Consumed (24 page)

It takes twenty minutes to charter a helicopter, which Kylie steps in to handle because I’ve started to lash out at everyone. When she hands me my phone back, she gives me a determined look. “I’m coming with you to Nashville.”

I don’t refuse her. I can’t. My mind is in one place, and one place only, and until I get to Sienna, I won’t be able to think clearly. 

But in the end, I’m grateful for my sister. It’s Kylie who thinks ahead and makes sure there’s a rental car waiting for us when we get to Nashville three hours later, and it’s my sister who drives to the hospital, ignoring me by turning up the radio to blast an Aranda song when I tell her to hurry the fuck up.

As we go inside of the hospital, I look up the room number that Sienna’s younger brother had texted me earlier. There’s an agonizing dullness in the center of my chest while Kylie and I take the elevator up to the third floor. When the doors spread, I follow my sister slowly as she rushes down the hallway. I was in such a hurry to get to Nashville, and now, standing here with the scent of bleach and medicine hitting me in the face, all I feel is dread. 

So I wait outside of Sienna’s door, pulling my shit together, while Kylie goes inside. I hear my sister gasp and a moment later, she murmurs, “Oh god, babe.”

Taking a deep breath, I shove the door open and step through the doorway. Even though Sienna makes an attempt to shield her face, I see everything. I go through a mix of emotions: fear, anger, rage, and guilt. For the time being, I settle on guilt. Guilt and rage. I walk over to the hospital bed, each step making the ringing in my ears grow louder. When I get to her, she opens her mouth to say something. At first, I convince myself that she’s talking, and I can’t hear anything because of the deafening blare in my ears, but then I realize that she’s speechless.

And that she’s sobbing. Shoulder-racking, chest-heaving sobs. From the corner of the room, my sister’s crying, too. 

I feel like the worst fucking thing that’s ever lived.

And I want to kill the motherfucker who did this to her.

I’m scared to touch her—scared to hurt her—but she reaches out to me. I slide her fingers through mine.  

As soon as she’s calm enough to speak, she drags in a long breath. “My brother is friends with a girl who works for the police department.” Her gaze falls down to her lap, and she tightens her grip on my hand. “That . . . guy has been in and out of jail. Aggravated assault. Robbery. He told the cops he got my address from somebody he met on a YTS message board. Followed me out.” 

I release a harsh sound, but she continues. “Your ex-wife sent me a message this morning. Wanted to know how I was feeling.”

Before I can say anything, my sister stalks across the room, her hair flying wildly behind her. “This is all you,” she hisses, jabbing me hard in the chest with her fingertips. “This is you. Fix it.”

I start to let go of Sienna’s hand, but she holds on to it like it’s impossible for her to let go as I sink down in the chair closest to the bed. “God, Sienna, I don’t know what to—”

 “Tell me,” she implores. She grasps bunches of the starch white sheet in her other hand, twisting the fabric around anxiously. “God, Lucas, please tell me what all of this has been about.” The last word is a broken whisper, a plea. A silent warning: 

Tell me or I’m gone. Tell me what you did, or we’re through. 

If we were any other place, anywhere but in this goddamn hospital with her fucked up because of me, I’d steer this conversation somewhere else. But I knew this was coming, and I feel like I’ve already been shoved into a pit and buried alive—the worst part of it all is that this is a grave I dug for myself.

Inhaling so deep my chest burns, I glance at my sister, at the blatant disappointment on her face, and then back to Sienna. Despite the pain she’s got to be in, she’s managed to sit upright. Even through the bruises and cuts, the dark circles beneath her wide blue eyes and the scowl on her face—even through it all, she’s still the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. The best thing I’ve ever possessed.

And even if it means losing her—and maybe that’s what I deserve for what I did years ago—I owe her so much more than she’s been given so far. 

“After everything went to shit between Sam and me, we didn’t stop seeing each other,” I begin. Sienna nods her head carefully, her curtain of red hair falling over her bruised face. “Hell, I saw her more after we separated than before.” Admitting that still makes me feel like the biggest fucking idiot. 

“I fucked up,” I whisper harshly. “I did something fucked up and then I told Samantha about it.” 

Sienna lets out a breath. “Okay. What is it?”  

The room feels like it’s shrinking in on me, so before it can finish, I mutter, “That I killed a man. That I ended someone’s life.”

After I came home from Louisville, I had no intention of seeing Samantha. I didn’t want to face her—or anyone else, for that matter—until I pulled myself together. Figured out what the fuck I needed to do to fix the mess I was in.

Instead, Sam came to me.

I’d stumbled into my house drunk and falling over the couch. So wrecked I wouldn’t have noticed that someone else was there if not for a hand running down my shoulder from behind me. I grabbed the arm hard, and a teasing, familiar voice whispered into my ear,  “Careful, Lucas, you might hurt me.”

Letting Samantha go, I pushed myself to my feet. “What the fuck are you doing here?” I growled.

