Your Fault (Culpable Book 2)

Hearing something shatter downstairs had scared the hell out of me, but for a moment, I was happy for the interruption.

What are you scared of?

That question was so complicated, touched on so many issues in my life, that I could answer it any number of ways, and that made it the worst thing anyone could ever ask me, especially Nick. If I started listing all the fears still present in my mind, it would cause a lot of problems. Some stuff was better to leave buried, even if it occasionally rose to the surface and messed up my life.

“Please tell me you put the alarm on, Noah,” Nicholas said, walking toward the door and cracking it to listen close as he peered into the darkness.

“We have an alarm?” I asked, feeling like an idiot and actually getting scared.

“Jesus, Noah,” he groaned, walking out into the hall and motioning for me to be quiet and stay where I was.

I ignored him, following close behind. For a few seconds, there was silence, apart from our breathing. But then we could hear voices. Men’s voices.

Nicholas turned, grabbed my arm, and dragged me back into the bedroom. Terrified, I watched him bring a finger to his lips.

“Give me your phone,” he whispered, trying to stay calm, but I could tell it wasn’t easy for him.

I nodded, then cursed. “I left the damn thing by the pool!”

How could I be so stupid? I always had my phone on me, and now that I needed it, it was outside in the yard.

“Well, mine’s downstairs, on the table by the door.”

His brain started clicking. “Listen to me. I want you to stay here.”

I shook my head.

“Dammit, Noah, stay here. I’ll go to Dad’s room where there’s a phone and dial nine-one-one!”

“No, stay with me,” I begged him in desperation.

I was so fucking scared… I had never been the victim of a robbery or anything like that. It was true that the kidnapping had been bad, but it hadn’t made me any stronger when it came to facing situations like this. More like the opposite. I was so scared, my hands were shaking.

“Nicholas, they turned off the power. They probably cut our phone line, too.”

Before he could respond, we heard the voices again, this time closer by. Nicholas hushed me with one hand. There was no doubt about it. They were coming upstairs. A glance back at me must have sufficed to let Nick know that whatever he had in mind, he needed to take me with him.

“Stay close behind me, and don’t make a sound,” he warned me. Then he opened the door and walked out into the dark hallway. I was present, but at the same time, I was inhabiting those memories it was best not to return to, the ones that stoked my fears in the darkness. Nothing good could happen in the dark…or only one thing, but this wasn’t the moment to think about it.

“What is that?” I asked, my breathing halting from fear.

“Nothing,” he said, walking over to the window. As he opened it and peeked outside, I saw what was sticking out of the top of his jeans.

“What the hell are you doing with a gun, Nicholas?” It took all the self-control I could muster not to shout.

He turned to me with a serious expression. “Noah, I want you to climb out this window,” he ordered me, ignoring my question. “There’s a tree out there. It has lots of branches; it won’t be hard for you.”

I felt hot tears rolling down my cheeks again. I shook my head… I couldn’t take the risk; I couldn’t fall out a window again… I just couldn’t.

“Nicholas, I can’t,” I confessed. Why was fate determined to make me relive things I wanted so desperately to leave behind?

“Why not?” he asked incredulously, as if I were insane, as if I didn’t realize the danger we were in. We were trapped in the house, and not just that, whoever was downstairs had cut off the power, which probably meant they’d been planning this for some time. They must have known William was away, just as his service staff did.

Suddenly, a look of comprehension crossed Nick’s face.

“Noah, this isn’t the same as jumping out a window, babe,” he said calmly, his eyes returning constantly to the door. “I climbed this tree a thousand times when I was a kid. You’re not going to fall. You’re not going to hurt yourself.”

I knew what he was saying made sense, but I was paralyzed with fear. Windows, jumping…what that had meant for me in the past was devastating. I put my hands instinctively over my stomach, right where my scar lay.

Seeing me do that, Nicholas looked sad, but he covered it up as best he could. That was a taboo subject; I never talked about it, and neither did he…even if we were going to have to eventually.

“Please, Noah, do it for me,” he asked. “I can’t let anyone hurt you again.”

I tried to put myself in his place. If something happened to me, if the people who had broken into the house saw us, I had no idea what could happen. I was scared for Nicholas. I knew what he was like, and I knew his natural tendency would be to run straight into the line of danger. If he was still there with me, that meant just one thing: I mattered more to him than anything those people might steal or destroy.

“You go first, and I’ll follow after,” I said, trying to keep my emotions in check. I knew if I went down first, he would probably go after them, and seeing his gun, I was scared of what could happen to him, more scared than I had been of anything else up to then.

By his scowl, I knew I had him. He’d definitely been planning on staying behind.

“Sometimes I could strangle you,” he said, but he followed those words with a quick kiss on the lips.

Happily, the house was big enough that no one could hear us whispering.

Nicholas climbed out the window with ease, and I walked over to watch him descend. The branch was around nine feet off the ground. Memories of my accident assailed me. When I’d jumped out that window as a kid, I hadn’t even realized what I was doing… I remembered I’d been so scared that all I cared about was getting out of that hellhole of darkness and abuse. My father was the boogeyman, the monster every child is afraid of, but at that moment, I didn’t have a mom around to tell me it was just a nightmare. The monster had been real, and I’d had to jump to escape him.

