Disclaimer: Did you see The Limey? Yeah I wouldn't have done that to myself if I had any power whatsoever
No. No. No. She wasn't quite sure what she'd just read. Maybe she'd just had a bad dream. A nightmare. Maybe she'd just drunk too much wine, way too much wine. She let her eyes roam over the last page of Frozen Heat another time as shock finally gave way to sorrow and tears began to leak down her cheeks.
He couldn't have. Could he? Richard Castle, her Richard Castle the man she loved, simply could not have written those words. There had to be some kind of mistake, he'd probably come knocking at her door in a matter of minutes to explain that there'd been some huge mix-up, that this was all some big misunderstanding on the part of his publisher's. _
She waited maybe half an hour, unmoving, tears running silently down her cheeks, until she finally realised that he wasn't coming, that this wasn't a dream, that he'd really done this to her. Anger flared up within her and she threw the book across the room, followed by several items from her coffee table. She wanted to get those words out of her mind, to go back in time and stop herself from reading them, to stop him from writing them in the first place. She knew he'd been mad at her, she didn't know why, but it had been painfully obvious. He'd acted out for a while-dating blonde bimbos and getting himself knocked around with the gang unit-but after a few weeks he'd calmed down again and come back to her. Granted he hadn't been the same, not exactly, but he'd been there. He'd built theory with her, stayed late on the tough ones, a few weeks ago he'd even started buying her coffee again. He'd seemed like he was on his way to forgiving her for whatever it was she'd done to upset him, she'd almost hoped that maybe they were headed to finally being together. He'd waited for her so she'd been waiting for him, not trying to pry open whatever wound had set them so far back, just being there, figuring that all he needed was time.
She'd clearly been wrong. Whatever it was that had brought him back, kept him there through the late nights and the early mornings, it clearly had not been her. Maybe he didn't want to lose Ryan and Esposito as friends, maybe he wanted to make sure that Alexis could carry on her internship, maybe he just did have a morbid curiosity with death, but whatever it was it couldn't be love for her. She knew that know. Knew that something happened that didn't just make Castle stop loving her, it made him hate her, and that hurt.
She looked over at the book, now lying open and bent on the floor, and felt fresh tears welling up. He'd killed her. He'd actually killed her. The words floated through her mind again and she couldn't stop them:
Nikki gasped as the knife entered her body again, whatever fight she'd had drained out of her as she slumped to the ground, pressing her hands to her ragged, bleeding flesh.
'Die like your mother, whore,' the faceless man spat at her as he drove the knife in one final, fatal time before striding out of the dark alley and leaving her to the mercy of the cold winter air. She struggled to reach for her phone, to hear his voice even if for the last time, but then she remembered what had happened. Remembered how she'd alienated herself from everyone that loved her, how now there was no one left who would come to her aid, no one who would care if she bled out in alley. Not even Jameson Rook.
Kate shook her head, desperate to make those words leave her, because if they didn't she was sure she'd go insane. Nikki Heat's mother hadn't died in an alley, she'd died in their kitchen, but her mother had. He hadn't written this so it was traumatizing for his character, he'd written it to be traumatizing for her, and as the connotations of that realization hit, a fresh wave of angry tears spilled over. How could he possibly have done that? No matter how much he hated her, she honestly didn't think he was capable of something so cruel. Maybe she just hadn't known him at all. Suddenly she wondered if his whole nice guy demeanour was just an act, that perhaps she'd loved a man who never really existed, and she shuddered at the thought. She wanted to confront him, to ask him why and shout at him no matter what answer he gave, but somehow she didn't think that would help. Besides, they were beyond help now, way beyond help. She thought that she'd had him back, but she was wrong, she lost him a long time ago and she would never have him back. Anger wouldn't help, neither would fighting, nor shouting. The only thing she could do was sit alone and cry until she had no tears left. Cry because her mother was dead, cry because she missed her, cry because there was a four book series that exposed her wounds for anyone one to poke at, cry because the man she couldn't help loving had written those books and cry because he'd written them because he hated her.
Next chap on it's way, feel free to share your thoughts. Bear in mind that this is my first story and I have no beta