Page 82 of It's You
She’s yours. Take her. She belongs to you.
He opened his eyes slowly, and the first thing he saw was the gash on her face breaking through the thick haze of his desire. He growled in frustration and forced himself to shift back to human form to survey the scene.
What a fucking mess.
Next to Darcy, Phillip lay crumpled and unconscious on the floor, his pants covered in blood and his severed penis beside him.
I’ll deal with you in a minute, motherfucker.
He gently pulled up Darcy’s shorts, grazing the skin of her thighs with the backs of his fingers, and shivering from the slight contact with her body. Then he picked her up off the floor, cradling her limp, warm body in his arms, and carried her to her bed. He closed his eyes, memorizing the weight of her, her scent, and softness, before regretfully lowering her to her bed. Pressing his ear against her heart, he was relieved to find a strong, steady heartbeat. He inspected her head. There was a golf-ball-sized bump and a small, nasty gash, but he was pretty sure she’d be all right. When he left with the scumbag, he’d call an ambulance and leave her apartment door unlocked for the paramedics.
He sat down on the bed next to her for a moment, surprised that her safety overwhelmed his lust for her body or Phillip’s blood. He stroked the light orange hair off her forehead, feeling his heart expand with love for her. The binding had held for eight long years.
For what is bound cannot be broken.
It didn’t matter that she was a full-blooded human, and he was a full-blooded Roug. It didn’t matter how long he stayed away. His love for her was as constant as ever. Forever. For life.
He picked up her hand and pressed his lips to her palm, inhaling deeply with closed eyes, then placed her hand gently on her chest. Something shiny caught his attention. A silver necklace, an infinity sign on a silver chain, sitting on her bedsidetable that he’d seen her wear several times while he was in Boston. He touched it gingerly, then shoved it in his pocket, turning away from her.
He had to go. Although he didn’t care if Phillip lived or died, he wasn’t going to murder him in Darcy’s apartment and connect her with that sort of sordid investigation. No. Unfortunately, Phillip needed to stay alive, which meant they needed to have a word before Jack returned home. Jack took some dental floss out of Darcy’s bathroom and tied a tourniquet over Phillip’s stump, then pulled the rug out from under the coffee table and wrapped up Phillip, which took care of the blood in Darcy’s apartment and made him easier to carry. Jack called 911 to request an ambulance for Darcy, threw Phillip over his shoulder, and then made his way down the stairs. He placed Phillip’s body in the bed of his truck and started the engine, idling on Darcy’s street until the ambulance arrived. Satisfied that she would be cared for, Jack headed north again.
He reached the Lakes District in New Hampshire ninety minutes later. Stopping at the town park in Wolfeboro, across from a building with a large red cross reading “Lakes Region Medical Center,” he pulled a ski mask out of his glove compartment and walked around to the back of the truck where Phillip Proctor lay moaning in pain.
Jack jumped into the truck bed and nudged Phillip’s face with his foot, just as Phillip had done to Darcy.
“Hey, fuckhead. Can you hear me?”
Jack leaned down and unrolled the rest of the carpet that held Phillip, then picked him up by the lapels of his shirt and dragged him to the edge of the truck bed. He opened the gate and dragged Phillip out of the truck, settling him in a half-conscious state on a nearby park bench. Then he squatted in front of him, pinching his arm. Phillip’s eyes opened in pain and widened when he looked back at Jack’s covered face.
“It-it-it was a…am-monster.”
“Listen to me, shithead. If you ever—and I mean ever—go near Darcy Turner again, you better want to die slowly and painfully. You hear me, Phillip? Because the monster will be watching. And he’ll come back and finish the fucking job he started tonight.” Phillip swallowed, nodding painfully, in a daze. “Let me make myself clear. The only reason you are alive is because she doesn’t deserve to be mixed up in the bullshit of your murder. Anyway, you can never hurt another girl like that again. I made damn certain of that, you fucking eunuch.”
Jack got back in his truck and drove away. Somewhere in northern New Hampshire, Philly and the area rug found a new home together in a never-heard-from-again dumpster.
When Jack got to Quebec, he scrawled a postcard to Darcy.
It read:
You are a beautiful, amazing woman, and you deserve far better than me. I’m sorry for everything. Good luck, Darcy Turner.
–Phillip
3
Jack took the long way home, walking the twelve miles from Darcy’s house slowly, arriving back at the lodge close to dawn. There was no sense in trying to go back to sleep. Better just to pack a bag and head north. Away from Darcy. For what felt like the hundredth time in his life.
He tried to look on the bright side. She hadn’t hung up the phone at the sound of his voice, and she didn’t call him a monster again. Part of him wondered if he should have pressed his advantage and knocked on her door, but building up trust with her again might take some time, and Jack didn’t want to blow it by pushing her too hard too soon.
He thought back to that night on the Carlisle High School stage. That fateful night before his eighteenth birthday, when he kissed a human, thinking it would be harmless, and somehow became bound to her. If he’d known what fate his actions would set into motion, would he have stayed away? In a million years, he wouldn’t have wished this fate on her. But there was no way he could have known. The reality is that it had never happened before, and as far as Jack knew, it hadn’t happened since. Their binding, legitimate and strong though it was, wasalso an aberration. He couldn’t have anticipated it, but he had been horrified when he looked into her sweet face and realized that eventually their road would lead to yesterday morning. Eventually, she would have found out who, and what, he really was.
He flattened his hands on his kitchen counter, bowing his head.
You didn’tmakeit happen. It just happened. You can’t do anything but trust it.
The binding will hold. The binding will hold.
He set the coffee to brew, took a long, hot shower, got dressed, and threw a few things together in a backpack. Then he poured himself a cup of coffee, washed out the pot, turned off all the lights, and locked the front door.
