Sugar Baby Âœ”ϸ twenty-ninth: analgesia

Never will I ever not cry to this song.

Time.

It had become a fictional concept.

I rammed my foot on the pedal, trying to manoeuvre the car faster through the dark streets. My vision was hazy, blood pounding in my ears. I could still hear Xavier’s agonizing screams. The gunshot.

My blood turned to ice. My limbs felt crippled. I felt like someone had repeatedly shoved me against the wall. My mental agony turning into physical, tangible anguish till my body refused to function.

If something had happened to him-

No way. I couldn’t let that thought form in my mind. He was strong. Intelligent. He had to find his way out.

The gunshot sounded in my ears again and I almost screamed out in paralyzing fear. But my lungs couldn’t amass enough air. Multiple gunshots. One after the other. As he screamed. As he bled. And I stood helpless.

I was supposed to protect him. After everything I had lost, I couldn’t fathom the thought of losing him.

We reached his apartment after some time. I wasn’t sure how much later. My heart stopped as I noticed his familiar car. Another, much more expensive looking car I hadn’t seen before was parked right behind it. Rosalie didn’t seem to care enough to cover her tracks. A smaller, unrecognizable car stood in tow. I didn’t stop to think. I didn’t stop to rationalize. I was scarcely aware of some disembodied voice calling my name. But I didn’t stop.

I flew up the staircase, my legs almost refusing to work. It took every ounce of my courage to make my way up the stairs. The silence deafened me.

I staggered into his room, my vision tunnelling.

Xavier.

No.No.No.No.

He was lying in a pool of blood. His skin pale. His chest barely moving. All air rushed out of my punctured lungs. Plausible, coherent thoughts refused to form in my brain. I tried to breathe, moving towards him and falling onto my knees.

Xavier.

I had seen him injured multiple times. Stab wounds. Gunshots. Even physical wounds. He had been drugged. Brutally beaten. And yet, I had never seen Xavier Easton as he was now. Broken. His skin pale as porcelain. His body lifeless as a wax doll. His own blood pooling around him. Dark.

The world around me disappeared in a cacophony of colours and sounds. I was aware of a loud, female voice in the room. Sobbing. I couldn’t look away from Xavier. I couldn’t touch him. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe.

“Xavier…” My voice broke as I moved closer to him. Calling desperately. “Xavier…”

I was aware of a pair of unfamiliar hands pulling at my shoulders. A stranger’s voice spoke from somewhere far away.

“We need…to get him…hospital.”

I glanced at the young girl. I couldn’t recognize her. I didn’t think it mattered. I was unarmed and Rosalie was still free. Perhaps in the room itself. But it didn’t matter. A masochistic part of me hoped she would shoot me as well. There was no point in the world anyway.

I stared, shell shocked as a few strangers started pulling him onto a stretcher.

I was sucked into a warp of colours. Voices. The smell of blood. His blood.

I sleepwalked back into the car. I felt like a dagger was stuck in my throat. He couldn’t just leave. He wouldn’t just leave me. Not after everything. Not after I knew what his love felt like. Not after I knew what love felt like. He wouldn’t be so cruel.

We pulled up into a hospital. The ambulance had moved too slow. The world was moving too slow.

The scarlet from his veins was draining too fast.

I staggered to my feet and ran into the white building. I stared in disbelief as he was put onto another stretcher and taken to an emergency room. I heard shouts. Words. Spoken to me. But they made no sense.

He looked so broken. He couldn’t be broken. He was the strongest person I had ever known.

What if he left me?

I couldn’t fathom the thought. Deep, ragged breaths escaped my throat as I leaned against the cold wall. Why wasn’t the world tearing into shreds? Why wasn’t everything ending when I was?

I waited for what felt like hours. The longest minutes of my life. They stretched into an infinity that was sucking me into its deep chasm.

I heard racked sobbing and gazed at the wall in front of me. Vague recognition registered in my woozy brain. The girl who had told me to get Xavier to a hospital. She hid her face in her hands as she sobbed uncontrollably. My heart had turned to stone and refused to feel any sympathy until he was alright.

I turned to my side and saw the doctor in deep conversation with Black. It gave me sadistic pleasure to see his pale skin, the dark shadows under his eyes which kept darting to me as he chewed on his own tongue. 

“What about the girl?” he asked softly.

“She’s not injured. I have checked. However…the mental trauma from attacking her own mother…” The doctor shook his head. “How did she get there in the first place?”

“She says her mother returned from somewhere in a rage and…took her gun and left. So she followed.”

My heart hammered as I made my way towards them. Oddly, they stopped talking the moment I got closer. Harold glanced at me once, his eyes flashing. “The entire operation requires a hundred grand. Four hundred from his multiple wounds.”

I stared at him, uncomprehending. “Okay. Give it.”

He sighed, pulling my arm and leading me to a secluded corner. He sighed deeply and shuffled his feet as he spoke, “Shelby…I need you to know that this is a massive amount of money.”

“Four hundred is nothing,” I scoffed. “What he’s done, he deserves way more than that and you fucking know it.”

He sighed, his eyes narrowed. His jaw was set and his voice stoic. Unyielding. “You have to understand the political ramifications of this.”

I blinked. “What…ramifications?”

“Once people get to know the story, the governer’s image will be in shambles. To know that such a trade was going on for so long, that the nation’s security was in jeopardy… our government will become a laughing stock.” He shook his head. “We…we had been ordered to provide him preliminary treatment in case of a fatal injury. But if it exceeds fifty grand-“

I stared at him, incredulous. “Fifty grand?”

He sighed, “We cannot pay for it. We are ordered not to.”

