Page 40

Fade: To lose vividness or brightness in color.

H ow can I watch the man I love fade away?

I woke up in a room I didn’t recognize. My body felt like it was broken. I looked over to the form sleeping beside me. It was Pharaoh. He wasn’t asleep. He was lying down with his eyes unblinking.

“Pharaoh?” I said, my voice coming out as shitty as I felt. I tried to wrap my head around the events, but it felt like whiplash. I hadn’t been able to breathe.

Taliah…

“Where’s your sister? Is she okay?”

Pharaoh didn’t speak. He just kept staring blankly at the wall across from where he lay.

“We couldn’t find her.”

I gasped, searching for the voice in the room. Goliath sat on a chair at the far end of the room. He had a sling around his arm, and his face was covered in healing cuts.

“What…what happened?” I said, suddenly feeling terrified. They didn’t find Taliah?

Where was she?

“My sister used some form of emergency cauterization. There is no body. She’s just…gone. We don’t know where she is. People were looking for her. It has been a week now. You were sedated for a while to recover from some of your injuries.”

I looked over my body. I definitely felt broken.

Wait, a week? I had been in this bed for a week?

“What the fuck? What happened? What’s wrong with your brother?”

Goliath flinched at the word brother. His huge body seemed to shrink.

“Pharaoh will be okay. Eventually,” he said in a soft whisper that didn’t match the massive giant that he was.

A woman with dark curly hair entered the door and walked over to the medical bags hooked up to me. “Hi there. I am Ezello Lavita. I have been caring for you since you arrived.”

Arrived where?

“You’re at Hospital Thirteen,” Goliath said, standing up to his full height and walking over to my bedside. “Pharaoh asked me to ensure you didn’t wake up in another hospital. He wanted you safe…”

I looked over to Pharaoh again, his big body unmoving.

We were in the asylum. Was this for protection?

“Where is Ferdinand?” I said with a shaky breath, feeling my blood run cold at the memories of running from him in the woods.

“Dead.”

I swallowed hard and let out a shaky breath.

“Good.” I meant it. I was glad he was dead. I only hoped Taliah was somewhere safe.

“You can leave anytime, Ms. Summers,” Ezello said. “We kept you here for your recovery, but you are not a prisoner.”

The way she said ‘you’ made me look over again at Pharaoh.

“We both aren’t prisoners. We can leave together, can’t we?”

I sat up on the bed, pulling myself onto the mattress to see Pharaoh better.

He was lying on the bed, his back turned to me. I leaned over and saw a handcuff linked around my bed.

I wasn’t a prisoner…but he was.

“Please. Someone tell me what the fuck happened?”

Goliath looked away, scrubbing his face with the back of his hand before kissing the top of the nurse’s head and walking out the door.

“I don’t understand what is going on,” I said, watching the giant leave.

Was he crying?

“Ezello, right? Please. I need to know what happened. Why is Pharaoh handcuffed? You can’t seriously blame him for my ex’s actions? If he killed him, it was self-defense. It had to be.”

The pretty nurse took a minute before answering, choosing her words carefully.

“There were multiple…casualties that night.”

I tried to wrap my head around her cagey words.

“Someone else got hurt? Goliath? He looks beat up, but don’t brothers fight like that? Who cares?”

“Goliath had minor injuries.” Ezello was measuring her words before speaking. “As well as Randall, who was with them.”

Brother.

When I said ‘brother,’ Goliath looked near tears.

“What kind of injuries does Judas have? Is he okay?”

Ezello tried to control the emotion on her face, but she wasn’t as skilled as Taliah. I could see the pain in her eyes.

“No. He is not.”

I waited for her to continue…to explain. She didn’t. It was as if the words were too painful for her.

“I killed my brother.” My eyes shot over to Pharaoh.

His words were a broken whisper. His eyes were still staring at nothing but the horrors inside his mind.

“You…what?”

Ezello rubbed Pharaoh’s arms, and those tears she tried to hide fell down her cheeks.

“Roe. You should sleep. Do you want more of your medication?”

The way Ezello was speaking to Pharaoh was odd. It was like she was scared of him. Why would he kill Judas? It had to have been an accident. He would never hurt someone he loved.

Ezello cleared her throat. “Fallon, why don’t you try walking around? It will help blood flow. You have been in this bed for some time. You are at risk of clotting.”

I shook my head, not willing to leave Pharaoh behind. I needed to figure out what happened. What people weren’t telling me?

“Ms. Summers. Please,” Ezello continued. “A walk would be good for you.”

I got the feeling she was trying to talk to me in private. Maybe she would tell me what the fuck was going on.

