Clarity 3

Copyright © 2014 Loretta Lost
Cover art by Sarah Hansen of
OkayCreations.com

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The night is deathly
still.

I can hear the moonlight.
It’s dripping all around me like liquid silver, and making my blood run cold. Crickets are calling out to each other and singing about the stars. I can hear all of this, but I can’t hear the sound that I want to hear most.

A
man’s breathing.

I press my hands against my heart to keep it from
pounding right out of my chest. It feels like a jackhammer is trying to drill through my breastbone. My knees tremble, and I struggle to remain upright in my high heels. I am empty and numb and weak. I wobble a little, and my toes graze along the shoulder of a lifeless human being. A bit of bile lifts in my throat, and I force myself to swallow down the bitter combination of stomach acid and saliva.

There is a possibly dead
body resting against my toes. It’s still warm.

I’m afraid that if I fall to my knees, I will touch
the man’s face and recognize the familiar curve of Liam’s chin. The warm tickle of a tear squeezes itself through my lower eyelashes. It slowly slides down my cheek, but I am so mannequin-stiff that I cannot lift my arm to brush it away.

Please,
I repeat mentally as I press my eyelids together tightly. As if I could possibly see any less. The stars and streetlights are all obscured, but try as I might, I can’t block out the horrible images in my mind.
Please. Please let him be okay.

My
thoughts continue to race as I begin to lower myself to the ground. I reach out to touch the man before me, but I pause. I’m afraid to know. I remember the light stubble of Liam’s five-o’clock shadow, brushing against my cheek only moments ago. My fingers twitch as they imagine tracing the hard angle of his handsome jaw, only to discover blood seeping from a gruesome wound. I need to identify the body, but I am terrified of plunging my hands into a pool of blood that used to be a bright young man. I don’t think my heart could take it. I hesitate.

A sound breaks through the darkness. A groan.

“Liam?” I whisper desperately. All hesitation leaves me as I throw myself to my knees. My skin scrapes roughly against the cobblestoned ground, but I ignore the bruising. My hands dart out to clutch the body before me. If he has a moment’s life left in him, I want to spend that moment holding him. I want to feel his final heartbeat against mine. I want to taste his last breath.

My hands brush against the fabric of a cotton collar. I lift my fingers higher and touch the man’s face. It’s smooth. Freshly shaven.

I jerk away with a gasp, recoiling from what must be Grayson’s body. I fall back onto the cobblestones, my palms slamming clumsily against the cool ground. I shiver in horror at having touched my enemy. I draw in a deep breath. He was motionless. I was unable to touch his vile skin long enough to determine whether he was dead or alive. But if he’s on the ground, does that mean...

“Winter,”
says a hoarse voice, a few feet away. He groans softly. “It’s okay. I’m okay.”

“Liam,” I
sob. “I thought you were...”

“No,” he
tells me. “I was just dazed. I don’t get shot very often.”

I
feel like a small grenade has detonated within my chest, and I experience a sudden inability to breathe. I scramble back onto my knees and move around Grayson toward the sound of Liam’s voice. “You’ve been shot?” I whisper. “Where? How bad is it?”

“It’s
fine,” he assures me as he reaches out to pull me close. He wraps his arms around me and presses his lips against my forehead. “Hey. I’m—I’m fine. Don’t worry.”

I gratefully accept his embrace
, collapsing into the warmth of his chest. I bury my face into his shirt, pressing my ear against his heart so that I can listen to it pounding nearly as fast as mine. He doesn’t sound fine. I run my hands over his body, searching for his wound. “Where were you hurt? What happened? Should I call an ambulance?”

“No, no. It’s nothing. I’m a doctor, remember?” he speaks in a soothi
ng tone as he brushes my hair back from my cheek. “This is a minor graze. I can handle it.”

“Are you sure?” I ask him as I move my hands all over his chest and sides, followed by his
arms. When I move to his thighs, he finally winces and pulls away. I gasp at the feeling of sticky moisture soaking the side of his pants. “Liam! We need to get you to a hospital.”

“For this little thing?” he says in the tone men
always use when they’re trying to be tough. “Don’t worry. He got me in a lucky spot. A fifth-grader could patch this up with a basic first-aid kit.”

“
Are you crazy? This is a bullet wound!” I try to put pressure on his leg because I can’t think of anything else to do. “What kind of fifth-graders do you know?” I ask him angrily.

“
Well, I was a boy scout,” he explains, “and I played a lot of Operation.”

I can’t believe he’s making a joke at a time like this. I glance over at my silent brother-in-law
who remains motionless on the ground. “What about him? Is he...”

“
He’s alive. I just broke both of his arms and took his gun. I think he passed out from the pain—or it might have been my left hook.” Liam shrugs as though he does this every day.

I exhale slowly
. “Are you serious?” I ask in wonder, releasing a little hysterical laugh of relief.
“
You broke
both
of his arms?”

“I told you judo was useful,” Liam says casually. He pulls away from me and
grunts as he slowly rises to his feet. He reaches out to help me stand. “Lights are being turned on in your house. It seems the shots woke up your family. We should go tell your dad and sister what happened—Grayson is going to need medical attention. They’re probably going to call the cops, and we’ll have to file a police report...”

