Fate's Betrayal

Chapter 2

When I wake up, the house is dark. Every bone, muscle, and hair on my head hurt. I can’t take a deep breath without wanting to die. I can feel wetness on various parts of my head and body. f**k. It has never been this bad. I can’t hear anything out of my left ear, what the hell happened to my ear? f**k, I need to move. Clutching my arm around my middle, I slowly climb to my feet. I take a look around, out of my very swollen eyes, and see that dinner is still sitting on the table. The broken bowl, chili dried to the wall, and even the spotless cups are sitting there mocking me. With a slow and silent step I glance into the living room. No sign of Cole. Shuffling, more like dragging myself to the kitchen, I see his keys are gone. Holy s**t! He’s not here. Never, not once in six years has he left me alone in the house after a ‘lesson’.

I walk along the wall, holding on for support until I reach my purse, unzipping the side zipper; I reach in and take out my phone. The phone Cole doesn’t know I have. I’m not allowed to have a phone, and he disconnects the house phone and takes it with him when he leaves. I can barely see enough to turn the phone on. I slide my finger across the screen and unlock it. Finally, after a few wrong buttons, I place the call.

“Hello? Hello, Iz? Iz, are you there? Is everything okay? IZ??” I can hear her, she’s practically screaming. But I can’t get the words out. She knows I wouldn’t be calling this late. Hell, she knows I wouldn’t call at all.

I take a shallow breath, and rasp out the only word I need to bring my salvation.

“Help…” Then the blackness pulls me under.

I haven’t always been this weak person; this broken woman. I used to dream, and when I did, I dreamt big. I had plans, plans of a future so bright it would blind you. I can still remember the day those dreams, those grand plans, and that future as bright as the sun went poof.

I just didn’t know it at the time.

At the time I thought everything would be okay. After all, what seventeen year old girl doesn’t think she is invincible?

That, coincidently, was the same day I decided fate hated me. No, she didn’t hate me…she loathed me. People say karma is a b***h but I have news for you, karma doesn’t have anything on fate when she is after blood. Not a single thing.

I wish I knew what it was that set fate on the path of my doom. Maybe it was just being born? I like to think I was at least okay there. My parents loved me, they prayed for me, and I was everything to them. So, no, I don’t think that was the day.

Or it could have been the day I stole Maggie Jones’ pudding cup. But Maggie was a bully, never nice and always stuffing her face, so I like to think I did her a favor.

I once stole a chocolate bar from the grocery store, but seriously? Fate would have been after every little teenage s**t if that was the case; point fingers all you want but where I come from it is like a rite of passage.

No, I think fate decided she hated me the day I walked into Dale High School freshman year and my path collided with Elliot’s. It would make sense that the reason she hated me was the reason for all my pain.

The reason I am convinced fate will never shine in my favor again. Why would she? She took it all away. Wiped out every single thing I had ever loved in one swift kick.

One day I might figure it out, the reason fate hated me, Amber Grey. But, until that day I damn sure will be careful with my dreams and my plans; my heart and my soul.

Fate might hate me, but that doesn’t stop me from hoping one day she forgets about her favorite chew toy. When that day comes I hope karma has some fun with that b***h, fate.

(2 years later)

I can feel the sun warming my skin. I love this blissful state between sleep and just waking up. It reminds me of being numb. You haven’t hit the switch to turn on your mind, giving it permission to process and remember. You are just there. I love waking up feeling the sun warming my skin; it reminds me that I am alive. Alive and surviving.

I sigh and roll over in bed, laughing when I see the stupid body pillow dressed like a man; with an oddly lifelike face drawn on the top. Dee had insisted that I needed it in my life. Her theory was, if I didn’t want a man at least I wouldn’t sleep lonely. Whatever that meant. I stopped trying to understand all that is Dee years ago. She had been my best friend for the last eleven years. She was the sister I never had and I knew without a doubt in my mind that she would always have my back.

We met when I was eighteen and pissed at the world. She had been bopping all over the room during freshman orientation, smiling at everyone that would look at her. She had taken one look at me and decided we would be the best of buds. I think she saw the broken soul inside me, and with her infectious happiness decided she would be my medication. She was by my side with every up and every down; and trust me there were a lot of downs. She was my biggest cheerleader and supporter and she singlehandedly brought light back into my life.

She picked me up when I had fallen, dusted me off and helped me heal.

She did it again two years ago. No questions asked. She dropped everything, ran to my rescue and helped me heal again.

We had lost that ‘sisterhood’ for a little while when I was married to Cole. It wasn’t easy, but I was able to keep in touch with her with stolen calls and secret meetings. I knew she worried, she knew things weren’t good at home, but Dee being Dee came with a smile and the knowledge that if I needed her she would be there.

And she didn’t lie; she dropped everything and ran with one word.

