Dark Savior: A Dark Bad Boy Romance (3 page)

But her? She doesn't seem to deserve that fate, and I hate the fact that she's still standing on the wrong side of the rail. I take another step toward her so that I'm standing almost right behind her, close enough to wrap my arms around her fragile upper body. If she doesn't decide to climb back to safety within the next few moments, I will force her to.

A sob escapes her lips as she finally seems to find herself confronted with making that dreadful decision. My distraction could only work for so long. She closes her eyes shut as her body starts shaking again, rocked by violent tears.

Her hands are loosening from the railing.

Everything happens within a split second. I see her right hand slide off the rail and her body slowly start leaning forward. She's still holding onto the rail with her left hand, but I don't want to risk anything. I leap forward, wrapping my arms around her upper body, grasping her from behind, strongly grabbing into the pale flesh of her arms as I pull her back, pinning her against the rail. I quickly readjust my arms, and hook them under her armpits to lift her up.

She doesn't fight me, but lets out a yelp in pain as the rail violently pushes into her back. The sheer speed and force with which everything is happening causes me to lose my balance once I manage to pull her back to safety. I tumble and barely manage to soften my fall while still holding her in a tight grip.

We land with a thud on the hard ground. She turns around, burying her face in my chest as she breaks down into harrowing tears.

I’m officially fucked.

CHAPTER TWO

Meadow

I'm such a loser. I don't deserve to be alive. I don't want to be alive.

Where did this guy come from? How does he dare just barge in and pull me back into this life that I was trying so hard to leave behind.

I let go. I finally let go. It could all be over now if it wasn't for him. He still has his arms wrapped around me. He's strong, I can feel the weight of his hard muscles pressing against my small frame. He could crush me without much effort, but his embrace is surprisingly tender.

Still. It's his fault that I'm still here, faced with the horrid truth I tried to abandon. The truth about my failure, my biggest loss.

I'm not one to weep easily. The heavy cries escaping my body shock me all the more. I don't think I have ever wailed like this, not even at her funeral. Never.

The desperation of it all took over. The knowledge that I cannot bring myself to go back up there. This was my one and only chance to jump. I knew that before I came here. I knew I would have to be strong enough now - or forget about it forever and face the life that's been laid out for me.

But what kind of life is that? Alone. Guilty. A failure.

He’s still holding me in a tight embrace. I clench my fists, slowly lifting one of them as if I was pointing to the heavens. But instead of cursing the gods, I unleash my fury on him. I start punching him as hard as I can, but I'm sure the strokes hurt me more than they do him.

He doesn't even flinch as my small fists strike his buff arms again and again. Neither of us speaks a word, and eventually, my wailing starts to die down. I'm exhausted, so freaking exhausted. Sleep has been my enemy for weeks. I've fought it every night because I was scared to be confronted with those horrible dreams that have been haunting me for so long. I'd rather be awake and face the emptiness and sadness of my life than to experience the horrors that afflict me during sleep.

But his embrace seduces me. The warmth and affection in his touch have a soothing effect on me unlike anything else I’ve ever known. He doesn't stop my tears, but the violent cries ease and my breathing slows. I succumb to his tender touch, and gradually I’m sobbing quietly, no longer howling and gasping for air. Fatigue takes hold of me, and for the first time in weeks, I don't want to fight it. I want to sleep. I need to sleep. Right here, right now.

"Calmed down, have we?"

His deep, husky voice pulls me out of my impending slumber. He's still holding me, and we're lying on the ground in an awkward embrace. I suddenly realize that I don't know this man. He's still the creep who pulled me back onto the bridge after saying those disgusting things to me.

I struggle to get out of his arms and distance myself from him. He lets go of me immediately, and even pushes me aside, so that he can get up on his feet before I do.

I feel oddly naked without his arms safely wrapped around me, and I am suddenly reminded that I’m not properly dressed for the cold weather. It didn't matter to me before. I didn't even realize I was freezing because my mind was elsewhere.

