Middle of Knight (2 page)

“Goodbye, Jillian.” He looked away.

“I’m not leaving, you stubborn SOB.” She grabbed his face and forced him to look at her. He was it—her last chance at love and she was determined to take it. Her past had taken too much already. It wasn’t deserving of him too. He was her future—a future she would fight for.

“Is this a bad time?”

Jillian turned.

A doctor in a white lab coat stood at the door.

“No … sorry, come in.” She smiled past her anger and released AJ’s face as if she hadn’t just manhandled a patient.

He nodded, walking toward them. “I’m Dr. Rinehart from oncology.”

Every last bit of air evaporated from the room. Jillian couldn’t find a single breath.

“Doctor.” AJ nodded. “This is my friend, Jillian.”

Jillian looked at AJ, not Dr. Rinehart. “W-why do you need an oncologist?”

“Tell her, Doc. Why do I need you?”

Dr. Rinehart gave Jillian a regretful smile. “AJ has a brain tumor. It was discovered on his MRI after his accident yesterday.”

The air. Where was all the fucking air? The migraines, the personality that flipped without warning, the PTSD pigeonholing for everything … how could everyone have missed it?

“Cancer?” she whispered.

“We’re not sure,” Dr. Rinehart replied.

“When will you know?”

Dr. Rinehart looked at AJ.

“When I’m dead and an autopsy confirms it.”

Jillian turned, glaring at AJ. It wasn’t the time to be mad at him, but she was. How could he say that? Why would he say that?

“You’re not dying!” She looked to Dr. Rinehart for confirmation.

“I’ve consulted with the neurologist that saw AJ yesterday. The tumor may be inoperable.”

“But … you can do radiation or chemotherapy or something else, right?”

“Yes, there are other options.”

“But the neurologist confessed that the success rate is lower with tumors like mine. And I’m sure as hell not going to be a guinea pig, so—”

“So what?” Jillian snapped at AJ. “You’re just going to do nothing? Wait until your headaches get even worse? Wait until you’re having seizures every day? Wait until you—” The familiar pain in her chest crashed like a wrecking ball. She didn’t notice the tears streaming down her cheeks until she tasted their salty presence.

“Die?” AJ grabbed her hand and squeezed it so hard that pain in her chest exploded into something irreversibly destructive. “Yes, Jillian. I’m going to die.”

T
here was nothing
and yet everything to say, but the nothing won over. AJ left the hospital with a grim nod from the doctor and a handful of medications to help with the migraines and lessen his chances of having seizures. Jillian opened her mouth to speak at least a dozen times on the way home, but nothing came out.

“Thanks for the ride.” AJ mumbled, getting out of her car.

“Have you told Cage or your parents?” She jumped out and chased him toward his door.

He shook his head and kept walking.

“Don’t shut me out.” Raw emotion bled from her words. Everything had happened so fast she couldn’t process it.

The man that dared anyone to cross him stood in defeat at his door with his back to her, head bowed, hands on his hips. “Why? You shut me out all the time.”

“I don’t—”

He turned. “You do. You’re orphaned Jillian from New York. You have a sick need to make men bleed. You’re thirty and your greatest skill is selling sex toys. That’s so fucking pathetic. Yet somewhere along the way, I bought into all of it. Part of me loves you, but I don’t know how and I sure as hell don’t know why, because I don’t really even know you!”

Her teeth clenched. “You didn’t want to know. You said it yourself.”

“Well I do now.”

“Well I … can’t,” she whispered, shaking her head.

“Why not?”

“I just can’t.” She would never be able to make him understand. “I don’t want you to die.”

Why couldn’t he see the pleading in her eyes that said everything she couldn’t?

“Tell me what happened to you. Tell me and I’ll make an appointment with the oncologist on Monday.”

“That’s not fair.”

“I have a goddamn tumor in my head. Life’s not fair!”

She continued to shake her head. It was a nightmare. Eventually she would have to wake up. “You’re blackmailing me with your fucking life? What’s wrong with you? You have a son and parents who love you.”

“You don’t trust me.” He narrowed his eyes then turned toward the door.

“It’s not about trust!” She grabbed his arm. “Just…” the anger and desperation pulled the pin to another grenade inside her chest “…forget it ever happened. Please.”

He laughed. He actually laughed. Her anger held back the tears.

“Forget what? The biting and clawing? The broken nose? The fact that we can’t sleep in the same bed?”

“Yes,” she whispered, closing her eyes as shame stole the last bit of fight she had left.

He pulled away from her. “I can’t.”

*

As she pushed
open the front door, feeling weak with defeat, her phone vibrated with a text message.

Hebrews 9:22

“How’s he doing?”

The thundering of her pulse muffled the sound of Jackson’s voice. Some fucker kept vying for her attention, trying to cripple her with fear, when AJ’s doctors had already given her an overdose of it.

“He has a brain tumor.”

“Jill …” He pulled her into his arms, but still no tears, just a cold numbness. “Cancer?”

