“Yes, love. I’m here.”
The moment the words leave my lips, she covers her face and starts to cry.
I move quickly and pull the chair from the wall and over to sit next to the bed. I take her hand in mine and pull it away from her face.
“Let me see you, Petal. I need to see your eyes,” I whisper softly.
She blinks away the tears that have taken residence in her beautiful irises and settles her gaze on me.
“I was so scared I’d never see you again,” she says with a cracking voice.
“I will never let that happen. Never. Maria and Martin are right outside standing vigil. They will see you soon.”
“Where is he? Where is Lucas?”
Nora tries in vain to escape from her sheets. As they fall away slightly, it finally dawns on me that the dress we love so much that she had on is gone. In its place is a much too big pale hospital gown which doesn’t even cover her knees. Her knees. They are covered in scrapes and the beginnings of bruises. I can’t let my mind go there right now. I don’t think I would have the strength to hold my rage at bay.
“Please don’t look at me like that,” she says. “I don’t like seeing your eyes so sad.”
“I wish I didn’t have to be, Petal, I promise.” I place my hands on her waist to keep her from standing. “Stay put. You shouldn’t be trying to move around too much.” I reach up and adjust the sling on her arm.
“I just want to go home,” she says then corrects herself, “to your apartment. I want to go to your bed.”
“I hope we can do that soon, love.” I stare woefully at her arm. “Tell me about your injuries, please? I need to know.”
She settles back, clutching at my hand, while I use my injured one to settle the blankets back over her body. “My skull isn’t reinjured, which is good. The cut wouldn’t stop bleeding for a while, but they got that under control. Ummm, my shoulder is, or I should say was, dislocated. They had to pop it back into place.”
My heart clenches and my stomach twists at the thought of anyone, let alone that piece of shit, touching a hair on my girl’s head. “Petal, there’s one thing you still haven’t told me. One thing I need to hear. Did he…did he…” I can’t even finish the sentence without becoming violent in some form or fashion.
She shakes her head. “No, no he didn’t. He didn’t get a chance to… thanks to you and to Lucas.” She sniffs and wipes her face with her hand. “How did you find me? What happened?”
I bring her hand up to my face and place her palm against my cheek. I just need to feel her in any way that I can right now.
“I heard his voice over the phone when he got into the car, and before I could leave to come to you, Lucas showed up on campus to find you. Apparently, the utter moron the Chases had monitoring Caldwell was trying to make contact because they knew he was in town.”
“Tristan, I should tell you that I knew he had left London weeks ago.”
I lean back in the chair and her hand drops away from my face, “What? Nora, how could you know this and not tell me? I can’t protect you if I don’t know what is happening.”
“Please don’t be angry with me. What we had going was so perfect. I didn’t want to taint it if it didn’t have to be. Lucas said the PI had it under control. I trusted that.”
“Yes,” I scoff, “a lot of bloody good that did.” I take her hand again, instantly missing her warmth. “Once we made contact with Martin and Maria, they told us about the tracking device you keep in your wallet.”
She nods. “I agreed to keep it for safety’s sake. Thank God, I did.”
“That’s how we found out where you were.”
Her voice becomes quieter than I think I’ve ever heard it. “I thought I was going to die. I thought I’d said my last words to you. At least they were ‘I love you.’” She pauses for what feels like an eternity. “You could have been killed. Lucas could have been killed.”
“But we weren’t. We were going to move heaven and earth to bring you out alive.”
“Tristan… I know who he was to you.”
“And now I know who he was to you.” I drop my head to the bed next to her and shake it slowly. “The world is so small, and it’s like my life has been tied to yours from the beginning. Our choices and lack of choices slowly brought us together.”
“Do you believe in things like that?”
“Once Raissa died, I stopped believing in everything… and then I met you.”
Her hand starts to slowly stroke through my hair. It’s soothing to me to have that contact, that connection with her once more. I can feel the bottled anger and angst begin its slow exodus from my body, until I hear her cry once more.
“I’m sorry,” she sobs, “I’m so sorry.”
I look up and try to decipher the emotion radiating from her. “What on Earth could you possibly be sorry for?” I wipe the tears from Nora’s eyes with my good hand.
“For everything. For all of this happening. It’s my fault,” she sniffs. “Tristan, I had to kiss him and I’m so sorry I did that, but I didn’t know what else to do. I was scared and trying to make him happy so he wouldn’t hurt me. Even in doing that, I know he would have killed me anyway. I cheated on you for nothing.”
While the thought of her lips on his makes me want to punch my good hand through the fucking wall, she was in survival mode.
“Petal, you did what you had to do in order to keep yourself safe. I won’t allow you to apologize for surviving. Do you understand me?” She doesn’t immediately nod, so I continue, “You didn’t cheat on me. Cheating implies want and intent. I’ll say it again, you were doing what you needed to live, to stay safe, so that you could come back to me. Don’t apologize.”
I can hear voices and a bit of a commotion happening outside of the room and I know our time is dwindling.
“Petal, I need you to listen to me and hear my voice. Block everything out and just listen.”
“I’m listening.”
“I’m going to have to go away for a while.”
“Go away? What do you mean? What are you talking about? No. No. I can’t be away from you again. Don’t leave me.”
“Shhhhh. I don’t want to leave you either. It’s the last fucking thing I want to do in fact, however, I have things to answer for. The authorities are going to need to talk to me and likely at some length.”
“He’s dead. Right? Tell me the words again.”
I make sure we are eye to eye, soul to soul, when the words leave my lips. “He’s dead, Petal. He’ll never be able to hurt you or anyone else ever again.”
I can see her body relax as if all of the tension melted away at the reality. He’s gone.
“Is that why they are taking you away? Because you… you killed him?”
“I protected myself and you. I just need to explain to them what happened and I’ll be back at your side. I promise.”
No sooner do the words leave my lips does a knock come on the door before it pushes open and two officers step inside with a battered, bandaged Lucas just behind them.