But I'm back now, and I'm freezing.

I hurry to get up on my feet so I'm no longer kneeling in front of him, and I wrap my arms around myself in a vain attempt to stay warm.

"Where are your shoes?" he asks.

I look up at him, unable to hide an indignant frown at this question. There are a million things one could say or ask in this situation - and he wants to know where my shoes are?

My shoes are where I should be right now.

Down in the canyon. Gone.

"It doesn't matter," I say.

I was too preoccupied before with my own torment to really have a look at him, but now that my mind is painfully clear, I take inventory of his looks for the first time.

He is very tall. I barely reach his shoulders and feel like a midget standing next to him. The size difference is only enhanced by the fact that he is so broad, so muscular. He looks as if he could easily break me in half. His hazel brown hair is cut short and tousled as if he just got done with a fight, and the dark hazel tone of his eyes match his hair color almost par for par. Just like his entire stature, his jaw is strong and dappled with the shadow of five o’clock stubble. He's undoubtedly a handsome man, but he sports a certain ruggedness that you wouldn't find on an average office employee. A thin, two-lined scar adorns his left cheek, making me think of a dueling scar, which it probably isn't.

I notice that I've been staring at him, creating an awkward silence between us, but he's not doing much better. He's scanning me with the same curiosity, and when our eyes meet, we seem to mirror the same expression.

Neither of us knows what to do.

"How will you get back?" he asks me another stupid question.

"Back to where?" I ask in a voice hoarse from crying and standing in the chilly wind.

He huffs. "Home. Or wherever you woke up this morning."

I have no home and I woke up in a motel room a few miles from here. That's what people do when they intend to disappear, they leave everything behind, sell their possessions, cancel the lease on their apartment, their phone connection, mobile service, health insurance.

It's insane really, the bureaucratic ties that entrench you in living. You can only stop existing if you make sure to first cancel your insurances, internet service and social media accounts.

"I have no home," I say in all honesty.

He sighs. "For fuck's sake, stop being so melodramatic."

"Shut up!" I hear myself shout in retort. It was supposed to put him in his place, but my words come out as barely more than a whisper. I'm so fucking pathetic.

He growls in frustration at me and lifts his arms, placing his hands at the back of his head as he audibly exhales. I can't help but notice the way his jacket is stretching around his upper arms. He's wearing a black leather jacket over a dark grey sweater, and black jeans with equally dark boots. He looks dangerous, like a man that would cause me to cross over to the other side of the street if I was to encounter him under different circumstances.

I wonder if
he
looked like that. The bastard that took Sonya.

"Look," he says, lowering his arms in defeat. "Is there any place I could take you to?"

He pauses and looks around, scanning up and down the road and the surroundings on both sides.

"I don't see your car anywhere," he adds. "How the fuck did you get here?"

I walked.

I ordered a cab and asked the driver to let me out at a lake about fifteen miles from here. I know that the lake is a popular destination for visitors on the weekend and hoped that I wouldn't raise too much suspicion by asking him to bring me there, even though today is a Tuesday and the weather is too cold for swimming. When he tried to make small talk with me, I simply said I wanted to take some pictures and walk a little and I would call another cab later to pick me up. He gave me his card, hoping that I would call him.

But of course, I never intended to call a cab for a ride back home. I don't even have a phone with me.

After I got out of the car at the lake, I waited for the driver to drive off and then started walking. I walked for half a day until I got here. I wanted to end things as quickly as possible, finalizing a decision I had come to weeks ago. I took off my shoes, put them inside the small back pack I had with me, and threw everything over the ledge of the bridge with the intention of following immediately behind.

"It doesn't matter," I whisper, lowering my head.

I hear him sighing with annoyance. I should tell him to go away and leave me alone so I can finish doing what I came here to do.

But a part of me doesn't want that. I don't want him to leave me alone. I want him to wrap his arms around me, like he did before.

I'm so pathetic.

