Resurgence

A Heart of Stone Novella

By D H Sidebottom

Resurgence

By

D H Sidebottom

Copyright © 2016

This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to actual places, incidents and persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Copyright © 2016 D H Sidebottom. Please do not copy, alter or redistribute this book.

Please secure author’s permission before sharing any extracts of this book.

Dedication

Prologue

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

The Final Chapter

Dedication

I’m dedicating this book to Mason and Ava Fox.

Thank you. That’s all I can say. Thank you.

And to Vickie Leaf. You’ve been with me all the way, and as I wrote the final line, I could physically feel your hand in mine, holding on. I love you.

Sometimes, love is that little bit too final

Prologue

Mason

The world, and my life, now took on a whole new perspective. Rage. Hatred. Paranoia. Bitterness. They all simmered deep inside, catching my breath every second of the day, haunting my nightmares every single night, and tormenting my soul with every beat of my heart.

The mirror held a new me, a me I wasn’t sure I recognised, even under the scars and the desecrated skin. The natural shine to my grey eyes had gone, the once wide smile now unachievable and unwarranted.

My body was a mass of mutilated sinew and muscle, muscle that no longer worked properly. My legs and arms were a bulk of weak bones. And my heart was a gathering place for all the loathing and resentment.

Life. Death. In-between.

Life had been a sequence of struggles, adventures, and then love. Now none of those things remained. Only hatred and rage fuelled the thick substance that ran through my veins.

Death was tempting. Only it could cease the hot indignation that plagued me, only death could ease the constant pain that hounded me.

And then came the in-between. The now. My life as it was now. The place between wanting to live, and wanting to die.

But Ava refused to let me die. She refused to let me live come to that. But she would always be the in-between. The bridge that carried me over the void. The concrete that fixed my bones, and the only eyes to see the hurt that was buried underneath the rubble of my body.

The last chapter of my life was to be the hardest trek yet. And I prayed, daily, for it to end.

One

Ava

I could see it in his eyes. I could feel it in the air around him. Sense it in the way he now carried himself, and the way his once vibrant eyes never sought me out anymore.

My man was dead inside.

The body that carried him around was just a carcass of broken bones and torn muscle, a machine that breathed and ate for him but didn’t possess any life. While his ruined body still supported him, inside he was very much a cripple.

I thought back to the time in the hospital, when I had felt Mason’s life leave him and flood me, when his soul had sought me out and told of his hunger for death. I realised now that my heart still retained my husband’s soul, that it had stayed with me for solace when Mason had taken a breath and stayed to fight another day.

Mason was more than broken, he was shattered. The parts of him that I had fallen in love with many years ago had been obliterated the moment his own son had started to mutilate him.

Mason still refused to talk to me about what happened between him and George, as much as I tried to get him to open up. And that’s what scared me. His silence. Mason had always been broody, yet now it was like there was no emotion at all inside him.

But I swore I’d get him back. I would be the crutch that carried him, whether he wanted me to or not.

