Page 3 of Damned By His Angel
“Your eyes tell the story you won’t.” She reaches out and grabs my hand placing her keys in my palm. I snap my gaze to hers and frown. “Take my car out back, it’s a Kia. Leave now while he’s distracted. Don’t go back to your place for anything. All materialistic things can be replaced, risking your life for those things isn’t worth it. Leave now, Dr. Kingsley, before you are the one we are treating in the ER.” Fresh tears fall, and without thinking I grab her and pull her to me in a hug which she returns.
“Thank you, Amara.”
She pushes me back and smiles knowingly. “It will be hard and you will want to give in and return. Ditch your phone and don’t come back. I’ll think of something to tell the hospital.”
“What about your car?”
She shrugs. “Ditch it when you get far enough away and catch a bus somewhere, it has GPS so I’ll pick it up in a few days. That should give you enough time to get far, far away from Chicago.”
“Why are you really doing this? We don’t know each other that well and here you are helping me, why?”
She inhales sharply. “You don’t recognize me and that’s okay but six years ago, Dr. Kingsley, you saved me when Brent beat me within an inch of my life. You saved me.” I stumble back and frown at her in shock. “In recovery, you held my hand and promised me there was a better life out there for me, I just had to find the strength to go out and find it. I did that and now here I am because of you.” I cover my mouth with my hand in utter shock at her revelation. “Now, you need to go. He'll be coming for you soon. Slip out the back and don’t ever come back here unless you are ready to put that son of a bitch behind bars.” I pull her in for another hug, then skirt around her to exit but stop and glance back at her over my shoulder.
“I’ll never forget your kindness and what you did for me here today, Amara.”
Cronos
I’m cursed.
Doomed to forever live in the darkness of my past, paying for the sins of my father. I’m burdened with the knowledge that I am the reason the only woman I have ever loved is dead. I shut down and allowed the world to continue spinning without me living. I just existed until I met her.
Max Kingsley.
She breathed life back into my damned soul. She was the sunshine on the darkest of days. She was like a wave crashing against the walls I built to ward off any chance of happiness—I wanted to wallow in my misery for the remainder of my fucked up life.
She reminds me of Mother Nature, always nourishing those around her and breathing life back into strangers. She wants to heal, not maim. She broke away from the confines of what was expected of her and made a life outside of her last name, she never wanted to conform and be like the others. She carved her own path and rebuilt herself in an image that she could face in the mirror daily and respect.
When she told me to leave, I shouldn’t have listened, I should have explained that I never meant to hurt her. Instead, I let the pain of her rejection consume me and abandoned her when she needed me most.
I needed time to heal after that, so left my family and everyone behind to rebuild myself and try to find my new normal. Don’t get shit twisted, I am so fucking far from normal I don’t even know what the real meaning of that word is—I redefined myself to fit my normal.
I had no idea where to go or what to do when I left my brother and Lon but I knew I couldn’t stay in Greece or go to New York or Miami because London would have her family watching me, so I chose a small little place in Minnesota, Grand Marais. It has a population of 1,300 people. It’s small enough to know everyone but big enough to also hide who I really am without the town folk wanting to dig into my past. I work a full time job and even went as far as to purchase the company from Bill. He was the first person with enough courage to approach me at the diner on my second week here.
I told the old man to fuck off but he just laughed and told me to follow him. Curious and bewildered by his bravery to not cower under the pressure of my glare or even heed my warning to get lost, I followed him. I was fucking rendered silent when we walked a block over and he came to a stop in front of the only mortuary in town. Bill told me I looked like the type that didn’t relish being among the living and thought working with the dead might suit me better. I’ve been working here ever since that day. When Bill retired four months ago he offered for me to buy the business at a fair price. I paid triple what it was worth, it was the least I could do.
He will never know it but his small act of kindness that day has helped me in my journey of rediscovering who I am more than he will ever comprehend. Not only do I run and operate the morgue, I am also the undertaker of the local cemetery. My cabin is nestled in the trees behind it, I’d rather live next to the dead than the living, they don’t complain or make noise.
“Morning, boy.” I look up from the body I am stitching up after just completing its autopsy to see Bill standing there with two brown paper bags and a thermos that I know is filled with his wife Beth’s famous chicken noodle soup.
“I’m working,” I clip out before returning to my task. I may like Bill and respect the old fucker but I still haven’t changed enough to enjoy the company of others.
“Tough shit, you need a break and I’m hungry.” Ignoring him I continue on with my task, hoping he’ll fuck off. “Well, Brady won’t mind us using his body as a table since he’s dead,” he says as he places the bags on top of my cadaver, knowing I fucking hate any food or drinks in here. I have a fucking thing about shit being messy and he knows this. I drop the needle and snap my head up to glare at him, only to find the fucker grinning at me.
“You’re going to be the next fucking body I’m stitching up if you don’t watch yourself,” I warn.
Bill just laughs and wags his white brows. “Boy, I am nearly eighty years young, I think I have at least another five good years in me before I’m on your table.” I grumble under my breath about him being a dick as I cross the room, remove my apron and hang it on its hook, then deglove and move to the sink to scrub my hands. Bill whistles as he passes me and heads out front, feeling fucking triumphant because he got his way. I stomp after him, pissed off that he interrupted me. I hate leaving a body on the table without finishing. The dead should be treated with respect not left on a fucking slab because I’m eating.
I drop into one of the mismatched chairs in the tiny kitchen. I never use this room unless Bill stops by. I have a receptionist who works from home and handles all my books and phone calls so I don’t have to deal with the people, I only want to focus on the bodies. They don’t talk or judge, their presence is enough for me to fill that needy human instinct of wanting interaction with another person. It pisses me off that Becky, my receptionist, is leaving next week to get married so I need to find someone else to take over for her.
“So, Beth tells me we have a new woman in town.” I scowl at the fucker as I tear into the bag and pull out my ham and cheese sandwich he brought me. “She’s a looker, my wife tells me.”
“Then you go fuck her,” I growl, earning a laugh from the old fucker.
“Rumor has it, she isn’t looking for an old washed-up man but a young twenty-five year old guy, covered in tattoos, black hair and brown eyes.” I narrow my eyes.
“Good try, asshole, no one knows me and if they do, they have no idea I got inked.” It’s true, I decided to decorate my body with the story of my past when I left. I haven’t seen anyone since then. I send London her photos, but it’s never of me like she wanted. They are pictures of the landscape, a book or something trivial. We talk on the phone but rarely facetime. I don’t want to see her and her knowing me as well as she does, she will see in my eyes that something is missing from my life and push me for information.
Bill shrugs and takes another bite of his sandwich as he leans back in his chair and shrugs. “Pity. She looks like a nice girl.”