"I swear to God, girl," he mumbles, clenching his teeth. "I'm going to ask you one more question, and if you answer “it doesn't matter” one more time, I will fucking throw you down there myself. Understand?"

I lift my head to meet his stare. He regards me with a serious expression, narrowing his eyes as he tries to read my face. Whatever he's seeing, it doesn't please him at all.

"Don't look at me like that," he hisses. "Like you actually want me to grab you and throw you over the ledge."

I didn't know that I was giving him that impression. But he's not completely wrong. It would make everything so much easier.

"Where do you live?" he wants to know, his eyes fixating on me as if he was afraid I would run away.

I wrap my arms around myself again to ward off the cold. "Nowhere."

He rolls his eyes and throws his arms up in a frustrated gesture so abrupt and dramatic that it causes me to take a step back.

"It's true!" I add. "I have no home. I ended my lease. I slept in a motel for the past few days."

He lowers his hands and buries them in his pants pockets. Looking at him with his thick jacket, the soft sweater and the sturdy boots, it reminds me once again of my inappropriate attire. All I'm wearing is my white summer dress, a favorite of mine when I still cared. It used to belong to Sonya.

I wanted to have as little on me as possible when I jumped, and this dress seemed perfect. As if she was with me, even in death.

However, I did not expect to spend a lot of time out in the cold with just this dress on. The dead don't feel the cold, but I certainly do right now. When I came here, I was wearing a jacket and a scarf on top of the dress, but just like the shoes, those ended up on the bottom of the canyon.

We look at each other for a few moments, and I'm beginning to realize that he is just as stumped for an answer as I am. He turns around and looks down the street in the direction from which he came. My eyes follow his. There's an expensive looking black car parked a couple hundred yards away at the side of the road. It must be his. I was sunk so deep in my suicidal contemplation that I didn't hear the car drive up, which is why his sudden appearance next to me on the bridge startled me so much.

He's still staring down the road, his eyes locked on the car, while my gaze wanders back to him. His face is tensed up and his teeth clenched, as if he is gnawing on what to do.

"There's nowhere for you to go," he whispers, "but down that canyon."

It's a statement, not a question. The self-evident tone of his voice causes the blood to pound loudly in my ears. Does he seriously intend to throw me down into the canyon?

He turns around to me. "Right?"

I'm too startled to reply. Instead, I stare up at him, locked in place by his intense eyes and the enormity of his statement.

"You know, I should just leave you here," he continues. "Or help you complete your pathetic attempt."

He pauses for a few moments, waiting for my reaction, but I'm not able to respond.

"But I can't do that," he concludes. "I fucking can't."

"I'm sorry, I–“

"Shut up," he interrupts me. "You'll come with me."

I inhale audibly and my eyebrows draw upward as I gawk up at him in shock. "What?"

"You heard me," he says, taking a step forward. I flinch away from him, but he grabs my upper arm and holds me back. His grip is tight enough to remind me that there's nowhere for me to run.

"You'll come with me," he repeats. "Unless you come up with another place I can take you to."

I shake my head. "No."

He sighs and lets go of my arm. I observe him, my eyes wide, as he takes off his jacket and puts it around my shoulders. It smells like him. Husky and masculine. And it feels almost as comforting and safe as his hug.

"Wear that," he says, sounding angry. "You must be freezing."

He takes a step back, scanning me from head to toe, before he turns around and walks toward the car.

"Don't you fucking dare jump with my jacket on," I hear him yell as he walks away.

I put my arms through the jacket. Of course, it's way too big for me and makes me feel like a toddler in comparison to its owner. My fingertips are barely visible when I let my arms hang down at the side of my body.

I don't move, but watch him walk away from me with slow but confident steps.

He's a scary man. Tall, strong, dark and obviously fucked up. Who else would talk to a suicidal person the way he did? He freaked me out by suggesting that he'd rape my dead body after it washes ashore. How can I trust a man like that?