Yet, the day he first came home from the hospital, I realised just how naïve I had been. Just how foolish the vow to myself and my husband was.

~~~

Mason took a deep breath when he stepped into the cottage. His body was so highly strung that I could virtually see the energy pouring off him. His eyes moved, but he didn’t. The tension radiated off him, burning everything close to him.

Dropping his case to the floor beside the door, I looked up to see Katie walk into the hallway.  Her hair was bunched high, her cheekbones highlighted with a small amount of blush to hide the pale skin my genes plagued her with. She was so very pretty, and I couldn’t help but see my younger self within her.

She smiled widely, her eyes lit with love. “Hey, Dad.” Her excitement to have him home was exposed across the whole of her face. However, her smile quickly fell when she went to put her arms around Mason and he stepped back, regarding her with narrow eyes and an accusing gaze.

My stomach dropped when I heard the murmur of people in the house.

Shit.

Standing behind Mason, I caught Katie’s attention and shook my head, flicking my eyes towards the room. I had specifically told her not to gather a welcome home committee.

She lifted her hands and grimaced, telling me she had nothing to do with the party.

“I’m going for a shower,” Mason barked, making us both jump when he shot off up the stairs.

Closing my eyes, I blew out the breath I’d been holding for the last three hours since I’d walked into the hospital to bring my husband home.

“You okay?” Katie’s voice was as gentle as her arm around my shoulders when she pulled me towards her.

Tears bubbled but I bit them back, inhaling my daughter’s scent to give me the strength I needed. “Yeah,” I breathed as I hugged her back just as tightly.

Stepping back, she looked at me. The exhaustion on her face was as visible as her bright red hair. Her striking green eyes were cloudy and now enclosed in dark rings. Her shoulders slumped and her once healthy skin was now pasty, her soft skin marred with small thread veins. “I don’t know what to do to help him,” she whispered as Layla appeared from the lounge doorway.

Confusion crossed her face as her eyes glanced over us. “Did he not come home?”

“He’s gone for a shower. He’s just tired.”

She stared at me, seeing straight through my excuse, but she nodded and tipped her head to the lounge. “I’ll shift the others out, then I’ll be back… and we talk.”

Sagging in relief, I blinked, trying hard to stop the tears. “Okay, see you later.”

Leaving them, I slowly climbed the stairs. The need to be near Mason was as great as the need to run far, far away from him. I had to be hard, but I was too weak. Losing George had hit me more than anyone would ever know. I was ashamed of him, agonised by what he had done, but he was still my son, my little boy. I missed his unique scent, the way he would smile at me, the sound of his laughter and the pitch of his voice. I missed his compassion – well the compassion he had once had – and the feel of his arms around me when I hurt.

The worse feeling in the world was accepting that you failed as a parent. And that pain tore at my heart constantly. There wasn’t a moment in the day when the guilt didn’t eat me up, guilt at failing and guilt at forcing him into the corner he had ended his life in.

A part of me died alongside my son, and I knew I wouldn’t ever get it back again. I always knew I wasn’t a good person, but now I had to face head-on that I was also buried so far in my own sin that I would never witness a bright, sunny day again.

Yet, for Mason, I was willing to live in the darkness for the rest of my days. I was willing to accept the evil that simmered away inside me, just so I could fight beside my husband for another day.

The sound of the shower from the en-suite was loud in the small bedroom. Memories of mine and Mason’s younger days flooded me as I perched on the edge of the bed. Memories of our laughter, our love-making, our talks, his amazing smile, each one filtered inside me to warm the chill that had crept in. We’d had such a good life, albeit a hard life, and we’d been blessed with great friends and beautiful children – children that were broken from our sins.

The shower shut off and I gripped the edge of the bed, bracing myself when the door opened and Mason emerged in a billow of steam.

He stalled.

I swallowed.

I’d seen his scars on many occasions in the hospital. But witnessing them inside my own house I realised I wasn’t remotely prepared for the overwhelming feelings that burned through my veins.

Each raw, broken bit of skin was like a scalpel to my heart, etching myriads of mirror images across the surface and slicing me with thousands of razorblades of pain. Visions haunted me, my imagination guiding me through the long hours Mason had spent in the room with his own, masochistic son. The pain he must have felt, both physically and mentally.

“Why didn’t you fight back?” It was a daft question. One I should never have voiced. But I needed to know, I had to know!

He remained stoic, his deep grey eyes fixed on me like I was stupid. I was stupid.

His long body taunted me, the deep grooves of his muscles and the heavy contours of his frame stood firm and hard. Even though he’d been disfigured he was still a very beautiful man, the way he held himself, the way he stood menacing and foreboding, and the way his cold eyes drugged me caused my heart rate to escalate and my breathing shallow to virtually nothing.

I blinked when he whipped off the towel from around his hips and threw it into the corner of the room.

“This is me,” he said cryptically, his voice rough with emotion – the first emotion I’d witnessed from him since he’d opened his eyes eight weeks ago. “Because I am me.”

His cock stood proud, as proud as my man once had. But no longer did he hold that pride, it had vanished along with his soul.

He flinched when I stood up and walked over to him. Lifting my hand to his face, my heart squeezed when he moved away from my touch. His eyes closed and he screwed up his face as if he needed to prepare himself for my skin against his.

“And I love you,” I whispered. “I will always love you, no matter what, you know that.”

His snort pierced something inside me and my hand jerked when he pushed it away from him.

Snatching up his jeans and a t-shirt, he refused to look at me, his tension pushing me away.

“I’m going out.”

I stood watching the door for a long time after he’d gone through it.

And it wasn’t until Layla walked through it a couple of hours later that I moved.

~~~

“How you holding up?” Layla asked, her large eyes watching me over the rim of her glass.

I shrugged, leaving her question unanswered, and she nodded as if I had answered it. “Has he spoken to you about what happened?” I countered with another question.

Shaking her head, she sighed. “No. Where is he anyway?”

“No idea, he just went.”

Placing her glass on the table, she leaned towards me from where she sat beside me on the sofa. Taking my hand, she gave me a sad smile. “Give him time, Ava.”

“I can’t understand,” I spoke into the room, my brows pinching together with the many confused thoughts in my head. “Why didn’t he fight? Mason would never allow that to happen.”

“Ava,” Layla said quietly. “It was George. His own son.”

I laughed then, shaking my head in humour. “Yeah. But if I had the courage to kill my own flesh and blood then surely Mason…”

“You didn’t kill George,” she argued, her eyes becoming stormy with anger. “He took his own life, Ava.”

“I didn’t give him a choice.”

Gritting her teeth in exasperation, she blew out a breath. Then eyeing me warily, she frowned. “What aren’t you telling me?”

Layla was very astute, and I tensed.

“Ava?”

Gulping down the rest of my drink, I grabbed the bottle and refilled my glass, pouring some into Layla’s glass before I spoke. We both knew I was delaying but I needed to form the words in my head before I blurted them out of my mouth carelessly. “None of us have any idea what happened in that room with Mason and George… and Rich Vaughan and his men.”

“And you have to wait until Mase is strong enough to tell you.”

My tears were so hot I swore they singed my irises when they flowed over. My throat constricted and my voice dropped to a faint, choked whisper, “I think he was raped, Layla.”

I could practically hear the bile shift up her throat when she swallowed. “Fuck!”

“In front of his own son…”

“Jesus Christ.” Grabbing on to my shoulders, she turned me to face her. “You can’t know that, not until Mason confirms it. And if it’s true then you’ll be there for him, just as much as he was there for you.”

