Christine Zolendz - Brutally Beautiful

The drive back was silent; my thoughts though, were anything but.  Nothing made sense to me.  Why hadn’t she freaked out?  How was she so calm?  And how did she spread that calmness to me?  How did she do everything she did? Why did she have those bandages?  Did she have to take a CPR class because she was a waitress?  Shit, I wasn’t stupid, I knew there was seriously more to it, I just wasn’t ready to admit anything yet, but a waitress she was not.  And whose Porsche was this? 

I woke her softly as soon as I pulled into her driveway, but when she opened her eyes and looked past me, I knew something was wrong.  Her eyes were full of tears and I snapped my head in the direction she’d been staring.

The door to her trailer was torn off the hinges, broken in two and thrown against the stairs, like a child’s toy that had been long forgotten. Vile, demoralizing words had been painted in neon spray paint across the front of the tiny white trailer.  Bitch. Cunt. You’re going to die.

With no regard for her safety, Lainey was out of the car and rushed through the ransacked trailer.  “Lainey, stop, it’s too fucking dangerous!” I called after her.

She ran in anyway and I fumbled like a madman out of the car after her.  Instantly, she had my brother’s gun in her hands, and stepped through the open doorway, surveying the room, as you’d see a police officer do on a crime show.

Windows were shattered, broken in, as if someone had taken a baseball bat to them, and glistening shards of glass littered the rocky ground.  Running up the wooden steps, I stopped just inside the threshold of the doorway and watched Lainey sink to her knees, surrounded by the mess of debris that used to be her cozy little home. “Clear,” she yelled out loud in a haunted voice, but I had a strange feeling she wasn’t really talking to me.

Dirt and mud caked the furniture that was all bashed and battered across the floor.  Piles of what smelled like fucking shit towered over her tabletop and across her walls written in thick red ketchup, or some sort of morbid looking sauce, were the words: Peek-A-Boo-Samantha-I see you.  Deep beneath all of it was some rancid smell of decay.  I gathered my arms around her kneeling form, as if in prayer, and lifted her off the repulsive floor.  Cradling her in my arms, I carried her to the bedroom and sat her on the bed.  “Pack a bag for yourself and Bree. Take anything that’s important, I’m calling the police.”

“NO!”

“Are you fucking serious right now?  Look at your trailer!”

“I can’t…get the police involved.”

Sitting on her bed, I pulled her into my arms and held her, let the world fix its-fucking-self, my brain shut to autopilot and I brought her closer, nestling her against my chest.  I’ll just take her home with me, protect her.

After a few moments, she untangled herself from my arms and began rummaging through drawers, shoving clothes into a large duffel bag. “What hotels are near that hospital?”

“Come home with me,” I whispered.

“Shut up, Kade.”

“Fuck you, Lainey, or whoever the fuck you are.  You think after all this shit that I’ll let you out of my sight?  Fuck you.”

“This isn’t a game!  Just shut up.  Just shut the fuck up!” She slung the duffel bag over her shoulder, grabbed what looked like a computer bag from under her bed, and rushed for the door.

Before she could get past me, I kicked the door closed, and backed her up against a wall filled with craters of broken plaster.  Slamming my hands on the walls on both sides of her head, I wedged her against the wall and my body, ensuring the fact that she wasn’t getting away.  She could fucking shoot me for all I cared.

Grabbing hold of her face with a tight grip, I tried to make myself perfectly clear.  “You are coming home with me.”

Without warning, a slap hit my face that stung like a bitch, “Don’t put me in a corner, Grayson, my fucking claws will come out.”

My fingers tightened around her chin, making her eyes narrow in challenge.

Her hand shot out for another slap, but I caught it in my fist, tangled her fingers with mine and pressed my forehead to hers.  I felt her rage, it rolled off her in strong waves, and I took it, crushing my body against her and covering her mouth with mine.  What traitorous vessels our bodies are to fold into each other with violence, melt into each other in danger and anger.  Her lips opened to mine and I slipped in, never wanting to leave the heat of her breath, but I had to, I did, just long enough to say, “You.  Are.  Staying.  With.  Me.”

From one of her pockets the shrill electronic beeps of a cell phone screamed out.  I pulled away from her, allowing her to take the call.

“Hey, Bree.  Everything okay?  Yeah, you were both sleeping and Kade drove me home.”

She listened to the reply, eyes fixed on mine.  I took the bags and started walking to the door to put them in the car.

“That’s great.  Yes.  Yes.  Okay.”  She gave a small sigh.  “Listen, we can’t stay at the trailer, someone broke into it…Yeah, it’s bad, looks like something out of Scarface…” She started to explain, and then closed herself in the small bathroom to finish the rest of the conversation without me hearing, but I was out of the trailer anyway, getting ready to take her out of there.

