The Black Rose Read online

Chapter Two

  I watched as he looked down at the ground for a few minutes. His face went from shock to one of pain. I couldn’t stand seeing his eyebrows pinched together or the grimace on his lips.

  “Braydon, I’m sorry. Please. I’m not trying to ruin our friendship.”

  He never answered me. He just stood up and walked back toward the front of the house. I couldn’t do anything more than watch him go.

  It felt like my heart was ripping out of my chest. Why did I have to ruin everything? I had only known him for a year and was still closer to him than I was the others that I’ve known all my life.

  I laid my head back on the lounge and looked at the sky. Oh God, I’ll never be able to look at the blue sky again without thinking of his beautiful eyes. Eyes that I may never see again. How could I be so stupid?

  “Rissa?” Gabe spoke softly beside me.

  “Yeah?”

  “Are you alright? What happened?” He reached a hand out to touch my face, when he pulled it back there was moisture on it. “Why are you crying?”

  I just shook my head. I got up from the chair, said something about a shower and made my way into the house passed the others.

  “You’re bleeding,” Lorik commented as I walked by.

  “Yeah I was shot, three times.” I stopped and turn around to look at them. “Well shot at.” I turned back, laid Braydon’s shirt on the back of a chair and made my way upstairs to my room.

  It wasn’t really my room, but Dean had given it to me when I begin staying there so much. He had made sure it had everything a girl could want or need. I had a huge walk-in closet that I had filled so I wouldn’t have to carry clothes back and forth from my house to here. There was a king size four poster canopy bed with sheer curtains hanging from it, a pale green comforter set to go with the pale purple walls. Sheer curtains hung from the windows that were almost as tall as me.

  The carpet in this room was one you could take your shoes off and wiggle your feet in and it make you think of grass, thick and plush. I loved it. But the best thing of all was the bathroom. I had my own. It had not only a huge walk-in shower that had shower heads above you, beside you, and behind you. The tub was a huge garden tub that had a small waterfall built into the wall. Dean spoiled me.

  I had just turned on the water and stepped in when I heard the door crack open. I knew it was Gabe. He was the only one that would ever do that. He knew it was the only time he would ever get me to talk. I hated talking to people, seeing the look of pity on their face. So as soon as the door closed I spilled the beans.

  “So you are more upset over him walking away than over being shot at?”

  “Gabe, look who you’re talking to.”

  “Yeah, okay. Rissa you got to remember you’re seventeen, he’s nineteen. The age difference may bother him.”

  “Never bothered Zavier,” I told him.

  “Yeah but he knew you would never go any further than kissing. Maybe Braydon doesn’t know that. Maybe the thought of love scares him.”

  “Or maybe it’s just me.”

  I turned the water off and heard the door shut. I dried off and hurried to get dressed. I looked in the mirror. I looked like crap. My waist long black hair was tangled and the rims around my eyes were bright red. I hated wearing makeup but I hated people knowing I had been crying. So I opted for the first. I also had to make sure the makeup on my back was still covering me. I knew Gabe too well.

  Gabe had my first aid kit sitting on the bed, waiting to bandage me up. I just shook my head at him. He raised an eyebrow and motioned for me to come over. Gabe didn’t take anything from me. That was why he was one of my best friends. I couldn’t stand someone that was scared of me. I was like five foot one. Then again, I did like to watch their faces when I did something to make them jump.

  I sighed and pulled my shirt off. Gabe handed me some cream and gauze to work on the front wound while he taped up the one on my back and side. I felt a little tugging and looked around, he held up a piece of shrapnel. It was tiny, would not need stitching but the fact that it went through my jacket meant it was time to rethink my source of protection.

  I had just put my shirt back on when I heard Zavier yelling that Braydon was at the front door for me.

  “See, maybe you just overreacted.”

  I nodded and made my way down stairs. The moment I could see Braydon’s face I knew something was off. If I had thought about it, I had known it the entire time. He took his jacket off and draped it over the couch. He took a step forward and I took a step back. I wasn’t scared of him, just what he had to say.

