Taken into the Unknown (Complete)

All You Need is Love

CHAPTER 40  All You Need Is Love

His bleak blue eyes froze my heart and then melted them with the contrite look in his eyes. Imagine how I must have felt when everything I had worked for and dreamed of in my life was taken away from me. I wanted to touch him, hold him, and comfort him. I hated you with every fiber of my being after you took the love of my life away from me. I wanted to give him what no one else gave him. It wasn’t fair that you got everything you wanted. What made you more deserving than me?! I wanted to shower him with love. He didn’t say it, but I know he felt it. He would never have mentioned the emptiness and loneliness he felt inside his heart.

But I also knew I could never have been the woman to mend his heart. That woman was long dead. Things would have been different if he hadn’t sent her to Damon, if she hadn’t betrayed Baxter and fallen in love with Damon. Things would have been different if Damon’s father had kept his word to Bax. Things would have been different if Damon’s mother hadn’t cheated on her husband. Things would have been different if Damon’s father had been more affectionate with his wife, if he had loved her.

Most people would hate Baxter for all he had done. For all the lives he had taken. For all the lives he had ruined. But I…I couldn’t find it in my heart to hate him after everything he had suffered. What he did was wrong and unjustified. That was a simple fact. But I didn’t hate him. I pitied him. I felt grief for his grief. Even to my death you get what you want, and I lose everything. I’ll always just be the loveless bastard. I hate you. He didn’t deserve to endure the misery from the predicaments other people inadvertently set him in.

I’ll always just be the loveless bastard.  

I slid in front of Baxter and pulled the trigger. In slow motion I could see the bullet penetrate his chest. His body jerked from the impact and the first sprinkle of blood covered his clothes.

I’ll always just be the loveless bastard. 

I tried to run to him before he hit the ground, but it was like I was paralyzed. I would watch him die over and over again and it was my fault. I kept trying to run to him. “Baxter! No! Bax I’m sorry! I’m sorry…” The walls around me began to shake and sway. Sheetrock and debris began to fall until everything just crumbled. “Bax! I’m sorry!”

“Bax!” I yelled, shooting up and immediately feeling an intense, searing pain in my side and all over my body.

“Woah, slow down there ‘laure,” said a familiar voice I hadn’t heard in a while, using a nickname I hadn’t heard in ages.

“Landon!” I exclaimed excitedly. I jerked up to hug him, once again forgetting my injuries, and ended up howling from the pain.

“’laure I’m so glad you’re awake, but you’re going to have to stop moving so much or the nurse will have my head. Here,” he said as he leaned down to lightly embrace me, “I’ll give you one of my old bone crushing hugs when you get better ‘laure.”

“Would you stop with the nickname already? You know I hate it, Landon.”

“Don’t lie, I know you miss it.”

“The nickname I’m not so sure about, but you…I definitely missed you. By the way, why are you here? And where am I? And where is everyone?! Is Jayden okay?!”

“Breathe a little would ya. One question at a time. You’re in Washington Medical Center in Seattle. You had some pretty ugly looking injuries. Jayden will be fine. She’s still in intensive care, but the doctor said she should make it. He parents are here too.”

I breathed a sigh of relief, “Well it’s good to hear she’ll finally be okay.”

“Alive, definitely, but I’m not so sure she’ll be okay.”