but I couldn’t get the words out.
He lifted each arm in turn, wiping the blood and dirt off my hands and from under my nails. The water started to get murky, but I was fascinated by it. I was enthralled with the way it mixed together like the darkness of the night.
I blinked when the sponge made contact with my stomach and pulled in a sharp breath at the cut there. Each second ticked by slower than the last as I remembered what Hut threatened to do to me.
“Shit,” Brody spat. “I think you need to go to the hospital.”
The cut wasn’t bad, I knew that, but when I looked up at him and saw he was staring at my face too, I wondered what I looked like to him. Did I reflect as broken as I felt?
He swapped the sponge for a soft washcloth, and gently smoothed it over the side of my face Hut’s boot had been pressed against, followed by the other side with all the scratches. “Lola? Do you want me to take you to the hospital?”
All I could managed was a shake of my head, and even though his lips spread into a thin line, I couldn’t bring myself to voice my opinion. I stared down at my hands and let him continue, groaning when he washed my hair and hit the sore spot that had slammed into the gravel. I just wanted this to be over with. I wanted things to go back to how they were before. I wanted my normal life back. I wanted—
“All done,” Brody announced. “Let me help you up.”
My strength had disappeared, so I allowed him to pull me out of the tub and wrap a towel around me. Time was moving at the speed of light and then the slowness of a snail, all blending into one. He dressed me in a T-shirt and some shorts, tucked me into the queen-sized bed, and sat beside me.
He didn’t touch me, and for that, I was grateful. But at the same time, I wanted him to hold me. I closed my eyes, willing the images from the night to disappear, but I wasn’t lucky. My brain was determined to make me relive it over and over again. And when Brody’s soft snores rang throughout the room, I decided I didn’t need sleep.
All I needed was him.
* * *
BRODY
I hadn’t thought twice about where we would go when I took Lola from the offices. My body had worked on automatic, and we’d ended up at the lake house. We’d be safe from everything here, even if I knew time was ticking by.
I hadn’t intended to keep her away forever, just long enough so she could process what had happened and then give her statement, but I hadn’t known what was ahead of us. It had been three days, and Lola still hadn’t said a word to me.
The dark circles under her eyes told me she hadn’t been able to sleep, and when she did nod off, she’d wake up screaming and shaking. I had no idea what to do to make it better. My body screamed at me to touch her, to hold her like it craved to, but I wasn’t so sure it was what she needed.
She needed to process and to start healing.
I let out a long breath and stepped outside, my gaze immediately zoning in on where she was sitting in a chair on the dock. She’d taken to being outside all day and staring at the vast beauty, but I had an inkling she wasn’t seeing anything but the images inside her own head.
The wooden slats creaked as I approached her, and her shoulders tensed. “Hey,” I ventured, my voice echoing around us. The sun hadn’t long come up, and another day was ahead of us, but she had no idea what would happen. The guys had been patient with us, but people were starting to ask questions, which meant we needed to go back and do what I’d rescued her from.
“We have to head back,” I said, crouching down next to her.