“They’re not sure yet, but it seems inoperable and AJ doesn’t want treatment.” She stepped back, laughing at the morbidity of the situation. “Let me rephrase that … he’ll agree to treatment if I tell him about my past.”

“Oh … you’re not thinking of—”

“No, I’m not going to tell him.” She shrugged. “What’s one more death to my name?”

“It’s not your fault.”

Shaking her head, she held up her phone. “Doesn’t matter anyway. I’ll probably die before him.”

Jackson plucked it from her hand. A squint of confusion etched along his forehead. He searched for its meaning. “
Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.”

“What if it’s him?”

Jillian narrowed her eyes. “Who?”

“AJ.”

“Not funny.”

“I’m not trying to be funny.”

“Jesus, Jackson! Did you hear me say he has a brain tumor? It gives him migraines, and seizures, it’s probably the reason his personality flips without a moment’s notice, but he’s not a stalker.”

“Maybe one of his personalities is.”

“It’s not.”

“Nothing else makes sense. Trigger and Four are dead. If it were the people responsible for Mom and Dad, they wouldn’t play this cat and mouse game … we’d simply be dead.”

Jillian put her hands over her face and sighed with a little grumble. “Tell Knox to get me a new phone. I’m going to bed … for the next month. Don’t wake me.”

*

The overprotective and
sometimes doting brother hated being the bastard, but someone had to be. After three days of Jillian leaving her bedroom only for water, Jackson yanked her from the black hole.

“Time’s up. I’ll give you five seconds to get out of bed before I start your intervention.”

“Touch me and I’ll kill you,” Jillian warned from under her rat’s nest of covers.

“I welcome the challenge. At this point I’d welcome any sign of life from you. Maybe you need a good ass-kicking.”

“Jackson!” she yelled and flailed as he heaved her over his shoulder and carried her to the bathroom. Depositing her stubborn ass in the shower, he turned the lever until an icy stream of water rained on her.

She clawed at the walls and slipped along the floor like a drowning cat.

“Wash up. You stink.”

An hour later she emerged from her room with clean clothes and wet hair. “He loves me. And he’s dying. That’s messed up, right?” She looked at Jackson through vacant eyes.

He could confirm AJ’s impending death, but not from his tumor. “He’s not dying, not today anyway. I’d call it shock. Once he accepts the reality of his situation, he’ll man up, let them fry half his brain with some experimental treatment, and live happily ever after with his psychotic neighbor.”

“Not funny.”

Jackson cradled her face then sighed at her lifelessness. “I’ll never stop reminding you that
you
are the strongest person I have ever known because when you hit the lowest depths of hell, you choose to claw your way out every time. It’s not what you do … it’s who you are. You’re a survivor.”

The bravest woman alive sucked in a shaky breath. “I’m not.
You
 … I’d die without you.”

He hugged her. “You wouldn’t. I think a meteor could hit Earth and wipe out the human population with the exception of you.”

She grunted. “I’m not invincible.”

Jackson kissed the top of her head. She encompassed his world. “You are to me.”

Even the protector of this brave woman lived with his own demons. Had he followed his instincts, he could have saved Claire’s life and in turn, his sister’s. Instead he waited for their dad to get home nearly twenty-four hours later.

Twenty-four hours too late.

He never told his sister that, and he swallowed the guilt every day of his life. Nothing but more pain could come from what-ifs.

“I have a lesson in two hours and I have a few errands to run. So eat something and call Dodge and Lilith. They’ve been worried about you.”

Jillian nodded.

“And ice your eyes or something … your face just looks all kinds of wrong right now.”

“Thanks for that.”

“Anytime.”

*

Jillian forced down
a piece of dry toast then lay down with teabags on her eyes. The man who would always have her heart was alive, but she would never see him again. The man who made her think love was possible without said heart was right next door, but he was on a cruel suicide mission and eventually he would die and she would
never see him again.

Maybe she
would
be the last person standing. It was just her and life—both equally crazy.

The doorbell rang. Tossing the teabags in the trash, she shuffled her bare feet to the door.

“Hi.” Jillian mustered a smile at the woman standing on her stoop.

“Hi, sorry to bother you. I’m Ryn Middleton. I clean AJ’s house.” She pointed next door. “There’s usually a key under his planter, but it’s not there. And the garage code doesn’t work either. I tried his cell phone but it goes straight to voicemail.”

Jillian laughed a little. She had no doubt that AJ was trying to keep someone out of his house, but it wasn’t Ryn. “He’s had some
issues
lately. I’m sure it’s just an oversight on his part.”

Ryn wrinkled her nose a bit. “I don’t want to make you uncomfortable or get you in trouble, but would you happen to have a spare key to his place? I’ve been cleaning his house for over five years so I’m not a thief or anything. I just have a really full schedule, so if I don’t clean for him today he’ll have to wait another two weeks.”

Jillian smiled. “I do actually.” She held up a finger. “Just let me grab it.”