I nodded firmly. “I know, and I will be. But I can’t help him if he won’t let me.”

“Then you need to be patient. He knows you’re there. Just give him time, and support.”

I knew she was right, but the more Mason retreated from me the more my heart broke, and I prayed that I would still strong enough for him when the time came for him to need me.

~~~

“Baby.”

He was quiet but I sensed the need in his voice as soon as it soaked into my sleep-addled brain.

Turning over in bed to face him, my heart wept when I found his drug-induced gaze seeking me out in the soft light of the room. “You’re high.”

He nodded. “Yes.” Placing his palm on my cheek I covered his hand with my own, relishing in his touch once again.

The sorrow pouring from him crushed my resolve and his face blurred under the pool of tears. “Talk to me, Mason. Let me help you.”

“Don’t cry,” he whispered as he stroked his thumbs over my wet cheeks. “Please, don’t cry. It breaks my heart when you cry.”

“I don’t know what to do, Mason. I love you and I can’t make you see that. Whatever happened we’ll deal with it, together.”

He shook his head, dropping his hands from my face and rolled onto his back. “You can’t help me, Ava. No one can.”

Pushing me away when I rolled into him and slid my arm over his chest, he sat up and turned his back on me, tossing his legs over the side of the bed.

“You’re angry, I get that,” I tried as I sat up behind him, but as soon as I touched him, he shot upright, shivering with my touch. “Why won’t you let me touch you?”

The sob that left me was loud and I winced at the broken sound of it. I hated to be weak, but I couldn’t find the strength to fight the coward in me.

“So much has changed,” he whispered without turning. “I’ve changed.”

I didn’t like where I knew we were heading. The flesh of my lip popped when I bit into it so hard my mouth flooded with the taste of my own blood. “But I haven’t.”

Spinning round, he fixed me with a fierce stare, his eyebrows elevated in opposition to my statement. “Haven’t you? You killed your own baby, yet you sit there and tell me you haven’t changed. No one is that fucking cold, Ava.”

His words stole my breath and I choked on a sharp gasp.

“I sat there and took his rage, Ava! I sat there and let him… do things to me… Fucking horrifying things! Because he was my son. Yet you… you…” He couldn’t finish his sentence. Instead the look of disgust on his face told me what he couldn’t.

I couldn’t face him; face the truth he spoke of. Lowering my eyes, I nodded. It was all I could do. I wasn’t equipped to argue with his fact.

I gasped when his hands clamped my face and he yanked my head back, making me look at him. “You beg me to talk to you, to tell you what happened. But you’d never look at me the same way again!”

“Mason…”

“No! Don’t you get it? I don’t want to see that horror in your eyes, Ava. That’s the one thing I will never be able to come back from.”

“But I want to help you!”

“Then let me be!” he shouted, making me flinch with the hatred he spat at me. “Let – me - go!”

Fear seized me and I crumbled under his touch. My head shook. “No, don’t do this! Mason! Let me help you…”

“The scars, they’re crushing me, chewing me up, over and fucking over. I’m fucking lost in my own ravaged body, Ava. Not even you can find me anymore.”

“This is just the coke talking,” I declared as I scrambled from the bed and took hold of his arm.

Shaking me off, he dragged the large bag from the top of the wardrobe and started to fill it with his clothes. “No, this is me talking.”

“Mason, please.”

“I can’t face what you did, Ava. I can’t deal with what you did on top of everything else.”

Slumping on the bed, I sobbed, resignedly watching him stuff more and more things into his bag. “I’m sorry,” I choked out. “I’m sorry.”

Leaning into me, he placed a soft kiss on my forehead. I inhaled sharply, dragging his scent into my body. “Me too,” he whispered before he kissed me harder.

And then left me.

Through it all he’d never left me. Even after Kade, he still came back, and he never completely left me. But now I felt the abyss between us threatening to suck me into its dark chambers.

And I had a feeling, that this time, even Mason and I would struggle to climb our way out of this one.

Two

Mason

They always say that your true colours come out in the wash. Well, as I stood there, alone, in a random hotel shower with the torrent of blistering hot water pummelling my already broken skin, every colour that had lived within me washed away down the drain. My heart, my soul, my emotions and all the very things from life that gave me substance ran down the plug and left a sketch with no defined edges, a blurred outline filled with nothing but muted shades of rage and hatred.

There was nothing left.

Vomit burned my throat when vision after vision assaulted me, stinging my eyes and charring my throat. Puke hit the drab cream tiles and slid down the wall, the whisky I’d consumed filling the steam with pockets of stench and revulsion.

I watched it disappear with the rest of me, the lumps and slime refusing to fucking go and sticking to the plughole, taunting me with the disgust that lived inside me and wouldn’t ever fucking go away!

“I’m sorry,” she choked out. “I’m sorry.”

Ava’s whispered plea in my head had me squashing my skull between my hands, pressing my palms to my ears as I tried to banish her soft voice.

“Why won’t you let me touch you?”

More vomit trickled down my chin and I stumbled from the shower, holding onto the walls to keep me upright. I was so pissed. So high. So fucking done.

Violence slithered beneath my skin. The anger that was always rumbling away with a fury called out to me, taunted me, haunted me!

My knees hit the floor with a thud and I crawled over to the low table, quickly fixing a line on the mirrored surface. My eyes laughed at me as I bent and snorted, the fierce greyness chilling the marrow of my bones as I made my way through three more lines.

Until the mirrored glass held nothing but my sickening reflection.

I was sure even Satan didn’t hold this much ugliness.

I’d gone to hell and even the fucking devil himself had exiled me.

Dragging my finger across the longest scar, I watched the skin pucker in the reflection. And another. And another.

George’s laugh stabbed at me, the echo of his cold eyes staring back at me through the image of my own.

Glass shattered under my fist, mirrored shards catapulting across the room with the force of my blow.

But it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t ever enough.

My body vibrated with aggression as I yanked on some clothes, any clothes. My teeth trembled in my jaw and my blood spat and fizzed deep inside my veins as I tore through the hotel and out into the openness. The openness that held some fucker. Any fucker. Any cunt that would crumble under the weight of my insanity. Only blood would sate this damn fucking rage. Whether it be mine or anyone’s, I didn’t care. So long as it stopped the never-ending scream that ricocheted off every inch of my broken skull.

