CHAPTER Thirty
“Can’t you drive any faster?”
“If you have a problem with my driving, maybe you should’ve driven your own car. Oops! You can’t, can you? Because you’re f*cking drunk. So just sit back and shut up,” Angel sneered from over her shoulder.
Normally, I would’ve shot back with my own assholish comment, but she was right. I was f*cking drunk. But I had miraculously sobered up quite a bit once I saw what was lying amongst a clutter of shot glasses and peanut shells almost fifteen minutes ago.
I had to get away from CJ’s groupies, and had only marginally escaped the pressure to suck a shot of tequila from Wendy’s rack. They were nice tits; I couldn’t deny that fact. But they weren’t Kami’s tits. Kami had great tits. Perky and soft. Perfect, sweet nipples. Just the right size to fit in my hands…
F*ck. Even my thoughts were drunk and stupid.
I slumped back and tried calling her again, hoping the reminder would defog my mind. I screwed up. I know I did. But I really hadn’t done anything with those chicks. I didn’t want to.
I had just been about to grab a bottle of water and a cab home when I saw it. A small, red paper heart. It felt like a bucket of ice water had been dumped over my head, and I immediately woke the f*ck up. Kami was here. At least she had been. And if she glimpsed what was going on over at CJ’s table, I knew I had some serious groveling to do, whether or not she wanted anything to do with me.
I couldn’t let her believe I was that guy. The guy that got drunk and stupid whenever shit hit the fan. The guy that hooked up with any girl with a warm hole and a wet mouth. Ok, maybe I was that drunk and stupid guy. But Random Hookup Guy? That wasn’t me. Not anymore. Not since Kami.
I don’t know how long I stood there holding that red paper heart in my hand, looking as if I had been tasered in the nuts in the middle of that crowded bar. But I knew I had royally f*cked up.
“Where did you get this?” I snapped at Corey just as he passed by to grab a bottle of vodka.
His brows knit together, and he shrugged. “Oh, uh, I can’t be sure but I think Kami had it in her hand when she…”
“Kami’s here?”
“Yeah. Only for like a second though. Then she just left.”
“When?” I asked stepping into his personal space. I was tempted to grab his collar to shake the shit out of him, cheesy soap opera style. Maybe a dramatic backhand to drive my point home.
“Like maybe 5-10 minutes ago?”
“And you didn’t think to tell me?” I shouted, drawing the attention of just about every bar patron. I didn’t care what they thought about my behavior. Not where Kami was concerned.
“What the hell is going on?” Angel said, sauntering up to the bar with Dom in tow, looking like he was ready to break some skulls. Probably my skull.
“Kami was here.” I lifted the paper heart for her to see, but I didn’t hand it over. It was mine. It was meant for me.
“What? I didn’t see her come in,” Angel frowned.
“Probably because she took one look at you and your table of bleach blonde cum dumpsters and left,” Dominic nearly growled, taking a step towards me. “I swear to God, if you f*cking hurt her, if she shed one f*cking tear over you, I will…”
“I didn’t do shit, and you know it,” I interjected before Dom’s mouth started writing checks that his pretty boy ass couldn’t cash. Yeah, he may have been stockier but I was a good two to three inches taller and known for my quick fists. Besides, if anyone was worth fighting like hell for, it was Kami.
Shit.
I should’ve fought for her. I should’ve stayed and made her see that she had nothing to be afraid of. That being with me—loving me—could never hurt her.
SHIT!
I had hurt her. Instead of staying by her side, despite the bullshit she spewed to push me away, I got drunk and let her witness a couple of grab-happy broads damn near dry-hump my leg. I had let her down. I had proved to her that men couldn’t be trusted. That I couldn’t be trusted. I had to change her mind. I just hoped she’d hear me out long enough to let me do just that.
I wanted to book it to the apartment as soon as we parked, but I needed to be patient long enough to get past the doorman. However, he was nowhere to be found, and a few food delivery guys were waiting to be buzzed up. That should have been a red flag. I should have sensed something wasn’t right, but I was anxious to get upstairs to Kami and plead my case. Anxious to just be in her presence again.
An inexplicable sense of dread twisted my stomach into a giant knot as we approached their door. That should have been the second sign. That should have put me on high alert and made me barge into the apartment, figurative guns blazing. But I chalked it up to alcohol and nerves. I had to make this right. Knowing that I had a small window of opportunity had me worried as hell.
“Well, playboy, it’s your funeral,” Angel sniggered as she placed her hand on the doorknob. “I’ll just come back after Kam is done making earrings out of your nuts. I’m sure she’ll want to go shopping for a matching handbag.”