The drive to my house was silent. She spent the ride worrying her lip and twisting her fingers around the hem of her coat.  We spoke no words to each other until she was standing in my living room, eyes wide, looking about ready to puke.

 “May I sit?” she asked in a small voice.  “My legs are trembling.”

“Yeah,” I croaked, barely able to get the word out.

Lainey sank to the floor in one fluid movement, like a cascading waterfall.  Running to her, I pulled her up, and tugged her over for a better place to sit.  I stared at her as she sat, eyes closed on the couch, hands trembling.  My brother’s blood, caked all over her was revolting and contradictory to her smooth ivory skin.  I traced a trail of crimson with my thumb, rubbing the smear from her cheek.  Her eyes opened wide, taking in my closeness and my deeds.  My fingers couldn’t help but linger against her face.

Lifting her in my arms, I carried her into my master bathroom and placed her on the chaise lounge chair.  I ran the bath and dumped a shitload of bubbly soap inside. I distinctly noticed a sheen of sweat covering her forehead and I swallowed hard. “I have to get that blood off you.  I can’t…I can’t look at you covered in blood.”

“I know,” she whispered.

“I want you to stay here with me.  You’re not leaving my sight,” I snapped.

“I can’t get you involved in this, Kade.  It’s not your fight.”

“You just can’t leave what’s happened here.  My brother is in the fucking hospital so you can’t leave him, and you can’t take Bree away from him.”

“Bree has nothing to do with any of this, Kade.  She could stay here with him.  Hell, I want her too.”

“You can’t leave me.”

“Kade, please.”

“I’m not letting you leave me.  You don’t want to either.”

“Can you stop doing that crap?  Just get out of my head and stay out. There’s so much chaos in there, you might get hurt.”

I swept the hair away from her neck, tucking it behind her ear and the pulse in her throat came into view, pounding fast under her skin.  “It’s because you’re screaming your thoughts at me.  And just so you fucking know, you WILL tell me who Samantha Matthews is and why my brother almost lost his life for her,” I exploded.

That shut her up.  Backing up, I walked out of the bathroom.

I shut the door quietly behind me, giving her the privacy that she deserved, even though all I wanted was to sink inside of her and forget about what happened in the last twenty-four hours.  I left her there for my bitter curiosity too, I won’t lie, because now I had a name to search, Samantha Matthews from New York City.

I sat at my desk and powered up my laptop, just as small pellets of icy rain began their assault at my window.

Kade Grayson was the most unbearable, arrogant and demanding man, I’d ever met.  What was worse is that he was the only man ever to be able to get me really worked up, and I was like a damn piece of putty in his hands.

From right outside the bathroom windows, a loud roar of rain began crashing against the glass.  Within seconds, the even louder roar of my own blood rushing through my ears drowned it out, as I thought about my options.  I needed to get away from here.  I needed to keep them safe.  I had clamped my mouth shut when he told me I couldn’t leave his sight, and tried my best to throw him a hard glare, but I was absolutely positive with the state of my bloody attire and my matted hair, I didn’t look too fierce.

As the tub filled with steamy water and bubbles, the faint smell of cinnamon and apples drifted through the room.

That man bought the soap I used?  Opening the large linen closet, I found a bottle of the body spray too.  If it weren’t the most heartwarming thing I’d ever felt, I’d think it was a little creepy.  But, no I didn’t find it creepy at all.  Nope.  I found it gave me a warm tingling feeling all over my body.  I.  Needed.  An.  Intervention.

Stepping back from the closet, I looked around the bathroom and found myself wondering if anybody ever actually used it.  It was too clean, immaculate, and sterile; I loved it.  Everything in the closet was in a perfect little neat row, labels facing forward, each item in size order and even the towels were all folded to the same thickness.  A perfect textbook example of compulsive behaviors of a control freak who was trying to create order in their chaotic life.  It was as if I’d found my OCD-soul mate.

Stripping off my bloodied clothes and stepping into the warm water, I scrubbed my skin of blood, then immediately emptied the tub, refilled it with clean water and laid back into its warmth. Groaning out loud, I covered my face with my hands.  I couldn’t think straight. I couldn’t think past the fact that Dylan got shot because of me and that everyone saw me save him.  Kade knows I’m not a waitress now and as soon as I step foot out of this bathroom, the questions are going to come flying at me like mortar fire.

The door suddenly swung open, making me gasp, and Kade’s menacing presence filled up the doorway, half freaking naked.  Oh, it gets better.  Wait for it.

Wait for it…

Then he dove right into the tub.

He splashed through the bubbles and water in nothing but a pair of black slacks.  My stomach fluttered, and my hands curled into tight fists as the splashes of the water hit me.  Water and suds spilled over the lip of the tub, splatting and sloshing all over the tiles in loud wet thwacks.  “Grayson, you are seriously crossing the line of my bathroom boundaries here.  I’m…I’m not dressed!”