She flung her shoulder-length blonde hair over her shoulder and skimmed her tongue over her lips. “I missed you.”

I swept past her and climbed the steps, but she was right behind me, talking about her flight and how tired she was. She followed me into my bedroom, and as I started to get undressed, she threw herself down on the bed and yawned. “Get out, Sam.”

Stretching her arms out behind her for support, she made a pouting noise. “If you’re going to kick me out, you could at least sound convincing.” She lolled her head back, and when she looked at me again, she winked. “Trust me, you give me what I want and I’ll be on my way.”

“It’s not happening tonight.”

“But you’re drunk, and we both know how you get when you drink too much.” When I give her a warning glare that tells her I’m not fucking her, she widens her eyes. “What the hell did you do to my Lucas?”

“I don’t want to touch you.” I sat down on the edge of my bed, and she tried to climb into my lap. I pushed her away, clenching my teeth. “I can’t touch you.”

The only thing I wanted to do was go to bed. To forget what I had done.

“You’re drunk, baby,” she reminded me. “But I love you, so I’ll forgive you.”

Maybe it was the alcohol, or the words she had said right then, or both, but the next thing that came out of my mouth condemned me. “I fucking killed a man in Louisville.”

She sat perfectly still for nearly a minute and then she moved her head to the side. “Don’t play games, Lucas.”

I pulled her close to me so that our noses touched. “I. Killed. Someone.”

Then I told her what had happened. About Cilla being stalked for months. About the man attacking her in the parking lot of the little venue we were playing at. About me going after him, blind with rage, hitting him over and over again until he was unconscious.

“I took Cilla back inside.” I dragged my hands through my hair. “And when I went back out, he was gone. He was dead.”

Sam leaned forward. “You didn’t call the cops?”

“I fucking panicked,” I shouted. “I fucking panicked and left him there. They’re treating it as a mugging, Sam. What the fuck do I do?”

She thought on my question for a moment, nibbling carefully on her bottom lip. Finally, she slid on top of me, taking my face between her hands. “Nothing. You do nothing because you’ve done nothing so far. Turning yourself in now would be the end for you. You know that, don’t you?”

“Yeah, I do.” 

She made a sound of approval that reminded me of someone offering encouragement to a small child. “Does Cilla know what happened?”

I shook my head. “She was so goddamn drunk she couldn’t even say her name. Once the cops started to show, I got her out of there, took her back to our hotel room.” I shook my head once more. “No, she doesn’t know.”

When I looked into Sam’s gray eyes, I noticed how hard they’d gotten. Dropping her gaze from mine, she wrapped her arms around my shoulders and buried her face in the crook of my neck. “Good,” she whispered. “It’s good she doesn’t know.”

Three months later, my ex-wife sent me her first demand for money.

When I’m finished, both my sister and Sienna sit in a dazed silence. Sienna’s no longer gripping my hand, and I glare down at a scuffmark on the hospital floor. “That’s what Sam has on me,” I say bitterly. “His name was Bryce Roberts.”

“Bryce Roberts,” my sister repeats, and I close my eyes. “Holy fuck, Lucas.”

 I look over at Sienna to find her staring blankly at the wall.

She asked, and I gave her what she wanted to know. And now, I’ve ruined things with her.

“I sent his family money. An anonymous donation,” I say, like it will help the situation. “But god, it was an accident. I swear I didn’t mean to kill him.” My voice is pleading, and Sienna moves her head up and down.

“No, I understand.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Kylie leave the room quietly. As soon as she’s gone I get up and move to Sienna’s bedside. She doesn’t recoil, but she doesn’t look at me either. 

Fuck.

“I love you,” I say roughly. “More than anything I’ve ever loved. And I’m so sorry this happened to you.”

At last she turns her face to me, giving me a full view of the damage that was done to her. “I know you do. And I love you too—it’s impossible for me to stop.” She closes her eyes tightly, and tears squeeze out of the corners. “I just need to think.”

“I’ll wait for you to come to me,” I say. 

But after all the lies and the bullshit, the regrets, I still feel like the world has been ripped from beneath me when she turns away.

Because I’m a monster.

Sienna

After Lucas and Kylie leave, I finally ask for those pain meds the medical staff has been trying to force down my throat since I was admitted here. Hot tears are running down my cheeks, scalding me as I take the tiny plastic cup from my nurse, and by the time I’ve downed the swig of water she’s given me, my shoulders are shaking.

The nurse stands at the bottom of my bed, her face wrinkled into a mask of concern. “Do you need me to call someone for you, Ms. Jensen?” 

Whom would I have her call? Gram, who’s already worried sick over all of this? Seth, who has spent every moment of the last 24 hours blasting Lucas for failing to protect me.

Or Lucas? Lucas, the beautiful, tattooed man who makes my chest seize up every time I picture him, every time he comes into a room. The beautiful man whose ex-wife probably orchestrated my attack. The man who, not even half an hour ago, admitted to me that he had murdered a man protecting someone else four years ago.