~~~

Groaning, the sound of a phone humming in the background, I turned over. My face felt sticky, my mouth and nose clogged and thick. My body was heavy, my muscles coiled tight with anger. Yet I didn’t feel as though I was there. Or anywhere.

Another shrill tone pulsated through my thumping head and I swallowed the stale bile that congested my airway.

My eyes peeled open enough to focus on the screen of my phone. Missed calls. Unanswered texts. Numerous inbox messages. All from Ava.

Guilt filled the empty space in my chest, the pain inside me desperate to cut through the organ that wasn’t there anymore, and placing the phone back on the nightstand, I stared at the dried blood that coated my hands. I couldn’t even remember what, or why it belonged there. It dyed my skin, tainted my soul, blemishing me with the evil that was me.

“Honey?”

Her saccharine voice made me baulk and I flipped over. Her eyes widened on me when I pressed the palm of my hand against her Botox-filled lips. “Shut the fuck up!”

Tears filled her wide blue eyes and she nodded wildly, the fear in her another spark to the underlying fury beneath my skin.

“Get out!”

She didn’t wait to be told twice. Scooting from the bed, she snatched up her clothes and fled, the door slamming shut behind her before she’d even finished getting dressed.

Stumbling into the bathroom, I turned on the shower and once again stepped inside.

They always say that your true colours come out in the wash. Well, as I stood there, alone, in a random hotel shower with the torrent of blistering hot water pummelling my already broken skin, every colour that had lived within me washed away down the drain. My heart, my soul, my emotions and all the very things from life that gave me substance ran down the plug and left a sketch with no defined edges, a blurred outline filled with nothing but muted shades of rage and hatred.

There was nothing left.

Nothing.

Three

Ava

Greg didn’t look pleased to see me. He stood staring at me while I stood on his doorstep, patiently waiting to see if he would accept me in or not.

Eventually, he sighed and shifted to one side.

Little Mason was sat in a small playpen in the corner and I immediately went over to him, scooping him up to inhale his scent of baby powder and milk. His simple word of ‘Mama’ had me cursing under my breath and closing my eyes for strength.

“What do you want, Ava?”

Kissing Mason’s forehead, I returned him to the pen and turned back to Greg. He wouldn’t look at me. I could practically see the rage pouring from him like a waterfall of fury, spreading into the air and making it difficult to breathe under the potency of his hatred for me. “I, uhh, came to see if you needed anything.”

He scoffed, shaking his head and biting into his lip. “I don’t think so.”

Nodding, I moved my eyes to the fireplace. Pain seared through me and I bit back the ache inside when Courtney’s huge smile shone from hers and Greg’s wedding photo. It had been such a wonderful day, a perfect day. The happiness that had radiated from my best friend that day would never leave me, it was buried in the box of happy memories I had come to rely on more and more in the last few years. “I miss her,” I whispered with an overwhelming sadness, unable to stop myself.

I gasped, rearing back when, before the words had completely left my mouth, he was on me. I took his anger. I relished in it, because it was justified, granted in a strange fucked up way.

“You have no fucking right to miss her!” he screamed at me.

I curled in on myself, trying to shield my body from his beating while with each breath I accepted it. I deserved it. I earned every crack of his fist in my face, every vicious word he spat at me, every tear that leaked from his crazy eyes and dropped onto my skin, searing me with his blistering pain.

“You killed her! You, your fucking husband, your sick fucking son. Your fucked upped life killed her!”

“I’m sorry,” I repeated, over and over, until the pain rendered me mute, and the heartache from the truth broke my will to breathe.

I felt myself being dragged through his house and the cool air outside hit me, stinging the open wounds on my face when he flung me onto the path.

“You’re no longer welcome here. You and your fucking family. Stay away from me before you take what little I have left!”

For the first time in a very long while, loneliness crept in. Ice trickled through my veins, chilling my bones with the heaviness of guilt and despair.

