“
I guess when they rush you
to the hospital, the first thing they do is cut off everything
you’re wearing. Since I wasn’t conscious for that part, I’m not
sure,” her voice trembled and he could see tears once again
starting to fill in her eyes. Closing her eyes, she composed
herself. “At least it was you who brought me home and not
Miller.”
Blake could tell she was
trying to make light of the situation, but all he felt was pain in
his chest. He wanted so badly to pull her into his arms. Instead,
he reached for his tee-shirt to put on her. As he bent to grab the
shirt, his sight shifted from her face. He was glad her eyes
remained closed, because he didn’t want to embarrass her even more,
by him staring at her naked body.
I bet
her skin is just as soft as before.
Before
straightening upright, his gaze fell on the bruise on her side. He
wasn’t sure if it was from the fall or Arthur. As his sight shifted
further down her body, it stopped on a scar that ran across her
lower abdomen. He wanted to run his finger over the disfigured
skin, but pulled his hand away before it made contact. Blake hoped
that wasn’t something Arthur had also done to her. Swallowing hard,
he needed to hurry and help her get her shirt on before he did
something that might upset her. He had control, yet having a
beautiful body in front of him—bruised or not—he knew he could only
be a gentleman for so long.
Luckily, his shirt was
bigger than the hospital scrub. Blake was able to slide the shirt
on with ease. He was happy it was long enough to cover most of her.
Looking at his shorts, he saw a repeat of the bottoms that were
still around her ankles, and decided since his shirt covered her to
mid-thigh, that was good enough. She’d opened her eyes after the
shirt went over her head and gazed at him with a stare he couldn’t
read. Blake brought a hand up and lightly touched the mark on her
face. He could see all five of Arthur’s fingers displayed on her
face.
How could he hit her?
Blake’s insides burned and he dropped his hand as
he backed away.
“
I’ll go get that glass of
water now.”
As he made his way down the stairs, Veronica
moved out into the hallway. Blake figured she was looking for the
bathroom and called out over his shoulder.
While grabbing her pain pills and a glass of
water, his house phone rang. He hoped word hadn’t spread that fast
about the night’s incident. Blake was relieved it was Miller
calling.
“
Hello?”
“
Hey, are you two home and
settled?”
Miller made it sound like it was an everyday
question—as if Veronica lived there.
“
Yes, I’m home, and I have
Veronica with me.”
“
I stopped back by the
hospital hoping to get that statement from Vee, but Melinda told me
you already left. Is she sleeping? Can I stop by
tonight?”
“
She’s not asleep yet, but
I don’t know how much talking she’ll be doing tonight. She’s still
pretty rattled.” While he spoke, Blake had a flashback of Veronica
curling away from the little frantic, shouting, lunatic of a
man.
“
I bet. That is one sick
guy. Do you know he tried to bribe me to let him out? And then when
he realized that I wasn’t going for it, he insisted on pressing
charges on Vee. Claiming he was the victim. It took everything in
me not to beat him with the butt of my gun.”
Blake knew Miller was serious.
“
I know. Well, try to keep
him away from the both of us. If you want to hit him with your gun,
you can imagine what I want to do to him.”
Running his hand through his hair, Blake sat
on the edge of his sofa.
“
Miller, I’ve a feeling she
isn’t going to talk. This isn’t the first time he’s hit her. I
didn’t say anything about it, but Hayley and my mother said they
saw marks on her face a few weeks ago.”
Swearing under his breath, Miller didn’t say
anything into the phone for a while. When he did speak, Blake heard
the hatred for Arthur in his tone.
“
I didn’t think it was that
bad. The other day when you asked me what was wrong with Vee, after
she rushed out of Gilligan’s. I hoped it wasn’t anything too
serious, but just before you got there, I witnessed them arguing. I
wasn’t completely sure what it was about, but I could tell Stentson
was trying his best to restrain himself. He was clenching and
unclenching his fists. When I asked Vee if everything was okay, she
said it was all fine and hurried away.”
Miller huffed into the phone in frustration.