  “I need to talk to you,” he whispered but I heard him loud and clear.

  “About us?”

  He shook his head.

  “You?”

  He shook his head again. I didn’t want to hear this, I could feel it.

  “Me?”

  “Not exactly.”

  I could see his eyes begin to pool. There were very few things to make a man cry, even more so if that man was an assassin. Again he stepped forward.

  “No. No Braydon,” I said as I began backing up toward the sliding door. As I said there were very few things that scared me and I knew without a doubt he was about to drop the worst thing ever.

  I turned and took off running out the door. I wanted to be as far from him as possible in this moment. I run across the deck and was heading toward the woods when I felt the impact. Water rushed up around me and I struggled to get free from the grip. When we surfaced he tried holding me tight against him.

  “Rissa, listen to me baby please.”

  I was screaming at him to let me go, to let me get away. I didn’t care if he drowned me, I couldn’t face what he was about to tell me.

  “Baby he’s gone,” He choked out the words. I knew it had nothing to do with the water we were in but the tears that began to pour down his face, the sob he was trying to hold back.

  I managed to get turned around in his arms. I didn’t want to see those tears. But if I thought I was getting anywhere I was dead wrong.

  The muscles in my back and the back of my legs began to spasm and the screams that tore from me were a mix of pain and sorrow. I couldn’t hear them though due to the blood rushing in my ears. It was pounding with every heartbeat. And with every beat, I felt a fissure surface, crack and bleed until it felt like there was nothing left.

  I felt myself being lifted from the pool. I could hear someone saying something but nothing made sense. Normally when the pain in my back or legs started, Braydon could manage it by rubbing it and making the muscles relax. Not this time. This time felt as if my body were disfiguring itself, pulling me in ways not meant for me to bend.

  I could feel the bubbling begin in my stomach as it rolled. He must have known the look on my face because he laid me on my side as he began barking orders to the others.

  My mouth and nose burnt as the contents of my stomach came up along with streaks of blood. When I finished he was pulling me up the best he could without causing more pain to hand me a glass of water and two stomach pills.

  I was beginning to make out some things that were being said around me as I felt the needle prick my arm.

  “Oh real good Braydon. Come here make out with her, leave then come back and break news like that. What kind of person does that?” Lorik was fussing at him.

  I had always thought of them as my guys. We were protective over each other but it still surprised me that Lorik spoke to Braydon that way.

  “Back off of him Lorik. He was probably side tracked by someone trying to kill Rissa and then having her mauling him when he gets here.” Thanks Sage, he always knows how to put words just right.

  “What are you giving her?” Zavier asked.

  “Don’t worry about it,” he responded.

  “Don’t worry about it? You’re giving her pills and shooting crap into her arm. I want to know what you’re doing. I swear Braydon if you’ve hurt her, you’ll deal with me. You hear me?”

&nb
sp; Braydon just ignored him as he picked me up and carried me into the house. I think he was amazed by him. Zavier was normally a quiet type person.

  I could feel the muscles begin to relax as he carried me up the stairs to my room. When I looked back I could see all four of them following us. They weren’t giving up.

  He turned on them as he reached my door. “Stay out until I get her changed.”

  He took me in the room, slammed the door with his foot and stood me up. He stripped my clothes off, leaving me in nothing, never looking anywhere but in my eyes. He crossed the room, grabbing a tank top and boxers and helped me get dressed. He could have put me in a sack for all I cared. Nothing mattered.

  I had lost the only person I had left in this world.

  The door swung open and Gabe walked in carrying the first aid kit and my bottle of pills.

  “Okay Braydon. Stomach pills I get. But what about,” he turned and took the clear medicine bottle from Zavier’s hand as he was looking at it. “This?”

  “It’s prescribed, don’t worry.”

  I appreciated all that he was trying to do for me. There were things that I kept from even them. Things that now only Braydon and my doctor knew. That thought brought on another round of hysteria. How could I go on without my Dad?