I sat for a very long time, outside my dead best friend’s house, in a pool of my own blood. Mason hated me. Courtney was dead. My son was dead. Nate and Liv now lived in America, so far away that I knew deep within me that I wouldn’t see them again. Kade loved me but relied on his wife for strength and fuel, as it should be. My life had taken my daughter’s husband from her and all that flowed through her now was a need for revenge. Vengeance for something that my fucked up life had started.

They had all gone. My friends, my family – my glorious bastard. Misery was as hurtful as loneliness. And loneliness was as consuming as guilt.

Love. That’s all I had lived for. But in the very end, it was the very thing that would kill me.

~~~

“Hey,” Kade’s soft voice through the phone filled a little of the emptiness that had grown within me.

“Hi. Are…”

“Sweetheart,” he called away from the phone. I heard Grace’s gentle laughter in the background and I cringed.

“I’m sorry, you’re busy.”

“I’ll call you back later, Ava.” He laughed, Grace squealed and the phone went dead.

Silence poured through the cottage, icing the chill that had already settled inside me. Placing my phone on the table, I picked up the glass of vodka and cranberry and took a large mouthful, the burn in my throat satisfying.

Various photos were scattered on the table, and smiling, I picked up one of the twins. They were around five, both of them sat in their underwear in the sandpit. George was laughing and Katie was looking over at Mason who squatted beside them both, scooping sand onto a spade.

“I’m so sorry,” I whispered as I ran my finger over George’s happy face.

My heart hurt so much, the pain indescribable as a tortured sob tore from the very core of me.

“My beautiful baby boy.”

I just prayed that he had found his peace, that his demons had allowed him rest. I had to take responsibility for what George had done. I was his mother, the person that guided him through life, taught him right from wrong. Yet, what he had done was unforgivable. He had broken my husband, his own father. And he had done it in ways that were not only horrific, but reprehensible.

It had all gone wrong. Twenty-five years had gone in the blink of an eye. My heart was full of memories, some good, some bad. I thought of my mother as I picked up the only picture I had of her. What would she have said about my life now? Would she have been proud of me? I very much doubted it.

My thoughts shifted to Dane. Had I been so corrupt that I had made him like he was? Had it been my fault after all?

 “Tell him… tell him it was fun. Tell him he was my brother and I loved him.”

His very last words trickled into my box of memories and I shut it closed quickly.

There was nothing left, or what was left was so broken that it would take me years to sift through the debris. What had once filled my heart had gone on to massacre it.

Tiredness grew within me, not just a need for sleep, but an exhaustion that desecrated every fibre of my being.

Taking a cigarette, I lit it, inhaled and blew the smoke into the air, my eyes focusing on the grey circle as it rose and dispersed into the darkness of the room. I hated that I had started smoking again, yet, I didn’t care. Cancer had fed on me once, and now, well now there was nothing left for it to devour.

I had to wonder what was next – what was left.

I would never survive this life without Mason. And if I was being completely honest, I wasn’t even sure I wanted to endure it. With or without my glorious bastard. Life had taken so much from the both of us that the horizon appeared forever black.

Stubbing out my smoke, I grabbed my drink and climbed the stairs. My body was weary, my bones aching with surrender and, exhausted, I entered the bathroom and preheated the shower.

Peeling off my clothes, I stepped in and stood under the river of heat. My muscles creaked, my stiff frame the only thing holding me together now.

Looking down, I placed a kiss on the tips of my fingers and pressed it to my ‘Mrs Fox’ tattoo that rested just above where my breasts used to be. Remembering Mason’s face when he saw it for the first time on our wedding day, I couldn’t help but smile. The awe on his face, that I had branded myself to him, was placed into the same box of memories I had set the image of Courtney’s wedding day into, along with so many more.

Turning my face to the spray and taking the razor blade from the shelf, I twisted it in my fingers. It held the only hope I had left. The only future I could envisage.

“I nearly slept with someone else.”

Mason’s voice made me jump and I spun around, dropping the blade into the shower tray below my feet. He stood, watching me, leaning against the vanity unit as his eyes roamed my nakedness. The darkness on his face made me, for the first time ever, wary of my own husband.

“Nearly?”

“Mmm.” He stepped towards me and I held firm, bracing myself when his dark expression turned into something quite sinister. He was drunk, very drunk. He was also high. Many times I had beheld Mason fuelled on coke and God knows what else, and I had always stayed above water. Yet, this time, I had a feeling things would go very differently. That my own husband would drown me.

“She had big tits, Ava. Huge tits. Like yours. Well, like yours used to be.”

My gut twisted and I clenched my fists. Ready. Prepared.

Slowly, he lifted his eyes to my face. The horror, and the pain, and the defeat in them made me physically wince. “And then I realised, tits or not, there’s only ever you that touches me.” He pointed to the centre of his chest. “Here. Where it matters.”

Tears burned my eyes as I witnessed my glorious bastard crumble and break before me. His face screwed up as he sank to the floor, his broken sob tearing at my heart.

“I can’t hide, Ava,” he cried as I scooped him into my arms, dropping to the floor beside him. “It won’t let me hide. I don’t want to see. I don’t want to feel this anymore. Why did he hate me so much?”

“He didn’t hate you,” I whispered. “He just didn’t know how to love you.”

“I loved him, Ava. So much. I did try, I tried so hard to make him love me.”

I nodded, pressing him against me, praying that it was time for the truth. But when it came out, I wasn’t prepared for it, not in the slightest.

“I didn’t fight back because I know he deserved his own retribution. But I thought, prayed, that if I allowed him that, then he would love me. I just wanted him to love me. Like he loved you, Ava.”