“No,” I tell him softly as I
clutch handfuls of his shirt to help keep myself upright. The idea of having to go through all of that bureaucracy gives me headache. Why is it that immediately after surviving a traumatic event, you are always faced with a great deal of equally traumatic paperwork? I step closer to Liam so that our bodies are almost touching, but not quite. I can feel his warmth surrounding me. I release his shirt and slide my hands over the taut muscles of his torso. He feels tense, like he is still in the middle of a fight and ready to spring into action. I take a deep breath. I can’t seem to stop touching him. After that terrifying moment of uncertainty, I need constant proof that he is alive. “Can we just... go?” I plead. “Somewhere. Anywhere. I don’t want to deal with this right now.”

He is quiet for a moment,
and he reaches out to cup my face. “Winter,” he tells me softly. “You’re shaking.”

I try to breathe slowly to chase away my terror and regain control of my body.
I had not noticed my pathetic state until he mentioned it; I know that my mind is tough and resilient, but my body is a mess. My hands are trembling and my shoulders keep shuddering sporadically. I must look like a bundle of exposed nerves, all frayed and split. Liam senses my anxiety, and moves forward to wrap his arms around me. He cradles me against him, locking his arms around my back fiercely. After a moment, I close my eyes and sink into his embrace. I feel my tension begin to ease away, and my body begins to grow calm. He is so strong; so amazingly strong. He is overflowing with so much quiet power that it seeps into me. I feel shielded against everything. The gunshots and Grayson seem far away, almost in another lifetime. I know that Liam would never allow any harm to come to me.

But Liam hasn’t always been around. He won’t always be around.

I grow suddenly aware of the large bulge in his pocket. I am confused for a moment, but then I realize that it’s Grayson’s gun. I move my hand to touch the metal instrument curiously through his coat. A horrifying thought crosses my mind; I consider taking the gun and shooting the unconscious Grayson in the face. It would permanently remove him from my life. I can see myself pulling the trigger—I can hear the gunshot ripping away his life. I immediately feel ill, but intrigued.

“What if I... got rid of him?” I ask Liam breathlessly. My voice
is so soft that it blends with the wind. As I taste the whisper of dark words on my tongue, the idea begins to seduce me. I know that I’m not capable of such a thing, but my hands are inching over the edges of his pockets anyway. I slip my index finger between the folds of fabric and touch the cold metal. It sends a little jolt of excitement through me, along with a shiver of dread.

I know that my sister would never forgive me.

But I almost don’t care. I’d be protecting her. I’d be protecting myself.

“No,” Liam says, taking my wrists and guiding them
away from his pocket. “You’re not thinking clearly right now. No one deserves that—it’s not for us to decide. You’re not that type of person.”

Anger
rises in my chest. “How do you know what kind of person I am?
He
made me into a different kind of person.” I pause as I my indignation gives way to helplessness. My hiss fades into a whisper. “Liam... shouldn’t I do something? He hurt Carmen. He tried to
kill
you.”

“That
doesn’t make it right,” Liam tells me, gently squeezing my wrists. “We need to be better than him.”

I shake m
y head in dismay and confusion. I wish I could be tough enough pull the trigger. But if my sister and dad are coming downstairs to investigate the gunshots, then I wouldn’t like to need to explain why Grayson is lying on the ground unconscious, with both of his arms broken, and a bullet in his body. He’s defenseless; it would be in bad taste to hurt him now. It would be low. It would be despicable. But he just shot at us! He just wounded Liam. If I don’t do something now, will he try to hurt us again? Am I missing my last opportunity to gain the upper hand?

My head begins to ache.
Could I live with myself and accept the consequences if I did this? I haven’t given hurting him any real thought. I haven’t really felt a great need for revenge—just the need to get away. Maybe I
should
get revenge. Maybe it was what I really needed all along. Maybe this is the only way I can
really
get away—while simultaneously remaining in one spot. Would it be somehow liberating or healing? Would life magically get better if Grayson was gone? Would I return to who I was? Could I reclaim my innocence and optimistic look at the world? Could I be around people again without falling apart?

My breathing is quick and labored as the adrenaline and panic courses through me.
No,
I command myself.
You could never. You’re out of your mind for even considering this. Snap out of it.
I try to purge the images of revenge from my thoughts.
At the same time, I feel disgustingly powerless and upset with the idea of doing nothing at all. I can’t live like this. I can’t live in constant fear. I can’t let Grayson live, and let him keep doing this to me. But I can’t take his life either. Guilt and remorse would consume me, and living under that shadow might be more difficult than living with constant fear and anxiety. I pull my hands away from Liam and let them fall to my sides.

A few feet away, I hear Grayson stirring and groaning on the ground.

My eyes widen as I turn to the sound, and I flinch ever so slightly. The knowledge that his arms are broken does nothing to comfort me. I move back a step, wishing there were walls and fortifications between us. I wish I could turn and run—run away from here forever. But I already tried that. I feel lost and overwhelmed, and trapped in this mess. I feel my knees trembling, and my ankles bending as I lose the strength to keep myself upright in my high heels. I close my eyes and clench my fists, trying to maintain a bit of dignity and not let myself fall to the ground and collapse into tears.