The Bulletproof Boy Read online

  I hold her against me for several more minutes, thinking about everything. The wheels in my head are spinning out of control. When the shower turns off automatically to conserve water, I can still hear it falling all around me. It’s so loud, now. All the colors and sounds inside my head are a cacophony. I was peaceful in my silent darkness, for a brief moment in time. Things were easy. I was dead to the world, but now I have to find a way to live again. I have lost my peace, but regained something greater. Love. I wouldn’t trade the girl in my arms for anything. I will make this work, somehow. I am the one who messed it all up.

  “Scar,” I tell her softly. “You’re kind of silly. How could you ever think I didn’t want to be with you? I have given you my whole life. I always fulfilled the duties of a boyfriend or husband, emotionally. Sexually, I tried to hold back to prevent exactly the issue that ended up separating us. But I couldn’t successfully hold back forever, and you knew that. You tortured me, on purpose. You had me completely wrapped around your finger, my love. I would have been anything for you. Friend, brother, boyfriend, lover, husband—even a goddamn circus clown. Do you want me to put on a clown costume and dance around and… do whatever clowns do? I swear, I will. You know that I will.”

  Sighing, I squeeze her naked shoulders gently. “Also, I lied earlier. About the books. I was just goofing around, but of course I have books. I have a Kindle loaded up with hundreds of them. We have tons of power from the solar panels, so you can read to your heart’s content.”

  Sitting in silence for another minute, she finally responds softly. “Really? You have books?”

  “Yes,” I say, my breath leaving my chest in a gust of relief. I hug her close. “So many books.”

  “Good. Cole? I’m sorry. I just needed a minute.”

  “I understand. I’m sorry I said all that—”

  “Don’t even worry about it,” she says, standing up and stretching. There is something strange about her voice, and she seems suddenly very energized. She offers me a hand to help me stand, and I take it with my good arm. Once I am upright, she moves to grab a towel and wrap it around herself, studying herself in the mirror.

  “You’re right. I really do look like a cherry tomato.”

  “I may have exaggerated a little. You’re more like a bottle of ketchup.”

  She laughs softly, grabbing another towel to dry off her hair. “Thanks.”

  “Scar, I appreciate you telling me all the stuff you said earlier. I never really knew the reason you went away. It kind of hit me like a Mack truck.”

  “Well, be prepared to get hit by a few more trucks,” she says as she walks into the central room of the trailer and turns around to face me, crossing her arms under her chest. “I have some other bad news.”

  “Nothing can be worse than the reason you left.”

  “Really?” She narrows her eyes and gives me a scrutinizing stare. “I thought you had a better imagination than that, Cole. There are a lot of awful things in this world.”

  “You’re worrying me,” I tell her, as prickles of dread begin to creep up my back.

  She nods, looking down to the floor. “Annabelle is dead.”

  I stare at her in disbelief for a few seconds. “No. Doctor Anna? My psychotherapist?”

  “Yeah. I’m sorry.”

  “Jesus. She is… she was an amazing woman.”

  “I know. I hacked into your emails. I thought maybe you were in a relationship with her.”

  “We spent a lot of time together,” I say softly, moving over to sit on the bed. I am still naked and wet from the shower, but that’s hardly important. “Scar, what happened? Is it my fault? How did she die?”

  She moves to sit by my side, and places a hand on my knee. “I don’t know exactly. I just got the call while I was driving over here. It turns out she’d been dead for days.”

  “No,” I say in refusal, reaching up to run my hands through my hair. “Are you absolutely sure?”

  “Yes. The detective found her body at her clinic. She was murdered at work.”

  “But the clinic is so busy,” I say in protest, trying to find any way to make this untrue. “How could no one find out for days?”

  “Her secretary was calling clients and cancelling all the appointments.”

  I shake my head, unable to understand. “Brittany, right? Why would she do that?”

  Scarlett closes her eyes briefly, leaning against my arm before responding. “Cole, her secretary’s name is Brittany Brown.”

  “Oh, fuck,” I say, putting both of my hands in my hair. I get up and begin pacing in the NovaTank. “Fuck, fuck, fuck. I didn’t know, Scar. We never met her, did we? There were photographs in the house. Was she at my trial? I knew I didn’t like the secretary, but I thought it was just because she always wore so much makeup. I mean, those extremely square eyebrows and all that crazy contouring. She was just trying way too hard. Why would she spend like three hours on her makeup every day when she’s just a secretary?”

  “Because she’s also a serial killer,” Scarlett explains with a shrug. “The makeup bothered me, too, the first time I saw her. It was flawless. But it turns out that it might just be a type of disguise. Contouring can change the appearance of the facial structure. We didn’t recognize her as Mr. Brown’s daughter, after all.”

  Growing too tired to keep pacing, and too tired to put clothes on, I crawl over the little bed to lie on my back, behind Scarlett. I think about Anna, and everything I learned from her. She was a good woman. She was only targeted because she tried to help me.

  Scarlett reaches for the blankets and tugs them over my naked lower half, before moving into the bed beside me and resting her head on my good shoulder. “I’m so sorry, Cole. I’m sorry that your girlfriend is dead.”

