Giving Away by Lola King

CHAPTER 20

‘All my demons dance through the motherfuckin’ nighttime’

PARANOID – Chase Atlantic

Jake

I feel a presence behind me before I hear the click of the gun. I went to get Jamie’s present from the pool house, and I knew I was done for. I walked out of the front door and I felt it as soon as I turned to round the house. Fuck knows why I went through the front door and not the back. I guess I was closer when I walked down the stairs. All I know is I should have gone the other way.

“Happy new year, brother.” Nate’s satisfied voice rings in my ears.

How the fuck did he get past the gate? I turn around to face him and his gun in my face. To my surprise, he didn’t come alone. I mean, of course, Sam is behind him smoking a cigarette, they come as a pair. But I didn’t expect Carlo Diaz to be there with him. This is serious shit and I know when a situation isn’t going to end well for me. This is one of those. Nate alone I’d find it hard to take on. Nate armed and with two of his bitches isn’t exactly going to go down nice and easy.

But I’m not worried about myself. All I’m worried about is that they don’t get in and find Jamie. They came for me. Me and Rose more specifically. They want us to sign their fucking change of guardianship form. Jamie shouldn’t be involved in this, especially not when Nate is obsessed with her.

I don’t think I ever heard of a girl breaking up with my brother before. The hair, the eyes, the tattoos, the suits, they love it. He probably didn’t take it too well when she blocked him after his countless texts.

“Let’s talk in your house,” he orders.

Fuck no. I’d rather go and be tortured at Bianco’s house than for them to know Jamie is here.

“Let’s make this quick, I’ll come with you to Bianco’s,” I reply as casually as possible.

He chuckles and the sound makes me grind my teeth. “Bianco’s got no time to waste on you. He’s spending New Year’s Eve with a few escorts and bottles of whiskey. Get in your house.”

“It’s not my fucking house. I know the psycho in you wants to drag this out, but I have other things to do. Let’s go.”

His smirk turns into a dark smile and I know I should have played this cooler. Now he knows I really don’t want to get in.

“That’s true. It’s not your house,” he quips. “It’s the Murrays’. It wouldn’t really play in your favor if something happened to it.” He puts his gun in the back of his jeans and takes a step towards the front door, but I get in the way.

“This is only the start of the night, Jake. And it’s going to be a very long night. I’d suggest you buy your time before it starts getting painful for you. And it will be painful.”

I regret it as soon as I shove him back but what else was I meant to do? I need to delay him getting into the house as much as possible and the situation is already slipping out of my control.

The first two punches hurt. So. Fucking. Bad. Especially because they come from Nate. They add to the bruises that hadn’t faded from our fight at Cal’s.

The adrenaline takes over when Carlo joins in and I fight back as much as I can. I practically black out when my brother lands a punch that knocks me to the floor. I can’t feel much anymore, I think I’m passing out. The last thing I see is Sam calmly pushing the front door open and the last thing I feel is someone grabbing my shoulders and dragging me.

◆◆◆

Jamie

My heart stops when I’m faced with the scene downstairs and I can’t help the gasped whimper from leaving my lips.

All heads turn to me and the surprise in Nathan’s eyes is not my imagination.

“What are you doing here?” he seethes.

I want to shout, cry, claw at him. I want to reply confidently ‘I’m returning the fucking question, asshole’. But I do nothing, I’m frozen on the last step, watching as Carlo Diaz and Sam drag Jake’s barely conscious body in the foyer.

Nathan clearly didn’t expect me to be here and it’s messing up his plan. There’s a sliver of hesitation in his eyes. For a split second, I see the Nathan I knew, the one that cared for me and protected me, but it disappears as fast as it came. His gaze turns dark, and I can sense the evil part of him winning over everything else.

He turns to Sam. “Go get the shit from your car,” he says in a voice of steel.

The door opening and slamming shut finally allows me to move my body again. I run to Jake as he starts to come back to reality, but Nate stops me straight in my tracks. He grabs me by the back of the head, tangling my hair in his fist and I scream as I’m being pulled back with force.