Shaking his head, he grew angry. “How can someone be jealous of their own wife, envious of the relationship they have with your kid? Does that make me a bad person?”

“No, it doesn’t make you a bad person. It makes you a parent, a father who loved his children no matter what.”

“You have to believe that I loved him, Ava.” He was desperate, clinging to me to make me see.

“I know,” I urged, nodding wildly. “I know.”

He was silent for a moment and I swallowed my nerve. “What happened, Mason?”

He winced, hiding his face from me.

“Did… Did someone… rape you?”

He stiffened so much that I didn’t need a verbal answer. My heart shattered and I clawed at his face, making him look at me. “You remember after Dane? How you told me that whatever I had gone through, it was only to make me stronger, that no one could touch my heart and soul because they belonged to you?”

He nodded, the tears in his eyes making my soul drop down and weep.

“Well you belong to me, Mason Fox. Your heart, your soul, your love, your anger, your wounds, they all belong to me. No one can take them from me, ever. I will fight in this life and the next for you. Don’t you ever forget that.”

“He laughed, Ava. My own son stood there and watched them rape me, over and over. How is that not wrong? How can I even…”

“It is wrong. George was too far gone for help, from anyone, baby. He was so lost in his own hatred that he would never have been able to come back from it.”

He paused, swallowing, before he turned his eyes to me. “Are we so lost that there’s no coming back?”

Without thought, without consideration, and with complete honesty, I nodded. “Yes.”

Slowly, he nodded. “Are you tired, baby?”

“Very.”

“Secretly,” he whispered. “I hoped he’d end it for me. I can’t do this anymore. You wouldn’t let me go, in the hospital,” he confessed, his weary eyes finding mine once more so I could see the truth in them. “And for that I hated you. I hated you, Ava.”

“I know.” I nodded. Because I did know. I knew all too fucking well.

“I don’t ever want to hate you like that, baby. Never. This heart of mine could never live through that.”

“Sometimes,” I whispered, “I want you to hate me.”

He nodded. He understood. “But I can’t.”

“I know you can’t, and that makes me love you all the more.”

Leaning my back against the bath tub, I sighed. “Sex, love and hate, that’s all we’ve ever known, Mason. But each one of those is so damn powerful that it gives us strength. Love breathes for us. Hate fights for us. And sex joins us, in ways that nothing else can. And we’ve come to live our lives with those three simple things. But I’m scared that one day they’ll be gone.”

“And then what do we have?” he finished for me.

Tipping my chin back with his finger, he very gently placed a kiss to my nose. “I’ll always love you, Ava. But hate, no, I don’t want that.”

“And that’s just the thing. You couldn’t even hate your own son for what he did. Without hate, there’s nothing Mason, nothing. There’s no fight, no passion. We just move forward, oblivious, ignorant. I don’t want to live like that. I want the passion, the pain, the thrill. But it’s gone. And now there’s nothing left.”

Standing, he leaned down and took me in his arms, scooping me against his strong chest. Carrying me through to the bedroom, he lowered me onto the bed and came over me. “I want to love you so much.”

Cupping his cheek, I smiled sadly. “But you’re scared.”

“I’m so fucking scared,” he sobbed. “I can’t. Not anymore. They took so much from me, Ava. Even that. Even my physical love for you.”

And now I understood.

Sex, was Mason and I. All of us. Every fibre of us. And now he’d lost that, he was so empty. So tortured by his inability to make love to me.

“Then love my heart,” I whispered. “Just love me.”

Dipping down, he kissed me. His lips were so soft, his kiss even softer. Passion was gone, but dear God, did my man love me with just his kiss. He worshipped me with just the touch of his mouth, caressing me with every part of him. He made me feel him, feel his love, his pain, his grief. I felt it all.

“I want to go home,” I told him when he pulled back. “To Portugal.”

He nodded, closing his eyes in relief at my words. “I love you, baby,” he breathed against my ear.

“And me, you,” I returned as I snuggled into the crook of his arm. “So damn much.”

Four

Mason

Layla grinned up at me from where she sat at the bar in The Panther. “Hey, babe.”

Kissing her forehead, I took the stool beside her, thanking Oliver when he slid me a whisky across the bar. “I need a favour.”

She nodded instantly, “Anything.”

“Me and Ava are returning to Portugal. I need you to take care of Katie for me.”

She narrowed her eyes on me. “But you’ve always managed to do that from Portugal.”

Nodding, I agreed. “I know, but she’s struggling. After Steed, I worry about her.”

“She’s tough, Mason.”

“No!” I snapped, making her blink at me. “No one is that tough, Lay. That’s the mistake I made, for a long time. Expecting people to be tougher than what they really are. She’s my baby. And she’s in so much damn pain. I need you to promise me.”

“Mase, what’s going on?”

“Nothing’s going on. Katie is hell-bent on retribution. So much so that I know it’s going to take over her life until there’s nothing left. Ava and me, we have fought so many things, for so long, that now, now there’s nothing but emptiness left. I don’t want that for my daughter.”

She watched me closely for a moment, then nodded. “Okay, I promise.”

Smiling, I took a drink. “So how’s you and Lucas? Anything I need to take care of before I leave?”

“Nah, we’re good. The ass wants another baby, but I’m too damn old for that shit.”

Her words pulled at my chest. “Do it, babe. One day life won’t be what it was. And all you’ll have left is your kids. Cherish them, Layla.”

“I do, Mase.” She nodded, sliding her hand over mine and giving it a hard squeeze. “Have you been to see, Greg?”

“No,” I bit down on my lip in anger. “But Ava has. Although she swears she hasn’t. She has a black eye, told me she’s fine, but I know it was Greg.”

“This is all so fucked up.”

“Yeah,” I sighed before downing the rest of my drink. Turning to Oliver, I asked, “Is William in?”

He nodded in reply. “Want me to buzz you through?”

“Please.”

Grabbing Layla, I pulled her into my arms, holding her close. “Thank you for holding me up. I love you, babe.”

Tears flooded my eyes and I walked away, leaving her reeling with the swiftness I took off. She couldn’t see. I wouldn’t let her.