“
Hey, none of us could have
known. Whenever anyone asked, she always had an excuse. What else
could we do?” That was the question Blake continued to ask
himself—what else could he have done?
“
Yeah, I know.” Miller
sighed again, “Look, I’ll be by tomorrow. Try to speak to her, and
see if you can get her to make a statement.”
Blake made no promises as they hung up.
With the water and pills in hand, he made
his way back to Veronica. Walking in the room, he didn’t fine
Veronica in the bed like he figured she would be. Instead, she was
sitting on the floor next to the bed. She sat with her good arm and
casted arm wrapped around her knees, and slowly rocked back and
forth. Blake almost dropped the pill bottle and water. Quickly
putting them on the night stand, he moved to sit next to her on the
floor. The space she crammed herself into was two small for the
both of them, and Blake had a need to pull her into his arms. At
first, Veronica didn’t seem to notice he was sitting on the floor
next to her, but speaking softly and rubbing the back of his hand
on the side of her arm, got her attention. Blake opened his arms
and she moved into his embrace. Neither one of them spoke as they
rocked. Every so often, Blake would place a tender kiss on her
forehead and try to hold her closer.
Chapter 8
It took hours for Veronica to fall asleep.
By the time she did, Blake was too exhausted to move her to the
bed. Feeling her soft body in his arms probably didn’t help much
either, so they slept on the floor, sitting up next to the bed.
Hearing his door open and close the following morning, Blake knew
it had to be one of five people. His parents, Parker, Hayley, and
Miller had a key to the house. The sound of the footsteps told him
it was Miller. If he moved, he would wake Veronica, so he sat there
and waited for Miller to find them. It didn’t take Miller long. In
the doorway, he took in the sight of the pair sitting on the floor.
Sometime in the middle of the night, Blake pulled the quilt off the
bed and put it over them.
“
I knocked a few times, but
when no one answered, I got a little worried. We let Stentson go
first thing this morning.”
Miller’s voice was low, but Veronica still
stirred in Blake’s arms. Coming closer and kneeling next to him,
Miller gave Blake a once over. “You look like crap. Did you get any
sleep last night?”
Blake turned his head to try to move away
from Veronica’s ear and whispered, “Some.”
She stirred again, and Blake knew she was
going to open her eyes any moment.
“
You released him this
morning? What time is it?”
Miller checked his watch and smirked.
“
It’s going on four. You
two have almost slept the day away.”
Blake couldn’t believe
it.
Has more than half the day already
passed?
He’d been in and out of sleep for a
while, but figured it was only an hour or two. The times when he
was awake, he’d watch Veronica sleep. He enjoyed getting to know
her face all over again. And checking to see if there was anything
different from the last time he was able to hold her so
close.
Miller’s police radio sounded and made the
three of them jump. With a quick apology, he moved swiftly out of
the room to listen to the broadcast. By the way Veronica jumped,
Blake knew she was up and alert. She gazed into his eyes and seemed
relieved it was Blake’s face looking back.
“
Morning,” she
whispered.
Moving some of her hair out of her face,
Blake smiled.
“
It’s more like afternoon,
but it works all the same.”
While they were dating, they were able to
sneak away for a weekend to be alone. That weekend was the first
and only time they stayed the night with each other. Seeing her in
his arms now, made him think of that time. He thought about how
amazing it felt the following morning to wake up and have her
wrapped in his arms. It was a month and a half before they broke
up. They’d been fighting a lot before, and it was Veronica’s idea
to slip away. She wanted to get their minds off of the whole
college thing, and be the couple they used to be.
Miller came sprinting back into the guest
room and interrupted Blake’s flashback.
“
You two may want to come
with me right now.”
Without waiting for a response, he turned
and ran out of the room and down the stairs. Helping Veronica to
her feet, they exchanged puzzled looks. Blake let go of her and
began to follow Miller when Veronica cleared her throat. He tossed
a glance over his shoulder, and saw what had stopped her from
moving. All she had on was his tee-shirt.