Blood pounded in my ears at his words. “So…we… you’re just…going to…let him?” I couldn’t finish the sentence. A catastrophic explosion churning in my chest.

“It is the safest option.” He shook his head. “If Xavier’s story gets out-“

“I’ll pay for it,” I said, clenching my fists as white-hot hatred bubbled in my stomach. These were the people I had served faithfully. These were the people Xavier had risked his life for. “I just need some time.”

With Victoria, it was difficult to maintain my finances. But it was the only option. However, he shook his head. “I can’t allow you to do that, Shelby.”

I stared at him. “I am allowed to do-“

“No. You’re not,” he said with a finality that turned my blood to naked fire. “The operation takes place right now. Or else it doesn’t. We can’t…letting Xavier survive would increase the risk of this news spreading. It will become scandalous. His purpose is served.”

I had never wanted to kill someone with as much intensity as I wanted to kill Harold Black.

I didn’t care for my uniform. I didn’t care for my position. All I cared about was the gun in my belt and how easy it would be to end the vile creature in that second.

I flew at him, shoving him against the wall and punching his gut as he let out a strangled cry. There was a commotion as a crowd gathered slowly. I pushed him to the ground, hitting, kicking, punching with murderous rage. My brain incoherent, my thoughts an infernal tide as I lost all rationality.  How dare he live in a world where Xavier wouldn’t?

Rage I hadn’t felt in years destroyed me. Ravaging my insides. Every hurt. Everything I had ever tolerated. Everything that Xavier had numbed. Everything came rushing back in a deluge.

I felt a tangle of arms pulling me away. I kicked, screamed in delirious, maniacal rage. I had to end Harold Black. I had to end him. He had no right to live. No right to breathe when Xavier, my Xavier wasn’t going to.

He staggered to his feet, his face pale, eyes wide in what I hoped was fear. His flyaway hair somehow seeming to stand on edge. His features contorted in a camouflage of terror and anger. But he didn’t hit me back. And somehow, all fight left me. I crumpled to the ground, not caring that there were people staring. Not caring that I was still in a uniform which pledged my loyalty to the monster in front of me.

“You should not have let your personal feelings get in the way of your job, Shelby.” Black snarled, spit flying from his mouth. He looked deranged. And then it hit me.

“You’re a fucking monster, Black,” I spoke, my voice trembling. “You’re doing this out of jealousy? Because he fucking rejected you. You’re going to let him fucking die? Even after everyth-“

I choked out, I couldn’t speak. I placed my hand on the cold tiles, my head spinning. How was this real? How could I lose him? How could I lose him now when he as a part of me?

“It is not up to me, Shelby,” Black said, trying to regain composure as he took a deep breath and drew himself to his full height. Perhaps becoming aware of the audience we had. “We…don’t have enough funds.”

A soft, female voice piped up, “I’ll pay.”

My heart stopped. I gazed at the slightly trembling girl who stood near the wall, her eyes bloodshot. Then it hit me. Scarlett. She looked terrified. Her face was stained with tears, her hair flying wildly around her face, her skin white like paper. But her voice was strong when she spoke, “I’ll pay. Get the treatment done.”

Harold seemed to be at a loss for words. He gaped soundlessly at me. Then at Scarlett. His mouth opening and closing like a fish.

I had been prepared for adversities. Getting shot. Stabbed. Diffusing a bomb. But nothing had ever prepared for the instance when my heart would be ripped from my chest and impaled with thorns, left to bleed.

It killed me that someone else had the power to save him when I didn’t. But I was desperate. I couldn’t fathom the thought of a world without him. A world where I couldn’t hear his voice. Where I couldn’t drown in his eyes. Where he would never hold me again. Where I could never feel his warmth again. A world without his breathtaking soul and beautiful heart.

The girl talked to the doctors as I stood silently. After negotiating, she came and stood against the wall opposite me, her shoulders trembling as she dissolved into tears.

I was quiet, no shred of sympathy left in my heart. Like everything good inside me had gone with Xavier.

No. He wasn’t gone.

He couldn’t be gone.

I stood silently, a victim of time as hours trickled by. The girl glanced at me finally, her voice hollow, thick with tears. “Are you…his boyfriend?”

I was quiet. Was I his boyfriend? I don’t know. I loved him with my entire existence. I wanted him to be my family. He was a part of me.

“Yeah,” I said, gritting my teeth as my eyes finally focussed on her vaguely familiar blonde hair and grey eyes. “You’re Scarlett.”

She nodded.

We lapsed into silence again. She kept sobbing silently. I felt apathy. My entire hollow being fixated on Xavier.

I shut my eyes and prayed. Something I had never done. I felt helpless. Fate wouldn’t be so cruel to take him away from me. It couldn’t happen.

‘I can’t live in a world where you don’t love me, Xavier.’

‘Good thing you don’t have to.’

My heart wrenched painfully in my chest. Had he lied to me? Would he leave?

I glanced my watch, barely registering the time. I glanced at the window. The rays of sun hinting streaks of gold in the naked sky. 

‘I love you, Gray.’

Prove it, Xavier. Prove it and come back to me.

I shut my eyes, begging for the anguish to go. I leaned my head against the tiles, biting my lip to keep it from trembling. I selfishly wished it was me inside. I selfishly wished I was the one battling death. I selfishly wished he was the one outside.

He was too pure. Too loving. Too beautiful to be in this situation. He didn’t deserve this. All he deserved was happiness. I would give everything to have him.

Why had I left him alone? It was my fault. I couldn’t protect him. If he was gone, the world would end.

I waited and waited. My heart still. My senses benumbed. Praying for analgesia.