Jake tries to stand up but as soon as he starts moving Carlo hits him with a kick in the ribs. Another.

“Stop! Stop hurting him,” I scream but that only makes Carlo laugh. “Nathan, please make him stop.”

“He’s fine,” he growls in my ear and the chill that runs down my spine is the exact opposite of how he used to make me feel.

I put a hand on his one in my hair to try and ease the pain coursing through my scalp, but he doesn’t budge. Carlo finally stops hitting Jake and I wouldn’t be surprised if his ribs were broken.

When Sam walks back in, my eyes are instantly brought to the rope he’s holding.

“No. Nathan let go of me,” my voice quivers as my whole body starts to tremble.

He sounds so cold when he talks to me, I barely recognize him. “Now, now. You haven’t forgotten what I told you, ‘Me, have you? I warned you if fell for him or let him touch you like I did I would raise hell. Jake should have said that I always serve my revenge very cold.”

The burning pain on my scalp brings tears to my eyes, one slips when he drags me with him to the living room. I hear Carlo command Jake to get up and after a few seconds of struggle, they both join us, Carlo pointing a gun at Jake’s head. Another whimper escapes my lips, squeezing desperately past my tight throat.

Nathan pushes me on the chair he’s just pulled away from the table but as soon as he’s not holding my hair anymore. I jump back up to go help Jake. I freeze at the click of a gun.

“You move, he’s dead,” Carlo sneers, making Nathan laugh.

“Fucking hell, I train them good, don’t I?”

I don’t know who he’s talking to, me or Sam, but I’m too focused on the gun at the back of Jake’s head and the way Carlo is holding him to care. He’s holding him like Jake would fall if he let him go. His lip is bleeding, his eyes keep rolling to the back of his head, and the two big bruises forming on his left temple and jaw explain why.

He won’t shoot him.

He will NOT shoot him. He needs him!

Rationality might be screaming at me but my body refuses to listen. All it knows is that danger is imminent and if I want to avoid it, I shouldn’t move.

So I don’t.

“Sit back down. I need you to be nice and quiet for me, baby,” Nathan orders.

I want to find Jake’s gaze. I want him to reassure me, to tell me it’s all going to be okay. I want him to be his cocky self and threaten to snap Nathan’s neck if he so much as touches me. But the more I look at him, the more dreadful I feel. His head is hanging in front of him, chin to chest and I’m dying to grab him in my arms. He’s dripping blood on the carpet. I can’t help but look at it. Nathan has officially decided to put action into his threats. The fight at Cal’s was nothing to him. This. This is what he does.

I sit back in the chair, quiet, tears drying on my cheeks. I’ve already accepted that tonight is going to be the worst night of my life. Up until today, it was watching my dad and brother get shot. I’ve grieved them, accepted that none of them will ever come back in my life. I kept on living and I fell in love. Now I’m watching the love of my life suffer at the hands of someone else. The pattern repeats itself and I can feel something break inside me. Probably my heart.

I watch as Sam comes to me with the rope, but I don’t say anything. I flinch when he ties my wrists and ankles to the chair, forcing myself to show nothing else. He’s ever so quiet, I barely ever hear him say anything except to Nathan or Rose, so I didn’t expect him to walk me through how to behave when you’re being tied to a chair.

I keep my gaze on Jake, praying that he stays awake. His head is lolling back and forth as he tries to look at me and he uncontrollably spits blood on the floor. The ropes are digging deep in my skin and I suddenly wish I was wearing more than one of Jake’s long tees.

When Sam is done, I can barely move anything. The asshole is good with this. He’s tied my waist to the chair too. As if a 97-pound girl is going to cause mayhem to three gang members. As I look at them again, I do wonder where Roy is. It’s rare to see Carlo without him. His face is still bruised from when Volkov’s men jumped him.

I see from the corner of my eye that Sam quietly settles by the window giving into the backyard and lights up a cigarette. The coffee table is the only thing separating me and the sofa Jake is sitting on, so when Nathan slams paperwork on the table I can recognize what it is straight away: the form to change guardians and household.