I know she felt somewhat guilty for introducing us. It was unjustified but it was there. I could see it sometimes in her eyes when we would be spending time together, with a few bottles of wine between us. She hid it well, I will give her that, but I knew my girl and with a heart that big she couldn’t help it.

I met Cole when I was twenty-one, carefree and looking to numb my world with drinking and parties.

He was the first man I had given a second glance to after Elliot. It had been almost four years and I was ready to try and love again.

Oh, how blind I had been.

Cole was, on the outside, perfect. He was a few years older than me, already graduated from the University of North Carolina and established within his father’s accounting firm. He was successful and quickly on his way to even bigger things. He wasn’t overly tall, just shy of six feet, with a lean runner’s body. Sandy brown hair, and brown eyes. He was the perfect boyfriend, showering me in romance, extravagant vacations and gifts, always showing up to take me on surprise trips, doing all the little things we always think makes a man perfect. Six months after we met, that perfect boyfriend became my fiancé, and four months later I became Mrs. Cole Hunter.

Then the Cole I had met and fallen in love with slowly changed. Gradually he began distancing me from my family, friends and most importantly Dee. He knew of all the bonds I had, hers was the strongest. I became a prisoner in my own life. I know my grandparents worried, but he was slick, and always came up with the perfect reason we couldn’t come or when the rare occasions came that we did, he was always called home for some reason. Dee was harder for him to brush off, but he did. Or at least he thought he did. He was good; I’ll give him that, the master of control and manipulation.

And he downright terrified me.

The beatings didn’t start until we had been married for about two years. I had gone to see Dee when I was supposed to be picking up his dry cleaning. I missed my best friend, and I had honestly thought I could be in and out before he noticed. But, Cole Hunter noticed everything.

They weren’t bad at first, a slap here and there for whatever offense he deemed beat-worthy. Eventually though it didn’t take much, I could sneeze and if he didn’t like it, I was sporting a black eye the next day.

He had played his hand right and I was well and truly stuck. Cut off from those I loved and so terrified of his wrath; I wasn’t going anywhere.

Those were the years I prayed and prayed for Elliot to find his way back to me. Every single horrible day I was at the receiving end of Cole’s fist I tried to take myself to another place. To a place where Elliot was, ready to take me away and be my hero. But, I eventually had to face the facts…my hero was gone.

Closing my eyes; I think back to the time my life was the happiest. Twelve years ago to be exact.

“I can’t believe this is our last night together for six months, I’m going to miss you so much, baby.” I look up into his bright green eyes. God, I love his eyes. I think I would be happy to just sit here and look at his handsome face for hours.

Get lost in him.

How will I make it without him?

This boy I love more than anything.

I lay my head back down on his warm chest; feeling his strong heart beating under my ear.

I’ve known this beautiful boy since I was fourteen and Elliot has been the love of my life for the last three years. Not a day has gone by without him in it. How am I going to go just one day without him, never mind six months?

“Babe, quit. It will be over before you know it and I will be back to get my girl.” I hear him rumble under my ear, knowing exactly what is running through my mind.

We’ve been laying here, in his tiny twin bed for hours, just getting lost in each other. I know he hates being in this house.

His foster family isn’t a bad foster family, well as far as they come I guess. He might as well be a meal ticket for them, but they leave him alone. I get the impression they are counting down the seconds before he leaves for basic training, get his body out and a new one in. They wouldn’t want their check to be short, greedy assholes. His foster parents have never liked me. I don’t think I will ever understand why, but Elliot thinks it’s because I have been around the last three years, taking up space and eating their food. Who knows, I just can’t wait for him to be free of them.

I can’t believe my beautiful boy is leaving for the Marines tomorrow, Marines…God, Ax is really leaving. I haven’t let myself think about what could happen to him when he leaves. Elliot was born a fighter, a survivor, nothing would happen to him and I just had to believe that.

He starts to shift under me, sliding out from under my body and rolling onto his side facing me. I look into his bright, twinkling eyes again, smiling up at him. He really is perfect. Thick messy black hair, sticking up in disheveled waves from me running my hands through it, his strong cheekbones and powerful jaw always remind me of how ruthless he can be. I trace my finger down his perfectly straight nose, and then run it along the thick lips I love to get lost in; tracing first the top and then the bottom. His lips twitch, and that lazy grin I love so much pops onto his face.

“What are you thinking about, Princess?”

“God, Ax, just about how much I’m going to miss you; you promise to come back to me?” I ask him, with the tears coming back into my eyes and the melancholy that has been a constant presence since his graduation Friday night returns.

“Just try and keep me away.” He says, leaning in to capture my lips in a toe-curling kiss. His tongue licks my bottom lip, and then he catches it in between his teeth, lightly biting down. I open my mouth to let him in and capture his moan down my throat. Pushing his shoulder, I roll him underneath me, feeling his already hard c**k nestle within my wet core.