Obsession: The Hollow Universe Read online

  Over the following year, I gradually built my courage to enact a scene that could either give me everything I desired or make things hellishly awkward with Hyde.

  It was the second possibility that held me back.

  I didn’t give up. I worked hard, trained hard, and fantasized about the life I could have with my bodyguard, my secret obsession, the man I loved.

  In the end, none of my plans really mattered.

  Chapter Eleven

  Early June 2014

  Struggling to open my eyes, I felt excruciating pain all over my body. I hurt so badly that I couldn’t identify where I might be injured and I didn’t know the source.

  What’s my name?

  One thing at a time. My name is Elliana. Elliana Fields. Yes. My family calls me Ellie.

  Where am I?

  It smelled musty, like damp earth and rust. There were other smells I didn’t recognize.

  My vision was blurry and it seemed too dark but that didn’t seem right. I started to panic and walked myself back as I tried to compartmentalize the pain.

  What’s the last thing you remember?

  I think I was…running. Yes. Running my usual trail around the municipal airfield and community park not far from where I live. I like the change of scenery from…

  My parents’ home. Elysian Fields.

  I was running and stopped at the halfway point of my second lap to refill my water bottle at the drinking fountain.

  Then what? Then what, Ellie?

  Running again and the sound of two small planes taking off. One was a crop duster, the other a mini jet.

  There was a little dog. It charged for the main entrance as a girl in pigtails tried to catch his leash. The Shih Tzu would’ve surely been hit. The girl went on and on about me saving little Biscuit’s life like a hero.

  Laughing. Running again.

  I passed Little League practice where boys worked on sliding home. About the same age Preston would be.

  Preston. The memory of losing him flooded into my mind and it felt strangely fresh. I reined it in, diverted my mind.

  What happened to you, Ellie?

  I entered the woods that surrounded the park on three sides. They offered shade and cooler temperatures. I always stayed on the path.

  A shadow behind me and to the left made me remove an earbud.

  Turning…

  No matter how I strained, there was nothing after a flash of terrible pain. Nothing but darkness.

  Moving the fingers of one hand, I felt dirt under me. My eyesight was off. I couldn’t tell if it was day or night.

  I tried to lift my arm but searing pain made me gasp. It echoed off metal. I assumed the bone was broken.

  So many pieces of me felt broken.

  Carefully, I attempted moving the other arm. There was pain but I could. I slowly raised it to my head and my face was wet. I was filthy and the skin was badly swollen around my cheeks and eyes.

  A huge lump along the side of my head behind my ear seeped something warm and sticky and I knew it was blood.

  “Hello?” My voice sounded as if I choked on glass.

  There was a foul taste in my mouth. Something completely alien to me but I recognized it anyway and I froze.

  Hysteria threatened at the edge of my mind.

  I knew what happened to my body even if my mind didn’t remember the details. The realization caused my focus to clear with a snap and I took in the world around me.

  I heard faint sounds of metal bats hitting baseballs. Further away, the sound of a dog barking.

  I was still in the municipal park.

  Deep in the wooded sections of the park are large steel buildings that hold sprinkler pumps, electrical boxes for the field lights, and landscaping equipment used to maintain the grounds.

  I was certain I was in one of those buildings. Landscaping, I thought. The smell of dirt and wood mulch was powerful.

  Running my hand over my torso, I confirmed my nudity and a shudder of revulsion wracked my frame. The resulting pain made me whimper like a wounded animal.

  “Hyde?” I whispered, suddenly wondering if the person who attacked me was watching from the shadows. “Hyde?”

  No answer. Dread filled me. Only one thing would keep him from being with me.

  “Hyde?” Tears slipped over my cheeks. “No, no, no…please be okay. Please be okay.”

  Swallowing, which was the absolute reverse action my body screamed I needed to do, I took as much air into my lungs as I could and shouted, “Help!”

  It wasn’t loud but the steel walls helped magnify my voice. Resting a few seconds, I gathered my strength and tried again. And again. And again.

  After what felt like forever, I heard a boy’s voice say, “Mom. Hey, Mom? Did you hear that?”

  I shouted again, desperate now. I was tired and furious that I was too weak to help myself. To help Hyde.

  “Mom, someone’s calling for help!”

  “Ricky, are you sure? I didn’t hear anything. You shouldn’t be playing around these buildings, honey. It’s dangerous.”

  I put everything I had left into a scream for help that translated to sheer agony all over me.

  The mother of my savior worked to open the heavy door of the building while telling her son to stay back. The scraping of the metal on concrete was beautiful and horrible.

  I saw a lightening on the other side of my eyelids so I thought it was still daylight.

  She gasped, “Oh, my sweet Jesus.” I heard her footsteps receding. She yelled, “Ricky, run and get your dad right now. Tell him to call 911. Run fast, son. As fast as you can. Go!”

  The woman crouched by my side and took the hand of the arm that wasn’t broken. She held it carefully. “My name is Jamie Vasquez. I’m going to lay my jacket over your body. I can’t move you but I’ll stay with you until help comes.”