I remember thinking there weren’t a lot of criminals that could get away with anything and that Volkov was one of them. He used to run the city of Stoneview with an iron fist. Since being part of Jake’s life, I’ve realized that might be easier than I thought.

Nathan White can get away with anything.

Kidnapping.

Attacking a cop.

Home invasion.

Battery.

Hostage-taking.

Duress.

Anything.

He isn’t scared because he knows he will get away with it.

He isn’t scared of anything and that’s the most terrifying thing about this situation.

Nathan walks to me and grabs my jaw with a strong hand, forcing me to look up at him. I pull at the rope, but I should know there’s nothing to do.

“I’m going to handle him and then, I promise, I’m going to deal with you.” His voice makes my whole body tremble.

“Let go of her.” Jake’s pained voice is nothing more than a whisper but we both hear him loud and clear.

It only makes Nathan chuckle. He turns around and walks to his brother, grabbing him by the hair and pulling him to the floor. Jake grunts in pain, he can only get back up on his knees, putting himself in a weak position. Nathan keeps a firm grip on his hair before he punches him in the face again.

“Stop, fucking stop!” I shriek as tears threaten to fall again.

I can’t watch this. Jake being beaten up in front of me is worse than the day a bullet lodged itself in my shoulder. I can feel every hit, I can feel his heart breaking. My skin prickles every time I hear the sound of flesh beating flesh and disgust grows in my stomach. I have to swallow again and again to stop myself from being sick.

“Please, Nathan, stop,” I cry.

Nathan laughs as he stops hitting. “You two are so fucking pathetic.” He gives me a disappointed look. “Especially when you know how it all started.”

I frown in confusion.

“What are you talking about?” I ask with a raw voice. Screaming and acids coming up my throat are weakening my vocal cords.

He doesn’t reply to me, instead, he lets go of Jake and lets him crash on the floor.

“Jake,” I heave desperately. “Please help him back on the sofa,” I beg Nathan, but he walks to me and squats in front of my chair to look right into my eyes. His forearms are resting on my bare thighs.

“He made your life hell at school!” he shouts in anger. His eyes dart to the necklace Jake gave me and turn darker.

He gets up and storms back to Jake looking down on him as he hopelessly tries to get back on the sofa.

“She didn’t want you, Jake. So you bullied her until she gave up. Fuck, who do you think you are, huh? You think you’re all that to her, but who do you think she came back crying to? Who do you think she confessed to that someone at school was harassing her because he couldn’t take that she was already seeing someone? Fucking. Pathetic.”

He kicks him in the legs and Jake makes another desperate sound. I try to tell myself that as long as he makes noises, he’s still conscious but his eyes are puffy and rarely open anymore. He tries to push himself into a sitting position, but Nathan kicks him down again, making Carlo laugh.

“Stay down,” Nathan orders dangerously.

Jake doesn’t listen. He tries to get up again, earning himself another kick, this time to his nose. Everyone can hear the crack it makes and my heart sinks in the darkest abysses.

“Oh my God,” I whimper. “Please, Jake, stop fighting back.”

“Mate, you’re losing the point here.” Sam’s voice cuts the tension like a sharp knife and Nathan finally reacts.

He looks up at his friend by the window and nods.

“Right…right,” he points at the paperwork. “I need you to sign this.” He taps the paper on the coffee table with a finger.

Jake lets out a chuckle that turns into a cough. “Fuck you,” he forces out. “Might as well kill me.” He coughs again.

Nathan laughs and shakes his head. “Do you think I’m stupid? That I don’t know you?” He sits down on the coffee table and rests his elbows on his knees. “See the thing with you is that you don’t mind pain. I could never get you to do anything by hurting you physically. I can punch you all night, it would bring me great joy, but I know you won’t sign that fucking thing. That’s a great trait we have in common. Pain doesn’t faze us.”

He runs a hand through his hair, undoes his blond bun, and redoes it. He pulls up his shirt’s sleeves that were already at his elbows anyway and settles back in his initial position.