  I swallow a lump of emotion. “She wasn’t my girlfriend, Scarlett. She was helping me get over my issues.”

  “What issues?”

  “Losing you. The stuff we talked about in the shower. The stuff I did to scare you away.”

  Sliding closer, Scarlett pulls the blanket over herself as well, and rests her leg over my thighs. “You haven’t lost me. I’m right here.”

  “But I keep hurting you,” I tell her angrily. “You know what, I think that Anna was interested in me. I was just so emotionally unavailable and fucked up that she had to be my therapist instead of my lover. She knew that I was too unstable and… frankly, too much in love with you to offer her anything.”

  “And now she’s dead,” Scarlett tells me softly. “You could have had something wonderful with her, but now she’s dead, and you’ll never know. It’s too late.”

  I look at her in surprise. “Something wonderful, like what you have with Zack? I’m devastated that Anna’s gone, but don’t say shit like that. I never wanted anyone but you, Scarlett.”

  “So don’t make it too late for us,” she says softly, placing her hand on my stomach, and tracing my abdominal muscles. “You nearly died, Cole. It isn’t the first time. Then I nearly died finding you. Let’s just be together from now on. In every way.”

  “I want nothing more,” I tell her honestly. “That’s what I was really trying to say, in the shower…”

  “I know,” she says with a smile, sliding her leg over my upper thighs, “I would like that, too. No more wasting time, right?”

  There is something odd about the way she’s behaving. “Scar?” I ask softly. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m better now,” she responds, slowly raking her leg up my naked body so that it grazes my penis and rests across my hips.

  This makes my breath catch in my throat a little, and I gently hold her knee still.

  Turning her head toward my skin, she places kisses on my tattooed shoulder, while letting her hand slowly slide up over my chest. “I missed you, Cole.”

  “I missed you, too,” I tell her, groaning a little as her knee moves a little in my hand, causing her thigh to massage my hardening member. “Scar…”

  She removes th
e towel she is wearing so that her body is naked as it rests against mine. She shifts her position a little so that she can place her lips near my ear, and she kisses my earlobe and bites it before whispering something quietly against my neck. “Didn’t you say something about fucking my brains out?”

  I draw in a breath sharply. Pulling away to look at her face, I see that familiar, frightening glint in her eyes. “You’re not Scarlett.”

  “No,” she responds. “Of course not. I’m the one who does what needs to be done.” Shifting her weight to her knees, she sits on top of me, straddling my stomach. “Right now, I think that happens to be you.”

  Sighing, I place my hand on her thighs, a little sad that Scarlett felt the need to send in her pinch hitter. But this girl is an important part of Scarlett, and I love her, too.

  “I didn’t mean to hurt her with all that talk of making a baby,” I try to explain. “I was just overwhelmed…”

  “It’s okay. She’ll get over it. She’s way too sensitive sometimes. You’re not our enemy, and she knows that. She just needs to hide for a minute. And I don’t mind the fresh air.”

  Looking up at Scarlett’s face, I see that old familiar strength. I know this girl well, and we have a certain understanding. We have killed for each other. I reach up to touch her face, and let my hands fall down to her neck, before sliding them over her breasts, and the rest of her body. “I’m glad to see you. I didn’t know if you were still inside her.”

  “Of course,” she says with a small smile. “It’s so warm and comfortable inside this body. You should join me.” She scoots back to rub herself against my erection teasingly. “I miss feeling you inside me, Cole.”

  I close my eyes and groan, digging my fingers into her thighs. “Stop that. Scarlett’s upset with me, and I don’t think she wants this.”

  “Don’t you think I know what she wants?” the girl says angrily, leaning forward to glare down at me. “She wants the same things I want, but she’s too afraid to go after them. Do you know what a pain in the ass she’s been lately? She keeps giving up. I’m always fighting so hard to get past her fears, but I can’t do jack shit unless she lets me.”

  “What do you mean?” I ask her, reaching up to splay my fingers across her breasts. I gently close my fingers together, squeezing her nipples between them. It’s so easy for me to touch this girl. I know her so intimately, and I’m never afraid with her.

  She bites her lip as my hands massage her breasts. Then she looks down at me intently. “Cole, do you honestly think she’s tough enough to walk that far in the blistering sun? She’s pathetic. She kept sitting down to rest. She even passed out once. I just got up and kept going. By my calculations, she only walked for seven hours. That was her limit. I walked the other fifteen.”

  I blink. “Are you telling me you were walking for nearly twenty-four hours straight?”

  “Well, it wasn’t exactly easy to find you. Her phone died, and I had to follow the map from memory. The first patch of water was a dud, and I got lost.”

  “Damn you,” I say hoarsely. “Look at what you did to her! She’s burned and blistered all over. You hurt her badly. She was so dehydrated.”

  The girl looks at me in shock before drawing her hand back and slapping me in the face. I cry out, because she slaps the cheek where I’ve been shot. “Really, Cole? Do you think she gives a crap about these sunburns? She put a gun to my head, did you know that? At your funeral, in front of Miranda and Mr. Bishop. Damn you for making her think you were dead, because she really wanted to join you. I fought so hard to stop her, but I can’t take control. I can only make her finger hesitate on the trigger. I can’t stop her from pulling it unless she lets me. She’s getting stronger as she gets older.”