  The woman had a slight Hispanic accent and I felt fabric settle over my breasts and upper thighs.

  “Can you tell me your name, honey?”

  “I-I’m Ellie.”

  I had nothing left but I managed, “They have to find Hyde. He’s hurt. He could be dying. Find Hyde. Tell them. Tell them to find him. They have to help him.”

  The woman said, “I’ll tell them. I swear I’ll tell them…”

  I heard the pounding of many feet running on the path. My team racing to my rescue.

  Darkness reached for me and I was so fucking thankful to slide into it before anyone arrived and I was forced to see their faces when they discovered what happened to me.

  I couldn’t bear it. I couldn’t.

  I fell gladly into the nothingness.

  Chapter Twelve

  Mid-July 2014

  After my attack, there were two things I was grateful for more than any others initially.

  One, that my parents basically owned a small town less than an hour’s drive from Dallas where they built an incredible hospital equipped with cutting edge medical technology.

  Two, that they were powerful enough to silence the local populace about what happened.

  Within an hour of finding me, they threw money at park personnel, first responders, the Vasquez family, and hospital staff to ensure details of my attack remained within a small, trackable circle.

  They wanted me at home, under their watchful eyes and loving attention but I refused to leave the hospital until the casts came off. I needed physical therapy to put me back on my feet.

  After everything, I couldn’t bear being dependent.

  When the hospital administrator explained my condition was stable and further recuperation from home was possible, I smiled and shook my head.

  “I’ll be recuperating here, thank you very much. I’ve scared enough years off my parents’ lives.”

  I spent most of my days in silence, by myself, thinking about the level of hatred and rage that festered after my first attack while I was at college.

  The men who jumped me the first time nursed a grudge for five years while
they planned the second attempt.

  Five years.

  Now twenty-three, I’d put the original assault out of my mind. It didn’t give me nightmares, didn’t instill a fear of men, and didn’t change the way I lived my life.

  Being a creature of habit made me an easy target.

  I ran six days a week. Four of them, I used the path around our estate. For the two others, I liked a change of scenery.

  The community park was my preferred secondary location for a silly reason. I liked to watch the normal people. Friends playing Frisbee, couples sharing a romantic picnic, families celebrating a child’s birthday party with a barbecue and games.

  Running the park, I felt like everyone else.

  Whenever I was home, my routine never changed. Tuesdays and Thursdays, Hyde and Padme drove me to the park. She stayed in the SUV and my bodyguard ran with me.

  He always gave me space so I could think. Since most of my thoughts were about him, I appreciated not having the sight of his barely clothed body to distract me.

  My attackers learned my schedule.

  The three surviving members of the recently paroled group found me an easy target on a trail I ran a thousand times. Two of their fellow criminals didn’t survive prison.

  Apparently, I ruined their lives by pressing charges and seeing them prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

  Such men never take responsibility for their actions. Filled with fury, time in prison accomplished nothing other than successfully making them more violent and misogynistic than they were before their incarceration.

  The justice system was necessary but not always effective. This time, there would be no courts. There would be no trial. There would be no prison time.

  At this moment, there was a small army of mercenaries searching for the men who hit me in the head with a rock, dragged me into the park storage shed, beat me so badly my own mother didn’t recognize me, and spent almost an hour raping me separately and together.

  I can think about it, talk about it, because so far, I don’t remember anything. Despite my physical injuries, emotionally, it feels as if it happened to someone else.

  They fractured my skull in their attempt to subdue me without a fight. I didn’t sustain permanent brain damage but the headaches made me want to claw out the inside of my head.

  Ripped and torn ligaments in the broken limbs and along my shoulders and back would take longer to mend than my bones. There was internal bruising, cracked ribs, a fractured pelvis, a dislocated hip, and deep cuts to my upper back and abdomen to deal with as well.

  I was bruised from head to toe, hurt everywhere, and felt as though I’d gone through a wood chipper.

  I would heal.

  Once I get to the blackness on that wooded path, I remember nothing until waking on the dirt floor and calling for help. The injuries I carry don’t make sense to me.

  I was unconscious through all of it.

  When I was brought in by paramedics, a member of my team stayed with me every moment. Even during surgery, one of them scrubbed and stood armed inside the door.

  Over the days that followed, a battered Hyde said not one word to anyone but checked the ID of every doctor, nurse, or orderly who so much as peeked into my room in the ICU.

  Despite his own condition, he refused to leave his post.

  Eventually I was moved to a private room when I stabilized. Two armed men from the estate were stationed outside my door but Hyde stood beside my bed.

  We didn’t speak when I was awake, and I could barely keep my eyes open most of the time.

  I’d never seen such rage written on someone’s face.

  My attackers took Hyde out first with a tranquilizer dart. Given his size, it hadn’t kept him out long but when he regained consciousness, he was bound and gagged ten feet from my body in the landscaping shed.

  They hit me too hard. I’m grateful for their ineptitude because I have no memory of the horror I endured.

  Hyde was not so lucky.