“Your problem, however, is that you’re so fucking weak to the people you love. You and your useless twin care too much. And that’s the difference between you and me. And look how lucky I am tonight. Not only is Jamie here,” he takes his phone out, grabs Jake by the hair to pull his head up, and takes a picture of him, “but you know the second Ozy receives this picture of you she’s going to come running. And, really, I only need one of you to sign. The other will follow.”

I can’t believe my eyes. The extent he is willing to go to to have them sign the form is terrifying. Are we even all going to last long enough to see tomorrow?

It takes less than a minute for Nathan’s phone to ring. He chuckles to himself and mumbles a ‘too easy’ before picking up and putting it on speaker.

“Hi Ozy,” he smiles.

“Where are you, you fucking psychopath?”

“At yours. Staining the Murrays’ expensive carpet. Roy will pick you up. Come alone.”

Jake makes a few moans and I think he means to tell her not to come but he doesn’t make much sense.

“I hate you.” The line goes dead, and Nathan puts the phone away, a satisfied grin glued to his face.

We hear the tires screeching in the driveway and the front door slamming before we see Rose storming in the living room. She’s out of breath and her eyes widen when she sees me on the chair and Nathan standing right behind me.

“Better late than never, Ozy.”

He’s spent the last ten minutes right there, listing me the mistakes I’ve made by choosing Jake, describing what he’ll do to him if I keep seeing him. I stopped disputing his words when I couldn’t take the pull on my scalp every time I disagreed. I’ve just been listening, trying to block out his words but it’s impossible. Every single threat is defined too clearly for me to shut it down. When he recalled everything we’ve done, everything he wants to do to me again, I struggled to keep my calm. I’ve just been staring at the floor. I can’t look at Jake anymore, but I try to listen to his unsteady breathing, praying he’ll make it until we can call an ambulance.

Roy bursts into the room a minute after Rose with a bloody lip.

I hear Nathan laughing. “What the fuck, Roy.”

“I tried to get her in my car, she’s got a good punch.”

Rose ignores their conversation, her eyes look for her twin in the room. As soon as she finds him lying between the coffee table and the sofa, she runs to him.

“Jake,” she shakes him slightly but he only groans in return. “Jake, talk to me,” she panics.

His words are too slurred for any of us to make out what he’s saying. She gets back up, walking to me and Nathan. I can feel him shift behind me and I jump in fear when I feel both his hands on my shoulders.

“You’ve officially lost it, you know that, right?” she growls at him.

Her voice is raspier than usual, and her words sound like they’re being forced out of her throat. She’s not shaking though. Her whole body looks perfectly fine apart from her ticking jaw. Her hair is wild, and she smells of weed and sex mixed with her usual flowery perfume. There’s no wondering what she was up to at Camila’s before she came, because for once, she wasn’t with Sam.

“What are you gonna do?” Nathan asks, mocking her. “Call the cops? So you can pay Bianco another visit?”

I don’t miss the tremble that crosses Rose’s body at the mention of Bianco.

“I think someone should call an ambulance for Jake,” Nathan jests. My eyes automatically dart to Jake’s unmoving form on the floor and the fear gripping my gut is lethal.

“Yeah, what a great fucking idea. Are you gonna let me?” she snarls as she takes her phone out, probably already knowing he won’t let her.

Before she can even unlock it, Roy grabs her wrist and wrestles her phone out of her hand. It lasts a second before he manages to violently snatch it from her. Sam is on them in a few sleek steps, he grabs Roy by the back of his neck and pushes him away quietly.

“I’ll take it from here,” he says calmly, making sure Roy isn’t anywhere near touching Rose anymore.

“I’ll be the one calling,” Nathan drawls. “As soon as you sign the change of guardianship.”

Rose scoffs but her eyes darken as rage overtakes her. “How could I miss?” she sneers. “I wanted you dead so badly, how could I miss your fucking heart?”

It’s like a cold shower, being reminded that Rose shot Nathan in an attempt to kill him. It’s hard to think she would be capable of pulling the trigger on her own brother. When I think of who Nathan really is, I shouldn’t be surprised.

Nathan walks in front of me and I can see her flinch in the slightest but she’s a master at controlling her body’s reactions.

