Page 3 of Out of the Darkness

Moving to where David had dropped his cell phone, he kicked it back toward him and left the basement without another word. It was up to David to get himself some help—he didn’t care either way. Nor was he worried about the guy calling the police on him. He knew how to cover his tracks, and David never saw his face due to the hood he kept over his head.

The night air greeted him like an old friend as he emerged from the back door, a smile on his face. Now that he got David out of the way, Madelyn was his for the taking. He would give her time to get over the guy, of course, but then, all bets were off.

Chapter One

Madelyn

Madelyn Hart was fighting the urge to break every traffic law known to man. As it was, she was already weaving in and out of traffic way more than was recommended and was pissing a lot of people off along the way if their blaring horns and middle fingers were anything to go by. She just didn’t have the time or patience to care.

She had just been informed a half-hour ago that David, the guy she had recently started seeing and was actually developing some real feelings for, had been attacked in his home the night before and was now in the hospital. They hadn’t given her any other information, but she knew it had to be bad. Otherwise, David would have called her and told her what was going on himself—or at least had the hospital do so. Since he hadn’t, and she had to hear from one of their mutual friends, she was only able to guess what had transpired. That thought alone had her pushing her foot further down on the gas pedal.

This was all new to her, caring about someone else in this way. Madelyn wasn’t a relationship kind of girl. She never had been due to what she had gone through as a child. That trauma had made it so she had some major trust issues, especially when it came to men. Every man in her life had betrayed her at some point, in some of the worst possible ways, and, growing up, she only knew fear and heartache. It had broken her, skewed her way of thinking, but she had vowed to never let anyone hurt her like that again.

That was why she was usually drawn to the ‘bad boys’, the ones with a million red flags who were only looking to hook up. Those guys were good for some hot and dirty sex and nothing more, and that was also the only time she let anyone be rough with her without fighting back. She found that some pain during sex was fun, and she happened to like it rough.

But those guys, the kind she usually went for, were definitely not relationship material, and she preferred it that way. She knew she was messed up, probably even broken beyond repair, but she had come to grips with that fact a long time ago, had learned to live with it.

A few months ago though, her best friend convinced her to try something new. Melanie pointed out how sad and lonely her life was and suggested that she step out of her comfort zone a bit and try to make some more meaningful connections. She had tried to resist, but Melanie was insistent. Thus, Madelyn created her very first dating profile.

Madelyn met David through that dating app a month ago. She had been apprehensive at first, but the more they hung out, the more she realized that they actually hit it off pretty well. David was tame compared to the other guys she had hooked up with, safe even, which was exactly what Melanie said she needed. None of them could have foreseen this happening though. Nor did she anticipate the turmoil it caused inside of her.

Butterflies swarmed in her stomach as the nurse led her to David’s room in the ICU. As they made their way down the hall, she found herself wondering if she should have stopped somewhere to get him some flowers or those ‘get well’ balloons. They may not have put a label on it, but she was pretty sure that they were dating. It probably looked terrible, her showing up empty-handed, but there was no going back now that she had already made it this far. She was just going to have to make it up to him some other way. Obviously, she wasn’t good at this kind of thing.

“Here you are, Ms. Hart,” the nurse stated, motioning toward a closed door on the right of the hall.

Madelyn gave her an uneasy smile. “Thank you.”

She watched as the nurse headed back the way they had come before she turned back to the room. Chewing on her lip, she took a moment to mentally prepare herself for what she might be walking in on. This was why she didn’t allow herself to catch feelings. She felt like she was on an emotional rollercoaster without the ability to get off and she didn’t like it. Add to that the fact that she hated hospitals and, internally, she was a complete wreck.

Knowing that she couldn’t stand out in the hallway forever, she took a deep breath to calm some of her rampaging nerves before opening the door. It was a private room overlooking the woods with its own private bathroom as well. Several wooden cabinets lined the walls, and there were more than a few machines surrounding the single bed, which sat in the middle of the left wall.

David was in that bed, seemingly lost in thought. He was lying back against the pillows, his blond hair tousled, as he stared out the window. He was hooked up to an IV, a heart rate monitor, a pulse ox machine, and a blood pressure cuff. However, apart from a small wound on his forehead and a bruise on his jaw, he seemed relatively unharmed.

Madelyn breathed a sigh of relief, now knowing that it wasn’t life-threatening. It felt like a weight lifted off of her shoulders, and she was grateful for it.

David must have heard her then because he finally turned his gaze over toward her and the door. She smiled at him in response as she made her way to his bedside. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here sooner,” she told him softly. She set her purse on the chair by the bed before reaching for his hand. “I came as soon as I heard. How are you feeling? Are you?—”

“Don’t,” David suddenly sneered, snatching his hand away from her as if her touch had burned him.

Her brows furrowed as she stiffened, and she realized that he had never looked at her that way before. It was a look of disgust and disdain, and it felt like a slap to the face.

“David, what?—”

“You need to leave, Madelyn,” he told her angrily. “Now. We’re done. Do you hear me? We are fucking done.”

“Why? What did I do?” she asked, shaking her head. None of this was making any sense to her. She had just seen the guy last night, and things had been damn near perfect. Now, all of a sudden, they were done? Just like that?

“What did you do?” David screamed, causing her to jump.

His eyes were crazed, full of rage—and something else. Something she couldn’t put her finger on. It was as if whatever happened had changed him in such a way that she didn’t even recognize him anymore.

Yanking the blankets off of his lap, he then motioned toward his crotch. “You’re the fucking reason I’m here! You’re the reason that fucking psycho came after me and made it so I can’t have a normal fucking sex life! You ruined my fucking life!”

Madelyn blinked at him, still trying to process what he was saying to her. Then, her gaze moved down, and that was when she noticed the bandage between his legs. The skin around the bandage appeared to be bruised, and there was a bloodstain on the gauzy material. Whatever had happened to him had been personal, and it had to have hurt, but that still didn’t explain how any of this was her fault.

It was then that she finally deciphered what that other emotion was that she saw behind his eyes. It was fear. He was afraid of her. But why?

“I’m… I’m sorry this happened to you. Really, I am,” she told him after a while. “But David, I had nothing to do with this.”

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