  He was forced to witness every degrading deed done to me as I remained unconscious. The three men beat him savagely. Killing time in hopes I’d wake up.

  When I didn’t, they proceeded with their plans. After they finished with me, they left me to die and took turns beating Hyde again. Payback for their first encounter with him.

  I guess they figured they’d have gotten away with what they did to me if Hyde hadn’t interfered and stopped them.

  During his time in that shed, the head of my protection detail sustained internal injuries, broken ribs, a dislocated jaw, and a severe concussion when they hit him with a shovel.

  The fools thought they killed him. It would take more than a shovel to kill Hyde.

  It was when we didn’t reappear and Hyde didn’t respond to a security check from Padme that she started searching and called the rest of the team.

  The 911 call brought my security detail from the opposite side of the park from where they initially looked for us. I assumed it was where my attackers discarded the tracking devices we always wore on our shoes.

  The police and paramedics didn’t see Hyde at first. It was the park landscaping supervisor who noted the various tools scattered around and a blood trail in the dirt.

  My bodyguard’s bound and gagged body was tied to a tractor and covered with a heavy tarp.

  Jamie Vasquez told me that the moment they cut him loose, Hyde collapsed beside me and refused all treatment until I was safely in the ambulance.

  Si found where the men who attacked me made their escape through the woods to an access road where they got on a bus, traveled into the city, and disappeared.

  Knowing Hyde witnessed what happened to me was another reason I stayed in the hospital instead of going home. I felt dirty, wrong in my skin, and unable to face him.

  It was likely many of the estate employees would know the circumstances of my hospitalization and I couldn’t bear to look people in the eyes with the knowledge between us.

  Not yet.

  I’d seen each of my personal staff briefly but found it hard to speak with the overwhelming humiliation I couldn’t shake.

  The first time I was coherent enough to register Hyde’s presence, the injuries he sustained because of me crushed my heart. A few days after I was moved from ICU to a normal room, he disappeared.

  I hadn’t seen him since.

  I wondered if he’d return. The thought that I might never see him again hurt me more than I could admit to anyone.

  Every day, my thoughts stayed on Hyde. It was hard not to dwell on his absence when he’d been such a significant part of my daily life for so long.

  Once I was pulled a bit from the drug haze, I spent my time reading and handwriting notes for my third book.

  The days of recovery passed slowly but I avoided trying to piece together what happened to me.

  Most days, I felt as though I was still bleeding on the inside but didn’t understand why.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Seven weeks after the attack, my doctor entered the room and closed the door on the two heavily armed men flanking it.

  They were the daytime detail and tried to stop her but she had a spine of steel. “I don’t care who the fuck you are. This is a private conversation between doctor and patient. Back off.”

  Dr. Theresa Spellman was flown in from Boston to oversee my case. My parents offered her a new lab to make me her priority until I was cleared medically.

  It wasn’t our first meeting. We worked together on multiple charities and were kindred spirits in our efforts to ease the suffering of the sick and the poor.

  Right now, her normally lovely latte skin was pale and the skin was drawn tight around her eyes and mouth.

  I gave her a smile. It was small but genuine. “Tell me, Theresa. Best to get it out. Do I have an STD that’s going to haunt me for the rest of my life?”

  Clearing her throat carefully, she said, “No, no disease of any kind, thankfully. You’re still anemic from the blood loss
you suffered but otherwise, your progress is proceeding perfectly. Thankfully, you were healthy before your attack.”

  She was quiet for several seconds.

  I whispered, “I can see how upset you are. Tell me, Theresa.”

  Folding her hands in front of her, she closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “I’ve waited to talk to you because I can’t imagine all the shit you’re dealing with and my main priority has been stabilizing your overall condition.”

  I watched her swallow hard and held my breath.

  “I can’t wait any longer.” She met my gaze directly. “You’re pregnant, Ellie.”

  The statement hung in the suddenly heavy air and the enormity of her words reached me like a sharp slap.

  My heart slammed against my sternum.

  Theresa’s voice was intentionally calm. “I can end this pregnancy and no one, not even your parents, will ever know. I’ll take it with me to the grave.”

  I turned my head and stared through the window for a long time. The heat vapor coming off the roof below my floor held me mesmerized as I processed the appalling news.

  Part of me recoiled in horror, in bone-deep disgust.

  To know the seed of one of my rapists had taken in my womb made me want to vomit. That I’d been a virgin before my attack was brutal.

  They’d taken so much from me.

  Another part thought about all the children in violent homes or waiting to be adopted. Kids who came from flawed circumstances through no fault of their own.

  They hadn’t asked to be born drug-dependent or physically disabled or at the wrong time in someone’s life. Countless unwanted children dumped in the system or left to suffer.

  Some with the same violent beginning as the child inside me.

  I was pro-choice and I always would be. Still, I saw the emptiness of my life stretching out in front of me and wondered if this was the one gentle take-away from my ordeal.

  With my eyes closed, I examined the person I was, the human being I tried to be. My decision would affect the rest of my life and could result in unbelievable pain for my parents.

  In the end, it was Preston who made up my mind.