“You wanna know why you missed, Ozy?” he asks as he plants himself in front of her. “Because there was no heart to shoot,” he continues without waiting for her reply.

“I’m not signing, Nate,” she insists but her voice is growing quieter.

“Jake needs help,” he insists.

Rose runs a hand through her hair in a sad sigh before shaking her head. She looks at Jake and I notice her hands trembling as they fall back beside her hips. Her eyes lock with mine for a split second.

“Why is she here? This has nothing to do with her.” She sniffles and only now do I see the size of her pupils. She runs a hand on her nose and lifts an eyebrow at Nathan.

The fact that she wants me out of here warms my heart, but I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. I need to be close to Jake, I need to help him get out of this situation.

“I have my own problems to solve with Jamie, this is not exactly your concern.” His eyes dart to Jake again and hers follow.

“Why are you doing this?” she pleads. “We were just fine being out of your way. We didn’t cause trouble. We didn’t mention you or Bianco. We just wanted to be left alone.”

“You were fine because you thought I was dead, you stupid bitch,” he rages as he grabs her by the hair.

She winces but doesn’t say anything until he pulls her to the floor, slamming the side of her face on top of the coffee table. Her grunt makes Sam flinch and I look at him with wide eyes, silently begging him to do something but he doesn’t move. I quickly turn back to Nathan as he keeps Rose’s cheek on the flat surface, right next to the paperwork.

“Look at him!” Nathan barks, and I know he’s talking about Jake.

His body looks lifeless on the floor and I can’t help the tears that are pooling in my eyes.

Please be alive. Please be alive.

“Nate…don’t do this to us.” Rose’s voice is strained with pain and I grimace for her.

“Do you think he’s still breathing?” Nathan seethes, his hand pushing Rose’s face further into the table. “Sign, Rose. Sign or I swear to God someone is dying tonight.”

“Nate, too far,” Sam growls but it seems this time it’s not enough. Nathan is lost in his fury and none of us can get him out of there.

“I said sign!” he screams the last word, and no one misses the whimper that escapes her mouth.

Sam strides toward them. Nathan stops him with a look, asserting a hierarchy I hadn’t seen between them before. He suddenly looks young in my eyes, much younger than Nathan. I had never wondered how old he is. He’s tall and big and it never occurred to me that he wasn’t the same age as Nathan. Sam runs a hand through his hair, his body emanating anxiety like I’ve never seen on him before. He whispers a ‘fuck’ and turns around to face the wall as he paces the room. I wish I could do the same. The scene in front of me will haunt me forever.

Rose taps the table blindly with a trembling hand, looking for the pen not far from her head.

“I-I can’t see,” she squeaks in pain and fear as her hand wraps around the pen.

He pulls at her head, straightening her on her knees and she grabs the paperwork, shaking.

I want to scream at her to not do it because that’s what Jake would do, but just like her I want this to be over, and if signing is what it’ll take then so be it.

She signs as quickly as possible and he lets go of her, patting the top of her head.

“Good choice,” he taunts.

She gets back up, raging. “I hate you,” she spits at him. “Enjoy this, because next time, I won’t miss.”

He smiles at her in all his power. “I’m shaking with fear,” he says calmly.

He grabs his phone and asks for an ambulance to the house. He mentions a home invasion and hangs up after giving the address.

“Fuck everything up,” he orders Carlo and Roy and they both go out, coming back with a bat each.

“Nathan! You’ve done enough,” I fume. I pull at the ropes with rage but none of them move in the slightest. He comes back to me and tips my head up with a strong hand.

“I want to take you upstairs and fuck you, can we keep the ropes?”

The mixed reactions in my body make me sick. I hate him, I’ve never hated someone as much as I do now. My boyfriend, the love of my life, is lying unconscious on the floor and that’s because of him. He’s dangerous, his moral compass is broken, he’s broken. And he breaks everyone around him for fun.

But my muscle memory doesn’t care about all of this. It remembers the way he made my body feel and squirm under him before. I shudder at his words. No, I don’t want to be fucked by Nathan upstairs while downstairs, Jake is beaten up to an inch of his life and Rose was just coerced into signing her life away.