“Okay. But not a long one.”

Ezello nodded and helped me get out of bed. I was definitely worse off than I felt. My body was stiff, and moving one foot in front of the other was hard.

“Tell me what’s going on. No nurse talk bullshit this time, okay? I am a big girl, and I can handle it,” I said when we got far enough away from the room Pharaoh was in.

Ezello sighed. “We don’t know what happened, Fallon. Judas attacked Goliath and his guard. They didn’t see it coming, and when they came to, they found Pharaoh…”

I waited for her to continue.

“He was staring out at the cliff, holding you in his arms.

I tried to think back to those moments in the forest. Ferdinand had chased me after he found me searching for Taliah. I fought him off, but he was so much stronger than I was…

The wind was picking up. It was carrying his laughter as he chased me. I had to get away. I had to find Taliah and get us back to the cabin. I didn’t even know if she was alive.

“Taliah!” I hollered to the setting sun. I followed her blood trail. It was too much. I feared the worst.

Her form finally came into view, hidden behind shrubbery. She was lying against a boulder near a huge drop-off. My heart sank even more. Ferdinand wasn’t far behind me, and this was a dead end.

“Taliah! Oh my god, Taliah.”

She was breathing, but it was too fast. Her words came out in grunted pants.

“Fallon. Get out of here. He is going…to find you.”

I shook my head furiously. I wasn’t leaving her.

“No. Tell me how to fucking help you. I am in love with your brother. You should know that means I’m stubborn.”

She laughed softly. “Of course. Did you…did you bring the gun he had?”

I reached inside my pocket, pulling out the gun that I swiped from the pool of her blood in the cabin.

She nodded. “Good. Now, I need you to take out the bullets and open them.”

I followed her instructions, not understanding a damn thing but sure that she knew what she was doing. She had the same hard edge that the triplets did.

“Reach into my pocket, Fallon, and get my lighter…it’s funny…as a doctor, I have always been told my smoking habit would kill me…guess they were…wrong…”

“Uh. Okay, whatever you need, Taliah, but hurry. He’s coming.”

I reached into her blood-soaked pants pocket, feeling the lighter she was referencing, and handed it to her. I could see the black-looking blood seep from her wound every time she breathed.

“Okay. Now get back and don’t listen to what I say next. Ignore me…okay?”

I was confused, so I backed away from her.

Taliah dumped the gunpowder onto the oozing wound and took a shuddering breath before flicking on the lighter. Her scream vibrated the trees above us. The powder caught flame, and the wound burned in a sizzle of smoke.

“Fuck! Oh, my fucking god. Make it stop!”

I lunged for her, but then her words entered my mind. She told me to ignore her because this was…saving her.

She had made some type of cauterization tool, and her bullet wound was closed.

“Taliah. Oh my god. You are such a badass.”

Taliah was sweating. Her tan face was covered in perspiration, blood, and dirt, but she was smiling.

“Told you I could fix worse.”

I laughed, feeling relief for the first time in the night.

But that was short-lived. Ferdinand heard her scream of pain. The branches behind us were snapping, and I could hear that ragged breathing and maniacal cackle as he got closer to us.

I looked over to Taliah.

“Go. You need to get away from here. He doesn’t want you. He is here for me.”

I looked down at the empty barrel and swallowed.

Maybe I can fool him.

Raising my hand to the woods, I waited to see his cruel face come through the foliage.

My bluff worked. He stopped when he saw the gun raised in his direction, and I looked over at Taliah again.

“Get the fuck out of here, Tal. I don’t need your death on my conscience. Your brothers would never forgive me.”

Taliah looked at her wound and over to the enemy.

She knew as well as I did. She was in no shape to try to fight him. I didn’t need her to be a martyr.

“Go. Now.”

She looked at me, the desperation in my eyes. I needed her to be okay. If nothing else, I needed someone to fucking survive this monster…even if it wouldn’t be me.

“I will come back. I will get help.”

I sighed in relief, seeing her push off the boulder to make her way toward the opposite end of the woods.

Ferdinand watched her and stepped forward to follow her.

“Stop! I will shoot you,” I screamed, shaking the weapon toward him.

Ferdinand stopped and walked toward me instead.

No…he didn’t believe me.

I looked over to where Taliah was again, and she was gone. Her body had disappeared into the forest.

At least she would be safe. I let the tears fall, knowing I wasn’t going to survive this man…maybe this was meant to be. He laughed when I turned on my heel and took off running toward the cliff, away from Taliah’s escape and to my own end.

“Oh, Pet, here we are again. Tick-tock, tick-tock! Another will drop.”