“
If we’re leaving the
house, it may be best if I have some pants on. Do you know what’s
gotten him in a rush?”
Blake shook his head. “I have no clue.”
The hospital bottoms would be her best bet,
until they swung by her house to pick up more clothes.
As Blake moved to grab the pants, Miller
blared the car horn. Giving each other another look, they tried to
move quicker. Veronica seemed to be moving slower than the day
before. Blake hoped some of that wasn’t due to the fact that they
slept balled up on the floor the night before.
Finally making it to the
car, Blake climbed in the front seat and Veronica in the back.
Miller peeled out of the driveway and refused to respond to what
the problem was. In the distance, Blake could hear the fire truck’s
siren. His eyes automatically moved towards the sky. Off to the
east a huge cloud of billowing black smoke terrorized the
sky.
No, please don’t be Veronica’s
house.
He didn’t know why that was the
first thing to pop into his head, but he had a sinking feeling in
his gut that he was right. Veronica must have been thinking on the
same wavelength, because she sucked in a sharp breath of air. Blake
wished he sat in the back with her.
As he turned to see the terror on her face,
Miller rounded the corner of Cabin Road, the street where Veronica
grew up, the street that held the house that she was living in.
The house was completely engulfed in flames.
Surpatch’s one fire truck with four volunteer firemen and
surrounding neighbors were working hard to keep the fire under
control. Nevertheless, they were no match for the orange flames
fighting to destroy the house. Since the street was blocked with
other neighbors who’d either left their houses for safety or who’d
come to check out the commotion, Miller brought the car to a stop a
few houses down.
It took both men to get a petrified Veronica
out of the car. Blake could hear her softly murmuring. Her eyes
were glued to the house and she was shaking her head. At first, she
fought them not to get out of the car. The front of the structure
had already collapsed and they could see the inside of the house as
all of her belongings burned. Finally, Veronica slid out of the car
and Blake pulled her lean, slender body against his, wrapping his
arm around her. Miller told him he was going to talk to the other
officers on the scene and walked away. Against her will, Blake
ushered Veronica closer to the house. Her body moved slow and stiff
like a rusted robot. The neighbors saw them coming and parted ways.
The police had already roped off the section in front of the house,
so the crowd couldn’t walk too close. Standing right at the edge of
the street, Blake and Veronica watched as her house crumbled to
ashes.
People around them talked
about sightings of Arthur, and others were talking about the fact
that it was Blake who stood there with his arms around her. Some
speculated if they were a couple again. One man—Blake wished he
knew who, so he could turn around and hit him—made the comment that
Arthur probably burned down the house because he saw that Blake and
Veronica were together again. Not to say that thought hadn’t
crossed Blake’s mind too, but it was none of their damn business.
Besides Veronica and he weren’t back together. He was just trying
to be a good friend. Blake’s eyes roamed the area.
I wonder if Arthur has the balls to stay in the
vicinity.
News of the house burning would
spread, and the people of Surpatch would be on alert if they saw
Arthur sneaking around.
The firefighters weren’t able to stop the
fire, but they were able to keep it contained to just Veronica’s
house. As the last of the house collapsed, she turned away, hiding
her face in Blake’s chest. He held her as tight as he could,
without hurting her. They rocked back and forth, her smaller body
seeming frailer and weaker than earlier that day. Tremors moved
through her like mini earthquakes. Yet, no tears fell. Blake
stroked her hair in a futile attempt to calm her. From behind him,
Miller whispered in his ear that they received a call that someone
saw Arthur heading towards the city limits. He told Blake he was
going to go check it out, and Martin would be giving him and
Veronica a ride back to the house.
At last, the fire was extinguished, and the
crowd started to dissipate. Sometime during the fire, Parker and
his father joined the mass. As Blake and Veronica turned away from
the charred remains, his father, and Parker helped clear the crowd.
He hadn’t had a chance to talk to them, but they saw him with
Veronica. Escorting Veronica to Martin’s car, Blake helped her in
and climbed in the back seat with her. She hadn’t let go of his
shirt since she first turned and buried her face in his chest.