He leans down to put his mouth to my ear so that only I can hear him. “I’m taking your silence as a yes, beautiful.”

“It’s not,” I groan, pulling harder at the ropes. “Untie me,” I order.

“And then I can take you upstairs?”

“And then leave!” I shout with enough anger to make him retreat slightly.

“But then how am I meant to show you that you’ve made a huge mistake?” He rests a hand on my naked thigh, too close to my core. “You know when you give yourself to me, I’ll make you feel so good, Jake will be a distant memory. It’s only a matter of time.” I tremble at his words.

“Get the fuck out of my house, fucking creep,” Rose’s cold voice breaks the eye contact between me and Nathan.

He straightens up and looks down at me with a knowing smile. When he turns to Roy and Carlo, they start executing his orders. One breaks a lamp with the bat while the other starts hitting the TV.

“What the fuck,” Rose shrieks. “Nate!” She goes to grab Carlo’s arm, but Sam grabs her by the waist and lifts her up easily. He pulls her away, caging her with his massive form.

“Leave it,” he orders.

“Stop! Let go. This has nothing to do with us!”

The panic in her stare as she turns her eyes to her older brother breaks my heart.

“You already got what you wanted,” she protests in a broken voice. Her eyes fill with tears but as usual, none of them fall. “Nate, please,” she whispers in defeat. “They only wanted to take care of us. They’re good people.”

His smirk is bright as he walks to Sam and her, putting a hand on her cheek. “And we’re not, Ozy. You got a taste of the good life, but it’s not for us. Time to get back to reality.”

By the time the ambulance siren rings down the street, the Diaz brothers are finished with the whole ground floor of the house, Rose is sitting on the floor in a corner of the room, Sam standing in front of her, so she doesn’t even think of making a move. My eyes are strained, trying to look for the uneven rise and fall of Jake’s chest. The four men make their way out calmly, not without Nate telling Rose to bring the signed papers to Bianco by the end of tomorrow.

“Make sure he doesn’t put blood on them,” he chuckles. “Oh, and you know the names to give for the home invasion.”

She nods in response and they all leave without looking back.

Rose unties me before the ambulance comes in and I jump up, ready to run to Jake but I fall suddenly, and she catches me just before I hit the ground.

“My legs are dead.” I look up at her in panic.

“You’ll be fine,” she whispers back to me, running a hand up and down my back.

I think this is her attempt at being reassuring. I sit back down on the chair and try to wiggle my legs as much as possible until they feel like I can stand again.

There are multiple knocks on the door until we overhear the police forcing their way in. Rose is on Jake, trying to talk to him and making sure he is still responding. He’s talking to her, but I can’t discern his words. All I hear is her broken voice.

“I’m so sorry, I had to,” she repeats for the second time. “I had to sign.”

A police officer shouts to put her hands up when they barge into the living room. First responders are following closely. Rose slowly gets up, but she doesn’t put her hands up. “I live here, asshole.”

I can understand the confusion. She’s hunched over a beaten body, wearing tight black jeans and a tight black turtleneck. She has the typical burglar look on her right now.

Jake is put on a stretcher and they take him away. I will my legs to work and I start running after them while another police officer talks to Rose. I can hear her insults and overhear him ask if she’s inebriated or under the influence.

I run into the cold night in Jake’s t-shirt and reach the ambulance just before they close the door.

“I’m coming,” I shout. The condensation from my breath in the night air makes me realize I’m shivering, bare legs, only wearing Jake’s large tee and nothing else. I extend a shaking hand to hold onto something and get in, but the medic gets in the way.

“This is an emergency, miss, and we can’t take minors in here with us. We’re going to the Silver Falls ER, you can meet him there.”

“I-but…I need to be with him.” My bottom lip trembles at the thought of being separated when he’s in this state.

Another medic comes forward. “Miss, I’m gonna need you to step back so we can leave. This is for his safety.”

I take a step back automatically and watch as the ambulance drives away, the flashing light and siren making it look surreal. I take another step back when it hits me that I’m not actually a minor. Tonight, I’m eighteen.

Happy Birthday to me.