Page 111 of Into the Dark
“Oh, I know, Kev. You never do.” Jake turns to me, his eyes softening. “Did he touch you?” he asks. Though soft, his eyes are still darker than I’ve ever seen them, the green-blue hidden beneath layers of raven black.
I can feel the touch of Kevin’s hands echoing over my thighs, but I shake my head and throw a glance over his shoulder. Kevin watches us both carefully, an amused glint in his eye.
“Jake, can we just go home now please?” There’s a dangerous crackle in the room that feels explosive. A word, a look, the tiniest flicker of movement could set it off. I feel that. I feel it, and I’m afraid of it. Not for me—not anymore—but for Jake. And the baby.
I need to get us all out of this room.
Jake has always seemed so powerfully strong to me; fierce and capable and always in complete control. Kevin, by contrast, is unpredictable. Huge, brutal-looking, and dangerous. I’m not entirely sure how in control Jake is of this situation.
“Yeah, take your woman home, mate,” Kevin says. “Think she’s had enough excitement for one night.” He mutters something under his breath that I can’t make out and downs another gulp of Jack Daniels. I wonder how many bottles it’d take to completely incapacitate him.
Bloody hell, I loathe this man with every fiber of my being.
Beside me, Jake nods—not to Kevin or me but himself. When he turns to me and unwraps his arm from around my body my stomach sinks. “Baby, wait downstairs for me, yeah?” he says softly. “Ask Jess or someone at the front to call us a taxi. I won’t be long.” He actually manages to smile a little, and for some reason it makes me want to cry. Fear—bone-numbing fear—rips through me.
I shake my head at him. “I’m not going anywhere without you.”
He doesn’t look surprised. The hint of a smile stays firmly in place as he steps in closer. He brings his hand up and brushes a thumb over my lip before meeting my eye. He looks calm. His face has an almost serene quality to it, which bizarrely only makes me more afraid. I don’t understand what’s happening here. “I told you downstairs, didn’t I?” He smiles a little more: a flash of canine, a glimmering of heat in his eye. “You don’t have to worry about me, baby. I won’t be long. Promise.” With his hand on my lower back he tries to move me toward the door, but I push against him and shake my head again.
“Jake, I’m not leaving you here with him.” My voice is firm and resolute, and it causes a flicker of annoyance to move over his eyes.
Kevin’s laugh explodes around the stuffy air of the office, and I feel Jake stiffen.
“Okay then. Let’s go home, baby,” he says, walking us both toward the door now.
Kevin smirks, looking vindicated, but I couldn’t care less. Right now, all I need is to get us both out of here. Everything will be okay as soon as we’re out. My feet feel like clown feet, heavy and clumsy, but I cling tight to Jake’s arm and force my body to keep moving us toward the door.
“I want you the fuck out of here,” Jake tells Kevin as we pass. “This isn’t done, yeah? Not even close. Tomorrow it gets sorted.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Kevin lift his bottle up and thrust it toward us in some sort of faux celebration. “Here, Jay,” he says when we’re almost at the door. “Go home and fuck that bitch in heat, will you? Can smell how much she wants it from over here, mate.”
My heart stops even as my face burns.
Jake stops moving, some imperceptible flicker crossing his face. It’s like a switch is flipped. The tremor of a nerve being touched. He turns to face Kevin. “What did you just say to me?” he asks, terrifyingly calm.
“You heard me,” Kevin says. “And do yourself a favor, yeah? Next time, leave that fucking collar at home because it is choking the life out of you, mate.”
It happens fast. Or maybe it’s slow. The blast of heat that comes from Jake’s body is what pushes me back against the wall by the door, or did he move me backward out of the way? A low snarl comes from him as he practically flies across the room. Kevin attempts to block the first blow at the same time as he swings the bottle at Jake’s face. He pulls neither off with any great purpose, and the bottle hits the side of Jake’s body and smashes—but it doesn’t deter him in any way. Jake’s hands connect with Kevin’s face in a loud, fleshy collision of power fueled by rage. I hear the sound of the flesh being pounded, bone being battered, pain being meted out. I hear venomous threats and insults growled in an accented tone that sounds so little like the man I love. That voice I’ve heard speaking only words of tenderness and devotion, love and promise, is something else entirely now. You piece of shit…cleaned up your mess too many fucking times…you’re done…you’re dead…thought you could go near her?…talk about her…she’s untouchable…you got that?…piece of shit… Each statement is punctuated with another blow, compounded by an added kick.
God, how wrong I was to be afraid for Jake.
I watch in a horrified daze as Kevin tries to stand but is kicked down by a smash to the head from Jake’s expensive polished shoe. I’m not sure how long it goes on. I’m not sure how long I stand there stunned, frozen, speechless. I’ve never seen someone beaten before. I’ve seen blood and open wounds and death, but I’ve never stood witness to someone being damaged in this way. This is brutal, sustained violence like nothing I’ve ever known. I always suspected Jake to be capable of violence—he told me as much. He’s hurt people, he said, and he will hurt the people who threaten the things he loves. But it’s one thing to be told of a possibility and another to witness it. To see the man you love pummel another man into a broken, bloodied mess.
I notice something then.
Kevin isn’t fighting back anymore. He’s blocking the blows by bracing his arms up in front of his face, turning his head this way and that, twisting his body into a fetal defensive stance, but he’s no longer throwing any hits of his own. Why isn’t he fighting back? It looks macabre now. It looked macabre before, but now it looks like a defenseless assault. They’re all but matched in size. This shouldn’t be happening like this.
Jake isn’t shouting anymore either; he’s just a ball of tempered rage, alternating each punch with a kick, each action with something more savage than the last. There’s an almost ghastly gracefulness to his movements. Practiced. Precise. Clinical. This thought disturbs me so much I think it’s what finally shakes me out of my voyeuristic trance.
“Stop! Jake!” I rush across the room toward him “Jake, please stop it! You’re going to kill him!” I grab desperately at the fabric of his shirt and pull as hard as I can.
He resists me at first. I don’t think he even hears me, so thick is the cloud of fury he’s under. I grab his arm and pull, and finally I feel him respond, his downward kicks slowing, body softening. He takes a step back, and then another, until we’re clear of the groaning, broken heap on the floor.
Jake’s body feels white-hot in my grip, shuddering and trembling beneath my fingers. He still isn’t looking at me, his face a mask of slowly receding rage and darkness, breathing hard and eyes burning bright and wide as he glares down at the floor. At his bloodied, battered, possibly unconscious friend.
“Jake, look at me. Look at me please.” I reach up and stroke my fingers down his face “Look at me. We need to go now. It’s done. Let’s just go home now. It’s done.” I take his face in both hands and press my mouth to his as I continue to move us both backward to the door. I hear groans and movement behind me—not unconscious then—but I can’t bring myself to look back at the scene. I’m not sure what sort of person that makes me, let alone what kind of doctor, but I am sure of one thing: I need to get Jake and me out of here. Kevin is alive, and that’s all I need to know.
When I pull back from his mouth I’m shocked to find his hard eyes are now looking at me with a familiar heat and hunger. This Jake I recognize. Bloodstains coat the sides of his neck and the collar of his shirt, and his arm is soaked through with the contents of Kevin’s bottle. The scent of bourbon is pungent and nauseating to my fragile stomach. His arm slides around my waist and he pulls me into his body, which begins to calm and soften against mine.