~~~

Greg sighed angrily when he opened the door and I pushed my way in. But his sigh turned to a gasp when his back slammed against the wall and my fingers tightened around his throat. “You ever touch Ava again and I will personally hurt you!”

Glaring at me, he shook his head. “Get the fuck off me!”

“You think this is on Ava?” I snarled. “You think she wanted Courtney dead? How fucking stupid are you?”

“Whether she wanted her dead or not, it doesn’t matter. She knew, she knew what George had done. Yet she didn’t tell me. She hid it from me, Mase!”

“And have you never asked yourself why? Why she didn’t tell you?”

“To cover for him,” he spat, his hands pushing me away. I let him move me, needing to get some distance between us.

Shaking my head, I scoffed. “Shame, Greg. Fucking SHAME!”

He stilled, closing his eyes for a moment.

“What about Harry and little Mason? What if they turned out… bad?”

“They won’t.”

“How can you know that? How can any parent know that? You think I’m not ashamed of my own son? Because I am. But it doesn’t mean I don’t love him – didn’t love him. No matter what he did to me, I still fucking love him, Greg. So if you have a problem, then you come to me with it, not Ava. Never Ava!”

“Don’t you ever see the mess you leave behind, Mason?” he said quietly, “The rubble you leave us all buried under? I’m not sure I’m strong enough to rebuild now. I don’t want to rebuild without Courtney. She was it for me. My structure, my foundation. I can’t build on nothing.”

“You don’t have nothing. You have your boys. You hold them so close that it crushes you, Greg. And I promise, with the love of your children, you’ll always have a base to establish so much.”

“Mason?”

Sighing, I closed my eyes. “Ava and me are going back to Portugal. You won’t have to see us again. I just came to say goodbye.”

He swallowed, but he nodded.

He held out his hand, but pushing it away, I pulled my friend into me. “I’m so sorry, Greg. I really am. Take care, mate. And, well, thank you. For everything. You’ve been there, from the start, right to the end.”

“You retiring?”

“Yeah. It’s time. Katie has it. Nate and Liv are happy in the US. It’s time to bow out now.”

Emotion clouded his face. Tears glistened in his eyes. Because he knew. He knew I wouldn’t return this time. But he nodded. “Go find your peace.”

Locking eyes, I smiled sadly. “We had a good run, Greg.”

“That we did.” He nodded and we both grinned. “We fucking did.”

Five

Ava

Katie grinned at me when I perched on the edge of one of the barstools. “Hey,” she greeted, leaning across the bar to kiss her dad and me. “Drink?”

“Sure.”

I scanned the room. It was busy. The Fox, Katie’s pub, was notorious, a meeting place for all the Faces in London. I was so proud of her; of what she had established.

Sam beamed at me from a table in the corner, and Marcy waved us over.

My eyes filled with tears when one by one, everyone stepped out from behind a wall.

Greg.

Liv.

Nate.

Kerrie.

Kade.

Grace.

Layla.

Lucas.

William.

They were all there. Apart from my son, and my best friend.

Mason swung his arm around me when my knees buckled.

Greg came to me, a soft but sad smile on his face. “I’m so sorry, Ava.” He broke, falling into my arms as we both shared our grief for the most beautiful woman that had graced this sick fucking planet. “I’m so sorry. Please don’t hate me.”

“Shh. It’s okay. It’s okay. I love you. I couldn’t ever hate you. You kept me alive at the worst time of my life, nothing can ever come between that bond we shared, Greg. Nothing.”

He nodded, his fingers squeezing into the tops of my arms. “I love you, babe.” Leaning back, he smiled. “You take care of him. Wherever you end up. He needs you, Ava.”

“I know. And I need him.”

“Beers up!” Katie shouted as her and another one of her bar staff brought over trays with various drinks. “Tonight, we drink,” she declared. “Tonight we drink to friends, old, new and lost. Tonight we drink to my brother, and to Aunt Courtney.”

Everyone lifted their glass. And as I looked out, at each of my friends, I realised that I wasn’t empty. Far from it. I was leaving with a full heart. How it should be.