  I couldn’t see who I was gripping a hold of as my knees hit the floor because of the tears blinding me but whoever it was held on to me just as tight. When my vision cleared enough for me to see, I was in the floor with Braydon smoothing the hair behind my ears, gripping Zavier and Gabe’s hands.

  I could hear someone begging for them not to leave, only to realize it was me.

  “Braydon, what’s wrong with her legs? They’re doing something weird,” Sage asked from behind me. I knew what they were doing. The muscles in the back of my thighs were jumping around erratically.

  “That is another story for another day,” he said as he picked me up off the floor and put me face down on the bed.

  I could feel myself calm a little as he began massaging circles in my back until I looked up and could see a blur and black hair sitting beside me on the bed. Poor Zavier didn’t know what to do but try to get up as I broke down again. I grabbed him and held him to me as I cried until I fell asleep.

  My nightmares were plagued with guns and motorcycles. My Dad was trying to out run them but never quiet making it. Each time I would wake up screaming at the top of my lungs, drenched in sweat. I think after the third time, they gave up on changing me into something dry.

  I woke the last time with Braydon on top of me, Gabe on one side and Zavier on the other. I was trying to make sense of what was going on but nothing did. I could see Sage and Lorik pacing back and forth in the room.

  “What happened?” I asked him after I caught my breath.

  “I was afraid you’d hurt yourself. You were thrashing around.” I looked into his eyes and could see the pain there. I hadn’t even thought about the pain he must be going through. He and Dad had gotten close within the year.

  “Oh Braydon,” I said as he let me sit up. I wrapped my arms around him and held him.

  After a few minutes I asked someone to get me the phone. If the boys were in this bad of shape, Dean was worse.

  “Where you able to stop her in time?” Dean sounded frantic.

  “Stop me from what?” I turned and looked at the guys. I saw Braydon swallow hard.

  “You were trying to kill yourself Rissa. That’s why I was holding you down. You got my gun and,” he couldn’t finish it. He wiped his face with his hands then run them through his hair.

  I was shocked. I didn’t even know I had done it.

  “How are you, Dean?” I whispered into the phone. I had to clear my throat to try to get the tightness to leave before I could ask loud enough for him to hear me.

  “I’m more worried about you, princess. How are you doing?”

  “From what they’re telling me, not to good. I didn’t know I had done that. I’m sorry.”

  What else does someone say to that? I had to apologize though; these guys didn’t deserve to have a mental case on their hands on top of everything else. And Dean, poor Dean, he was like a brother to my dad. I know this had to hit him hard.

  No one said anything for a little while. I was doing everything I could to hold it together, at least until I was off the phone. But I had to ask two very important questions.

  “How did it happen?”

  “We think it was natural causes, we won’t know for sure for a few more days.”

  “Can I see him?” That question made everyone in the room tense up. I could even imagine Dean’s jaw tightening up at the thought of it.

  “No sweetheart. You need to just remember him like he was.”

  “Please. He’s my dad, Dean. I’ll never get the chance to say goodbye. Please.”

  He never answered. Gabe took the phone from me and walked out of the room. Braydon opened his arms to me and I fell into them and sobbed on his chest.

  That’s where I stayed for two days.

  He had somehow managed to get me up long enough to shower and eat but otherwise, I didn’t leave his arms. I needed someone to hold onto since my reality was slipping away.

  When I woke up later on the third day, it was still night time. I moved my arm to find the bed empty. The shuffling across the room caught my attention but I couldn’t blame him. He stayed in bed this whole time, he probably wanted to get up and stretch his legs.

  “Why are you standing over there in the dark?”

  I always slept with the light on. I had my reasons. Braydon knew these reasons and never turned the light out on me.

  “Because, I’m here to kill you.”

  That statement sent a shock through my entire system. That wasn’t Braydon. That wasn’t any of the guys. I had no idea who it was and here I was in the bed in nothing but a t-shirt and underwear. My weapons were nowhere to be found.