Page 5 of Atonement

I had a chance. I knew that now. I could save us both, if I had the courage. And for her, there was no other option. I was afraid, but not defeated. And that was everything.

I pushed myself to my feet, fingers slipping a bit against the droplets of blood on the floor, and snagged the ice to hold against my face as I stumbled down the hallway.

“Wait,” I called, just as Shawn stepped into the elevator. He paused, straddling the doorway, and looked back at me.

“Did you find your balls back there, Schaf?”

I pushed past him into the elevator and jammed the button for the ground floor with my free hand. “Give me the fucking keys.”

He smiled as he dropped them into my hand, clapping me on the back as if we were on our way to the bar instead of my father’s house to rescue an innocent woman. But the way he beamed at me, I knew I had passed some essential test in his mind. An evaluation that set the tone for our future relationship as much as it did for Madeline’s life. As the elevator doors opened and we stepped into the early evening, sky already black, I threw aside the ice and gritted through the pain in my hand as I gripped the gearshift of the car worth more than my own pathetic life would be if I had wasted too much time, and we peeled off into the night.

Meyer

The silence on the drive to Conrad’s house was a welcome reprieve from the yammering I’d had to listen to all day. Not only did it give my ears a break, but the quiet also helped me focus on keeping the contents of my stomach in check. With every passing mile, my anxiety increased and I thought of a new reason why we should turn around. The options looked through my mind: Go back to Shawn’s apartment. I could run off on my own, and I didn’t think he’d come after me. Not now he had Madeline. Or I could turn the steering wheel, slam us into the concrete divider and end it all for good. Maybe my next suicide attempt would be the final one. I dismissed each idea in its turn—too dangerous. Too painful. Too likely to fail.

Wait until the next exit. Then you can come up with a plan.

But suddenly we were pulling onto the road that led back to Conrad’s property where I resided in my own home, and I had no better idea of what I was going to do.

My foot slammed on the brake as we approached the fork where we could either turn to my house or go on to Conrad’s.

“Shit.” Shawn’s palm hit the dashboard as he flew forward, momentum stopped abruptly by the seatbelt. “What the hell? Why did you stop?”

“I need a minute.”

“We don’t have time. We—”

“I need to fucking THINK!”

I pressed the heels of my hands against my eyebrows, and my broken finger lit up like a beacon.

Step one.

I looked up and held out my hand. “I have to get rid of this.”

“How come?” Shawn sat back in his seat, relaxed for a minute, as I shifted the car into park.

“I can’t have a visual reminder of my weakness so obvious and on display.” I yanked off the straps holding my brace against my hand, wincing as the support allowed my bones to shift out of place once more. “Drive back to my house. Let’s take care of this first.” The outer edge of my hand was a deep red, not quite purple, but clearly an unnatural color. My finger was swollen to twice its normal size. Bending it was out of the question, but I’d have to figure something out.

The house was dark as we pulled up to it, sitting in shadow even though the sun was still above the horizon. When we walked in my front door the cold emptiness hit me harder than ever before. Had it always been this desolate before Maddie came along, or was I just feeling sorry for myself and projecting on to an inanimate object?

“Get me some ice and ibuprofen,” I instructed Shawn as I walked to my bedroom. I needed some of my own clothes, not Shawn’s cheap shit. Jerking the shirt over my head with my uninjured hand, I nearly ran into the door jamb before I got it off and tossed it to the side. The sight that greeted me stopped me short.

The place had been tossed completely. Sheets torn off the bed and piled in the corner, drawers yanked from the bureau and overturned, clothes thrown throughout the room. I walked slowly into the closet, only to find every Armani suit and Hermes tie crumpled into a ball. My shoes had been yanked down and the shoe trees removed before being similarly dumped unceremoniously on the floor.

“Shit,” I muttered, picking up a jacket and brushing at the wrinkles ineffectually. “That’ll be an expensive dry cleaning bill.”

“What happened in here?” Turning, I saw Shawn standing in the door to my closet with his eyes wide.

“Good fucking question.” I dropped the suit and held out my hand to take the bag of frozen peas Shawn was holding. “Where did you find these?”

“In your freezer. Do you really not know what food is in your own house?”

I shrugged as I held the ice against the top of my injured hand, the cold spreading up my bones to my elbow. “Joshua does—did—the shopping.” Pulling out my cell phone with my left hand, I licked my lips and hit the call button before I could think better, then set the bag of peas on the ground. I could deal with that in a minute.

The phone on the other end of the line rang far too many times. He was making me wait, I knew it, but the tactic still served its purpose. My blood pressure rose each time a new ring began and ended without him answering.

“Hello?”

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