“You okay, sweetheart?”

Kade’s soft brush of his knuckles against my cheek made me turn and reach up to him. He kissed me, softly, but knowingly. “Are you coming home?”

I nodded. “Yeah. It’s time.”

Catching my gaze, his own filled with tears, he smiled. “He’s always with you, Ava. Your children never leave you. Ever. Whether they’re here or not, in your heart they’ll live forever.”

“You know,” I sighed, “Once, long ago, I hated myself for falling in love with you. Now, I can’t imagine never loving you.”

He swallowed, wiping the tears from my eyes with his thumb. “Back at ‘ya, sweetheart.”

“We did okay, didn’t we?”

He nodded, smiling widely. “We fucking did. Very okay.”

I was swung up and around and I laughed, slapping Nate on the arm before he pulled me in for a hug. “I missed you. America has lots of things, but it doesn’t have my best friend,” he said in my ear. Putting me down, he frowned. “So you’re leaving us, huh?”

“Yeah. We need this, Nate.”

“I know you do. And I’m happy that you are.” His eyes roamed down me, and that mischievous smile tilted his lips, along with one of his eyebrows.

Sighing, and shaking my head in humour, I rolled my eyes at him. “One look. I do owe you, after all.”

He slapped his hand on his chest and grinned. “Twenty-four years. Twenty-four long years. And now, now I get to look up your skirt!”

Slinging my hands in the air, I laughed and turned. Bending right over, I snuck a look between my parted legs. Nate’s face peered back at me, a huge grin on his handsome face.

“That was worth every damn year!”

Liv laughed, shaking her own head in amusement. “It’s no wonder I’m bloody grey!”

“That’s just cos your old, Liv.”

Her eyes widened on me but then she barked out a laugh. “Damn, tell it like it is, hun.”

“I always do.”

“Yeah,” she smiled.

Hugging me to her, I whispered in her ear. “Love my best friend for both of us, Liv.”

“Always,” she whispered back. “With all my heart and yours.”

A sob rippled from me and I nodded wildly. Her own tears flooded down her cheeks as she nodded with me.

My friends drank. My friends laughed.

And an hour later, Mason and I slipped quietly out of the back door, our hearts and souls still with our best friends.

“I need to go somewhere before we go.”

Mason frowned but nodded. “Okay.”

~~~

Mason knelt before the grave, plucking at the weeds that had found their way through the ground, and placed the single white rose upon the headstone.

I gave him a quiet moment, time for just the two of them. For him to say what he needed to. He muttered quietly, his voice low and soft as he tended lovingly.

The cemetery was quiet, the clouds overhead bringing with them a chill to the air. I always wondered where my little spot would be, and for some strange reason, my eyes filtered down to the headstone, reading the words that were etched in my heart.

Rebecca Grace Delaney

Loved, and never forgotten

We had shared so much, our love for the same man giving us a bond of love and hate that wouldn’t ever be severed, even in death.

“She loved you so very much,” I whispered as I knelt beside my husband.

He smiled, and nodded. “Yeah. I know.”

“Life’s cruel, Mason.” Taking his hand, I brought his knuckles to my lips and gently kissed them. “She knew that, I know that. You know it. But she never gave up. And now, Debora and Becca are there to hold her hand. She’s not lonely anymore.”

He nodded, wiping away the single tear that he allowed liberation.  Bending, he kissed the name of the other woman that held his heart, and then taking my hand, he took me home.

The Final Chapter

Ava

Mason pulled the car to a stop in front of the tiny Portuguese cottage George had lovingly left me. I always felt closer to him here, and as I stared out before me, over the edge of the cliff to the ocean that spread before me, I felt his heart beat alongside mine.

I had been lucky, so very lucky. Life hadn’t started out great, but then, gradually, it had become so very great. I had been loved by so many people. I had loved so many people. My heart had created two beautiful children, and my husband’s heart had been the very thing that had kept mine beating.

“You ever wished we’d done things differently, Ava?” Mason asked quietly as he held the same gaze I did, the soft pull of blueness making my soul let go.

“No. Yes. Sometimes.”

He chuckled. “My thoughts exactly.”

“Do you think we’ll go to heaven or hell?” I asked on a whisper.

He pondered my question, then turned to me. “Maybe somewhere in between.”

I smiled. “Yeah, I like that. A place of our own.”

“I’ll never stop fighting for you, my little warrior. Wherever we go.”

“And me, you.”

We sat as a peace settled around us. It’s funny but the end felt so very much like the beginning. In that single moment I fell in love with Mason Fox all over again. Once again I was the girl with the striped blouse, gazing across at a table at a man that would become my very life.

His soul slipped into my own and reassured it. His heart held mine, each hard beat filling me with hope for the first time in a long while.

Reaching for the stereo, Mason pressed play and the car filled with Jackie Wilson, Your love keeps lifting me higher.

I laughed and cried. I cried and laughed.

“Ready?” he whispered.

I nodded. “Yes.” Touching his face, I smiled. “Yes.”

On 16th May 2016, at 12.52pm, Mason Fox took his little warrior’s hand.

And he pressed the accelerator.

The End

Finally.

They say Silence is Golden.

But not this silence.

This silence is black,

And it hurts.