What happened next was beyond incomprehensible. Not because the scene in the living room was something out of a horror film. Not because there was a man perched over Kami with his dingy pants around his ankles while she lay on the ground, lifeless, in a pool of her own blood. And not because the stench of death instantly permeated our skin and clothing.
It was because I couldn’t understand it. I couldn’t describe what I did to that sick f*ck that had tortured her. I couldn’t express the feeling of holding her still, limp body in my arms as I cried into her blood-matted hair, apologizing for leaving her. For not saving her.
There was blood on my hands. Blood everywhere, saturated into the cream carpeting and blanketing the side of the leather couch. I looked over at Dom who was just as coated in the red, sticky substance as he spoke to a police officer. I didn’t know why he was speaking to him, his horror-stricken eyes red and puffy. I couldn’t remember.
“She’s fading fast. We have to get her to the hospital.”
“I’m riding with her!” Angel cried, her body shaking with uncontrollable sobs. She was covered in blood too. Her hands, her clothes, her…knees? Like she was kneeling in it. Like she had been on her knees in a pool of blood. Cradling her. Begging her to wake up. Crying her name over and over again.
“Ok, but only one of you can. We have to go now.”
I wanted to go. I wanted to be the one to ride in the ambulance, but I couldn’t say the words. I couldn’t do much of anything. I sat in my own slow motion sequence while the rest of the world zoomed by me on hyper speed. I looked down at the blood covering my hands. Felt the ache in my knuckles as I flexed them.
I needed that pain to remind me. To remind me of her.
“Sir, I need to get your statement.”
I looked up to see that the officer was now in front of me. Dominic stood beside him, his bloodied fists shaking at his sides.
“Sir? Your statement?”
“Sure,” I nodded.
“OK, your name?”
“Blaine. Blaine Daniel Jacobs.”
“Relation to the victim?”
The victim. Victim.
Kami.
It all came crashing in like a wrecking ball, demolishing the single slice of sanity I had left. The knot of emotion in my throat swelled and erupted, spilling its bile down into my stomach. I felt sick. Dizzy. Out of control and unable to get a grip on reality.
“He’s her boyfriend,” Dom spoke up, gripping my shoulder to steady me. He gave me a reassuring nod before mouthing “Breathe.” I did as I was told. Breathing was all I could do.
“Hey, can we do this at the hospital? We need to hurry up and get there,” Dom asked the police officer.
He gave us both a sympathetic look and nodded. “Sure. I’ll meet you guys over there.”
Less than twenty minutes later, we were racing through the entrance of the emergency department, demanding that a nurse, doctor, technician, anybody direct us to Kami.
“She’s in surgery,” we were told soon after we found Angel pacing in the waiting room.
That’s all we were offered. We weren’t family. No. Her family was handcuffed to his own hospital bed, courtesy of Dom and me. Her family had abandoned her when she needed them the most.
We were her family. Hell, at least Kami was ours.
“We should call her mother,” Angel said, fishing her cell phone out from her bag.
“What the f*ck for? That woman wouldn’t know what to do. Do you think she’d even care?” Dom scoffed.
“But it’s her mother,” Angel tried to reason. “Of course, she’d want to know what happened to her daughter.”
Dom snorted and continued his incessant pacing. I resumed looking at my hands. No matter how hard I scrubbed them, I couldn’t get the blood off. It had seeped into the tiny cracks of my cuticles and stained my fingernails. I still felt it all over me. Still smelled the metallic scent on my clothing and skin.
Kami’s blood. His blood.
And while I knew they were genetically linked, I hated that his blood had tainted hers. That he had touched her. Abused her.
And I had let him.
If it hadn’t been for me leaving her apartment, he would have never been able to get inside. If it hadn’t been for me getting drunk with a bunch of bar sluts, Kami would have never left Dive and gone home alone.
This was my fault. I had failed Kami when I had vowed to protect her. To never hurt her. To never leave her. I failed yet another woman that I cared about.
I didn’t save my mother from the sickness that ate away at her sanity. I didn’t save Amanda from her weakness. And I didn’t save Kami, the woman I loved more than I loved myself.
I had failed.
I didn’t deserve her. I knew that now. I would just keep hurting her. Would just keep f*cking things up. Kami deserved someone who could protect her. Someone to love her enough to heal her. And I had proven that I wasn’t equipped to do either of those things.
Without a word or look in Angel and Dom’s direction, I stood up and walked right out of that hospital. Away from the woman I loved. Away from the woman I failed. And I didn’t look back.