Leaving my car, I run to her. She’s standing on the edge, not quite on the railing, but her hands grip it with a force so tight her fingers are going white.
“Tan,” I whisper carefully, coming up behind her.
She doesn’t look at me straight away, but I can hear the pain in her soft cries.
“He found me. He found me.” She lets go and hugs herself, then shudders. “This time I didn’t get to run, Roch. I didn’t get to run.” She shakes, and I’m careful as I step closer to her. My hand goes to reach for her, but before I can, she pushes away so I can’t touch her.
“Please come to me.” My hands are outstretched, and she looks to them, then shakes her head.
“He touched me in all the wrong places.” Tanika visibly shudders as she holds out her hands, showing me the bruises all over her arms.
“Tan,” I say again, but she’s in her own world now.
“He whispered what a dirty little slut I was. Then offered me this.” She taps on her arm where I can see the injection area of a needle. “I couldn’t say no. It was all I could hope for at that time, my hands were tied, and I needed an escape. It was an escape, Roch.”
I hear a car door shut behind me, but I don’t want to look. I’m too afraid to take my eyes away from her. She’s a danger to herself right now, and I’m helpless to help her. I know this, but it won’t stop me from trying.
“Tan, come to mine. You can come to mine and never leave if that’s what you want.”
“Tell Blaze I could have loved him. He’s a good man.”
“You tell him,” I say while stepping closer. If I reach my fingers out now the tips will touch her.
The breeze picks up and floats her beautiful, long black hair over her face where it sticks in the tracks of her tears, but she doesn’t seem to care.
“I won’t be able to.” She clutches at her chest like the pain is unbearable. “I’m broken now, so broken, Roch. I have no one.”
“You have me.”
Beautiful, sad eyes turn to me. “You’re all I have.”
Then it happens so fast that my heart rate skyrockets. She steps up, those beautiful, sad, haunted eyes look at me, and then she’s falling. And before I know it, I’m going after her. My hands reach the edge, and before I can fall in to get her, hands clasp me from behind, lifting me up and pulling me back.
“Let. Me. Go,” I scream, but it’s no use.
Everything is silent.
Apart from the deafening sound of my breaths.
“Stop, pretty girl. Stop!”
I kick, but he won’t let me go.
I need to get to her.
I have to help her.
How am I meant to do that if he won’t let me go?
Sirens are heard in the distance, and I keep on struggling, trying to be set free, but his hold on me is too tight.
“I have to get her,” I say, struggling, my legs and hands becoming exhausted. I collapse, but his hold doesn’t let go.
“I got you,” he whispers in my ear.
He does have me, but I don’t have me right now.
I am drowning in that river under this bridge where her body is right now.
I’m drowning, and I can’t get out.
I am floundering in a river of pain.
“Pretty girl.”
I open my eyes to find the police standing in front of me. There are words being spoken, but I don’t seem to hear them. I can’t register anything. Everything hurts, but it’s my heart that pains me the most.
Hands pull my shirt up, and I look down, realizing most of my breast has been out on display, but for some reason I don’t even care.
Why would I care?
I can’t care.
I can’t feel.
When I look up again, ambulances are here, as well as a pair of angry eyes walking toward us.
Marcus’s grip becomes almost painful as he holds me tight against his chest.
“Tell me that’s not her.” His voice is so angry.
My heart is too sore to care what he says.
“Brother,” Marcus says.
Rough hands touch my chin and lift my face up to meet his. “You didn’t save her? Who do you think you are?” Blaze spits in my face, but I don’t even flinch. How can I? I don’t care what he says or does. I just saw my best friend jump from a bridge because she was hurt. Hurt again.
Then, it’s like something snaps and I manage to pull myself from Marcus’ tight grip, and my fists are slamming into Blaze’s chest.
“He got to her again, you prick. And you didn’t protect her,” I scream.
Marcus reaches for me again, but not before I slap Blaze in the face as hard as I can muster, but he doesn’t even move.
Oh God, my hand burns.
“What’s she talking about?” Blaze’s eyes don’t ask me the question they ask Marcus.
“He raped her. A-fucking-gain,” I seethe, the words dripping like venom from my mouth. “And you were meant to protect her. You were meant to save her.”
Blaze takes a step back, shakes his head, and before I can say anything else to hurt him the way I’m hurting, he’s gone. The only thing left is the noise of his engine as he speeds away.
“I’m taking you home.”
“No. I want to go to my home.” I try to pull away, but Marcus holds me.
“You’re wearing your underwear out in public, pretty girl. Let me take you home.” I look down and see I only have on panties and my shirt, the latter just barely covering me. I didn’t think clearly when I was leaving, I simply knew I had to get to Tanika.
“I want to go to my home. I don’t want to go to your bubble where you make everything seem okay. Then you burst my bubble when I think it’s all working.” I take a deep breath. “Nothing is okay. Every damn thing is broken, and people are dying.”
“People die, pretty girl, it’s just the way of the world. We can’t stop it.”
“Trust you to say that. You love death. I bet you can’t even wait till you die.” We are standing on the bridge, the police and ambulance people are still milling around. Some know him from what he does, and it makes me even more uncomfortable.
“Death is inevitable. We can’t stop it, and we should greet it as an old friend. It’s not here to hurt us, it’s here to set us free from this cage we live in.”
“You’re fucked,” I say, shaking my head and walking to my car.
Marcus catches up with me, his hand catching my wrist and turning me around to face him. His body touches mine and he wraps himself around me. “I’ll hold you all night, because I know that’s what you need. All fucking night.”
I’m too weak to tell him no.
To tell him he’s everything I need and nothing I want.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Rochelle
Marcus does as he said he would. His arms never leaving me for long, and no matter how much I pushed him away, he would always come straight back, gripping me to him as if he needed it as much as I did. Maybe he does, I know I did.
Waking up the next day hurts, and all I want to do is to sleep again—there’s no agony in the world of darkness.
So that’s what I do. I only wake when a police officer comes to take my statement, or when Marcus feeds me, then I crawl back into bed.