For You(29)

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m so so sorry he hurt Puck. I’m so fucking –”

Colt’s hand wrapped around the back of my neck, its steadiness and warmth coming as so much of a shock, I stopped speaking.

“February, it’s okay,” Colt’s voice was quiet, just for me, only for me.

I shook my head, the movement unnatural and wrong, me alive and moving while all things around me were getting butchered. The tears still uncontrolled, my hands twisted in his jacket and I shook it. “It isn’t.”

And it wasn’t. None of it was.

“Feb –” he began but I lost it.

I lost it because it finally sunk in deep what my sick admirer considered his end game.

And the thought was intolerable.

Yanking Colt’s jacket with a vicious pull, I slammed my fists back into his chest and screeched, “He means to harm you!”

Then I did it again and again, my repeated shrieks of those five words broken with sobs, my fists pummeling his chest, abusing his jacket, until his arms came around me, pulling me close, trapping my arms between our bodies.

My head was still tilted back and Colt was still blurry and even imprisoned I was still hysterical. “He means to harm you!”

“Do you have someone here who’s qualified to sedate her?” Agent Warren asked and I tried to turn, tear out of Colt’s arms to confront my new nemesis but Colt held me fast so just my neck twisted.

“I can’t help if I’m sedated!” I shrieked.

“February, you need to calm down,” Colt said firmly.

My head twisted back and I looked at him still sightless and weeping. “I killed your dog.”

“You didn’t have a thing to do with Puck dying.”

“I killed your dog.”

“She’s hysterical,” someone muttered.

My neck twisted toward the direction of the sound and I screamed blindly, “You would be too if you killed someone’s dog!”

Colt’s arms got so tight, my breath was forced out of my lungs and I heard him whisper the words, “Baby, stop it. You didn’t kill my dog.”

Baby, stop it.

Baby, stop it.

Baby, stop it.

The soft words bounced in my head, round and round, taking all my concentration. So much, I didn’t have enough to remain standing and I gave Colt my weight, dropped my head and rested it on my hands which were trapped against his chest.

Baby, stop it, you don’t know what you’re saying.

He’d said that years ago when I broke up with him.

Baby, stop it, you know the way it is between you and me.

He’d said that years ago too, when I told him he should act like a free agent when he went to Purdue and if he came back to me then we’d know it was meant to be. He’d refused. He’d said he didn’t want to be a free agent. He didn’t want anyone, not anyone, but me.

Baby, stop it, Morrie gets it, your parents do too.

He’d said that years and years and years ago, after the first time he kissed me and I’d freaked out because I’d wanted that kiss so badly, and it was everything I’d wanted it to be, and it promised everything I needed it to promise, but I’d worried Morrie, Mom and Dad would get mad.

“I want him to be watching now,” I said to my hands, the tears still coming but they were no longer loud and neither was my voice. My words, like his, were meant only for Colt. “I want him to see what he’s doing to me.”

Colt’s arms got tight again. “He won’t care, Feb, after all these years something started him on this path and he can’t go back now. But you’ve got to be stronger than this, you’ve got to help Sully and the FBI and you’ve got to stand strong to the end.” One of his arms came from around me and his hand went to the back of my neck, giving me a squeeze there and I tilted my head back to look at him, was able to get focused on him but still only blinking through tears. “And there’ll be an end, I promise, February, and it won’t end with the end of me. It will end with the end of what he’s doing.”

I nodded, not because I believed, I was too scared to believe. I nodded because it was clear he believed.

“I’m sorry about Puck,” I whispered and I knew it sounded stupid and like I hadn’t gotten myself together but his hand at my neck gave me another squeeze.

“I know you are. I am too.”

Colt knew it wasn’t stupid, he knew I was just saying I was sorry as anyone would and as I hadn’t at the time Puck died because I was avoiding him.

“This is over, you should get another dog,” I advised.

His mouth moved, I didn’t understand how but it wasn’t anger. It was something else, something attractive, almost mesmerizing.