Nick was soon on the lawn motioning for me to hurry behind him. Hearing a noise on the other end of the room, I shivered, went out the window legs first, and grabbed onto the tree trunk. I needed to go down before someone saw me. Nick was ready to catch me if I fell; that dissolved my fears. Soon he was holding me, and I could breathe easily again.

“Come on,” he said, pulling me toward the backyard. “Where’s your phone?”

We looked all around, scared someone might pop out in the night.

Thank God it was where I left it, on top of a deck chair, but that wasn’t all. Thor, the dog we both adored, was lying a yard away next to the pool. It was weird that he hadn’t barked—that hadn’t occurred to us until now—and now I felt even more scared. Nicholas jogged over to him and put his ear on his chest while I covered my mouth with one hand in dread.

“He’s alive,” he said, and I walked over and kneeled beside him. The dog was breathing regularly, as though asleep, with no signs of injuries.

“They must have drugged him,” Nick said, petting his head.

I bent over and kissed the dog’s furry neck.

“Come on, Noah, they might see us,” Nick said, and we left Thor behind.

Nick grabbed the phone and dragged me behind the pool house, pushing me into the wall and pressing into me to protect me with his body. That reminded me of my birthday party, and I thought how ironic it was that now we were in that same position, hoping not to be discovered.

He looked down and dialed emergency services, telling them what was happening, that someone had broken into our home and we were hiding. They told him a patrol was on the way and we should stay put. When he hung up, he hugged me and kissed my scalp.

“Are you okay?” he asked. “Don’t worry, they won’t see us here. Everything will be fine.”

I was so nervous, my hands were shaking. The nightmare, knowing Nicholas had heard me, what he’d told me afterward, having to jump out that window… I wanted to roll into a ball on the ground and wait for everything to go back to normal. I needed to escape my bad memories.

“Can I have a kiss?” I asked him instead of responding. I felt the adrenaline coursing through my veins, and I wouldn’t calm down until the police got there.

He seemed to think it a strange request, but he bent over anyway and answered my wishes. It was supposed to be quick and sweet, but I wrapped my hand around the back of his head and tried to get him to do it harder. Pushing my back against the wall, he made all of it—what was happening just then, the frustration of the day I’d gotten back from Europe after a month apart, my fight with my mother, my doubts—disappear in an instant. He slowed when he saw the situation was getting out of hand, but he didn’t let me go, and I stayed close to him. My hands touched something in the waistline of his pants, and he stepped back until we were completely apart.

In silence, panting, I watched him as he looked at me, took the gun out of the back of his pants, and put it on the ground where it wouldn’t bother him. The pistol gleamed in the moonlight, and I was scared.

“You shouldn’t have that,” I warned him. But before he could respond, we heard the sirens of the police cars. He came back close to me and said, “Please, don’t leave my side.”

I nodded and took his hand, ready for whatever awaited us.

When we emerged from our hiding place, we saw the police cars. People were milling around the door, and even neighbors were there, scared or just interested in what was going on. Two guys had tried to rob us. They’d been caught red-handed and hadn’t managed to get away. The worst part was that they’d been armed, and that reminded me that Nick had been, too.

I didn’t say a word while he spoke to the cops and told them everything that had happened and how we’d escaped through the window. They wrote everything down, got the power back on, and told us we should go to the station to give a statement.

“You can take care of that tomorrow, Mr. Leister,” the policeman said, looking at me with worry. “Probably you should get some rest for now.”

“I hope they rot in jail,” Nicholas said, looking at the squad car as it departed our home.

After that, and a few conversations with the neighbors, the last policeman left, and everyone else followed suit. I called my mom to let her know what had happened.

“Tell Nick to stay at the house with you tonight,” she said, and while that surprised me, I felt a warm gratitude I hadn’t known for some time. “We’ll be there as soon as we can.”

When I hung up, Nick took me inside, locked the door, and keyed in the code for the alarm I hadn’t known existed. I swore then and there, I’d never leave it off.

“Let’s go to bed,” he said, grabbing my hand and walking upstairs.

In his room, he gave me a clean pajama T-shirt to wear. We changed clothes in silence, totally absorbed in our thoughts.

“If I hadn’t decided to come…” he said, and I saw the fear in his face. The images that had plagued my mind must now be plaguing his, I thought. “That’s why I want us to live together, so I can always be there when you need me.”

Now I saw it clearly: the sense of safety I felt with him, how good I felt when he was there… It was true what he was saying—I needed him. He was the one I trusted, the cure to my nightmares, the one who could scare my demons away.

“I’ll tell my mother, Nick, I promise,” I said, banishing all doubts from my mind. There was no denying it now: Nick was the guy I needed to be with. A genuine smile crossed his face, and he kissed my lips and hugged me tight. It was weird, being there in his room. We hadn’t spent much time together in those four walls because he had moved out almost as soon as we got together, but still, I thought of the first time we’d slept together…how nervous I’d been, how beautiful it had been. He had treated me as if I were made of glass… Now, the way we were with each other was so different… As time passed, everything seemed more intense, as if we needed more and didn’t know how to manage our desires…

“Come here,” he said.

I did as he asked, got into his bed, and curled up in the sheets, clinging to him and resting my head on his chest. The last thing I remember is that I was dreaming, but of something far more beautiful than before: him.