  “No,” I say in refusal, my heart beating erratically. “She didn’t really try to do that, did she?”

  “Yes. Your house on Red Earth Lane—the ceilings are about eighteen feet, correct?”

  I visualize the floor plan, and those ceilings. The number seems correct, so I nod.

  “She was calculating whether throwing herself off the banister would get the job done when we didn’t find you at the house. She thought about it several times on the way here. I’m part of her mind, Cole. I know when she’s serious about something, and I had to find you to save her life. So don’t you dare yell at me about some fucking sunburns.”

  As she speaks, I begin to remember all about this girl, and how much I admire her. “I’m sorry,” I tell her, sitting up slightly so that I can wrap my arms around her and kiss her. “I know that you’ve always protected her more than anyone else. I should never have suggested otherwise.”

  “I never wanted her to leave you,” the girl says with tears in her eyes. “I tried to stop her. I tried to make her call you from the motel room and tell you about the pregnancy, but she wouldn’t let me.”

  “I know you did,” I tell her, running my hands over her back. “You were always so honest with me. We understand each other.”

  She kisses me gently, and it feels different than it did in the past. This girl used to be pure fire and brimstone, but now she’s a prisoner in her own body. She pulls away, looking at me as though she can read my thoughts.

  “Serena is completely governed by fear,” she says, “while I have no fear at all. What an odd pair we are, the two of us. She is definitely not well—after what happened with Benjamin, she can’t even think about being pregnant without having a nervous breakdown. She couldn’t even tell you about Annabelle, so I had to do it. I’m sorry for all the trouble she’s given you.”

  “It’s worth it all,” I tell her, resting my forehead against hers. “You’re here with me now, and that’s all that matters. We’ll get through everything else.”

  “I wish I could be here more,” she says. “It’s so difficult, helping her stand up when she keeps dragging me down. I keep fighting, Cole. People always say that you need to have hope and faith, but they are idiots. You make your own damn hope by fighting through obstacles. You need to have faith in yourself and your abilities. She thought you left clues for us to find you, but I just made up those clues to keep her going. And I kept fighting to get to you at all costs, so that she could have some hope. I refused to believe that you were gone, that anything could keep you away from me, even death.”

  She cups my face in her hands and smiles with an unearthly beauty and power.

  “I swear to god, Cole. If you were really dead, I would have found a way to bring you back to life. You think this sunburn is bad? It’s nothing. I would have walked through hell to find you. I’ve walked through fire for you before.”

  Her words wash over me, making my heart swell at the immensity of her love. I wish I could show her that I’m just as devoted to her. I find myself ignoring the pain in my shoulder as I grasp her thighs and pull her legs around me, positioning her hips so I can make love to her. I don’t feel the need to ask her for confirmation of whether she wants this, because I can see the need in her eyes. Her words already pierce into my soul deeper than anything we could do with our bodies.

  When I prod against her entrance, I find that she is already dripping wet, moving against me, and begging me with her hands, her mouth, the rocking of her hips. I plunge myself into her as I kiss her mouth, feeling her cry out against my lips. I dig my fingers into her waist, dragging her down against me and grinding my hips up against her to drive myself deeper.

  She tilts her head back and cries out, and I use this opportunity to take one of her breasts into my mouth and suckle hard as I fuck her, beginning to grow more rhythmic with my motions. I pull her nipple gently between my teeth, causing her to gasp as I lift her hips up and down on my shaft. My shoulder pain is entirely forgotten.

  “God, I missed you,” I murmur hoarsely, clutching her against me with an achingly tight grip. I really never thought I’d hold her like this again.

  My heart is pumping new blood wildly through my veins, and I feel like a brand new man. I don’t kno
w where this blood came from, or who it belonged to before it was mine, but I know it has never pumped so madly through anyone’s body, or experienced such an emotional, hormonal surge of bliss.

  This blood may have kept me alive, but that did not matter until this moment.

  Now, I am finally living.

  My shoulder is cramping up due to the difficulty of the position, but I keep going. I use my whole body to lift her, rocking back with my hips, and slamming her down to impale her as deeply as I can.

  “Cole!” she gasps loudly, wrapping her hands around my shoulders. Her fingers dig into my stitches. “Harder. Please.”

  Lifting her body against me with my good arm, I twist and lower her to the bed, following to rest my hips between her thighs. I continue to drive myself into her, as deeply as I can, and as forcefully as I can, feeling like a man possessed. She cries out and uses her legs to pull me closer, arching her back off the bed.

  “Don’t ever leave me again,” I growl against her temple as our sweat mixes together. “I’m sick of being fucking patient with you. I should have just flown to D.C. and beat the shit out of Zack and dragged you home years ago. You’re my woman.”

  “I wish you had,” she says breathily. “Cole—slowly, slowly. We don’t want to hurt her.”

  “Speak for yourself. Maybe I do want to hurt her a little,” I say as I rest my weight on my elbow and wrap my other hand around her neck, constricting slightly. “She left me.”