by J. L. Beck
I shrug. “I mean, maybe we could actually grow to care for her. I already feel like she belongs to us and from the way you growled mine like an animal, a few hours ago, you know exactly what the fuck I’m talking about.”
“Your cock is doing all of your thinking, brother. There is no other reason you would say what you just said.” Declan shakes his head, annoyance oozing from his pores.
“Well, we need to figure out what we’re going to do with her,” Wes reminds, and I just want to tell him to shut up for a moment.
“It’s simple really...keep her as a warm place to put our cocks until we are done with her.” For some reason, Declan’s voice and his words are grating on my last nerve. “It’s that or kill her, and since you two are so against doing that…”
“Fucking her is nice, but no matter what way we look at it she’s a human with feelings, and she’s innocent in this war against her father. Isn’t that obvious now? He wants her dead as badly as he wants us dead. Any man that cares about his daughter wouldn’t act like this.”
“She isn’t innocent, and he is bluffing.”
“He’s not, and how isn’t she? She didn’t kill…” I grind my teeth together, deciding right now that I’m done with this conversation. I was hoping after what took place earlier, he would come to his senses in some way, but he didn’t.
“Maybe she didn’t pull the trigger. Maybe she didn’t do his dirty deeds. Maybe blood doesn’t cover her hands, but she’s our only revenge against him. She’s our only chance at hurting him.” I shake my head, because he’s just not getting it. He’s too caught up inside his head, too stuck on his need for revenge. Taking a step toward her, I reach for her and pick her up off the bed. She doesn’t even stir. Her head lolls to the side and comes to rest against my chest.
“We need to start taking better care of her, ensuring that she eats at least three full meals a day. If we’re going to keep using her body the way we are, then she needs to be cared for properly.”
“I agree. I’ll go make her something eat, and we can wake her up soon,” Wes announces, slipping from the room without another word.
My gaze lingers on her face for a long moment. So fucking beautiful. To have her, to keep her, to make her ours, completely. It would be a dream, something I didn’t even know I wanted until now. My brothers and I have never been the type to date, to keep a woman to warm our beds, mostly because we never got the chance, but I think Jessa would be a good start for that. She’s submissive enough, and easily handles all three of us at once, now we just need to get her to trust us.
I look up from Jessa’s sleeping form and find Declan staring at her. There’s a tinge of warmth in his dark gaze, and I don’t even know if he realizes it. Since losing our family, he’s been the most closed off, the only one that never talked about the loss.
“It’s okay to want her. I know it doesn’t make sense, but I won’t deny that I want her, I want to keep her, and I don’t want her to die.”
His gaze drops immediately, a coldness encompassing his features. He’s closing himself off, building his walls back up. “Get her the fuck out of here. I don’t want to see her again until it’s time to fuck her.”
My molars grind together in anger and I turn on my heels carrying her out of the room. I take her down the hall and into the living room depositing her on the couch gently. Again, she doesn’t stir, not even a whimper, which bothers me more than I care to admit. Fuck, I’m growing attached, more than attached. I’m concerned.
Wes is doing something in the kitchen, pots and pans, and all kinds of shit are banging around, and I have no idea how she’s still sleeping through the noise. I can barely focus on the shit I’m looking over on my laptop.
By the time Wes comes in with a steaming plate of food she is still out, and my concern for her boils over.
“We should wake her up, she needs to eat and drink something,” Wes says, placing the plate of food down on the end table. I nod in agreement and watch as he gently rubs her shoulder and whispers her name into the shell of her ear.
When she still doesn’t stir, he shakes her a little more and raises his voice an octave. Her eyes open briefly, looking up at him, but they are out of focus and glassy. She mumbles something incoherent and her eyes flutter closed once more. She almost looks high and my first thought is that Declan gave her something. And at this rate, I wouldn’t be shocked if he did.
Slamming the laptop shut I shove up from the couch, fury burning in my veins as I stomp through the apartment and into his room. “Did you fucking drug her?”
Declan is still sitting on his bed in the same fashion we left him, his head snaps up when I burst into his room.
“What?”
“You fucking heard me, did you drug her? What did you give her? We can’t even wake her up. She’s completely out of it, and I’m fucking worried. She needs to eat something.” I feel myself unraveling, the knot of panic twisting and turning. I press a clenched fist to my head, trying to figure out how I got to this fucking point. When did I actually start to care about another person aside from my brothers?
Declan gives me a puzzled look before allowing anger to seep through his features. “I didn’t fucking give her anything, get a grip, man.”
“I have a fucking grip. Come and check her out yourself. You either gave her something, or there is something going on that we aren’t aware of.”
He rolls his eyes, and pushes off the bed, coming to meet me in the doorway. We walk back out into the living room together, to find Wes huddled over her body.
She seems so small, so fragile, and I don’t like the idea of there being something wrong with her. I don’t like the way her being here is making me feel, out of control…needed.
I shake my head at the last word. No. These feeling can’t exist in our lives anymore.
“Shit,” Wes curses, placing his hand on her forehead. “She is burning up.”
In an instant Declan is in front of her, his hands gently cupping her face.
“I need the medical kit from downstairs,” he says, his eyes still void of any and all emotion. He doesn’t give anything away, which doesn’t help the knotting panic residing inside me. Wes springs into action right away, as I watch, he gently brushes a few sticky strands of blonde hair from her forehead. Her skin looks clammy, her face sunken in. He leans in, close to her ear.
“I’m going to need you to wake up, Princess,” he whispers softly against her ear, the complete opposite of what he sounded like ten minutes ago.
“What’s wrong with her?” I ask, my heart rate spiking. I run a hand through my hair, mostly out of habit and partially because I need something to do with my hands since all I’m doing is standing here gawking.
“I don’t know, but she has a fever, probably some kind of infection. You said earlier she hasn’t been eating regularly?” I nod my head in response. “What about drinking, has she been drinking enough water?” I shake my head, feeling sick to my stomach.
He tries a few more times, unsuccessfully, to get her to open her eyes and though she opens her mouth briefly as if she’s going to say something, she makes no effort to open her eyes or even move her limbs.
I go into the bathroom down the hall to get a washcloth and wet it with some cold water. About the same time that I return to the living room, Wes is exiting the elevator, a heavy black bag in his hands.
He places the bag at Declan’s side, and I fold the washcloth, before pressing it to Jessa’s forehead. She doesn’t even react at the contact of the cold washcloth on her heated skin. Declan checks all her vitals and takes her temperature, which ends up being a hundred and two.
“Her vitals are good right now, so all we can do at this point is let her body fight off whatever she has. We just need to make sure we don’t let her temperature rise, keep her hydrated, and she’ll be fine. I’m starting an IV now. Trey, you should try to pull her medical records and make sure she doesn’t have any genetic health issues, or pre-existing conditions”<
br />
“How could she have gone from being fine to being so sick in such a short amount of time?” I ask.
“She is stressed and dehydrated. Whatever she caught is hitting her hard because of that. She was already weak, and now with being sick, it’s all just overwhelming her body,” Declan explains. He isn’t an actual doctor, but he is pretty fucking close and certainly the best we have available right now.
∞∞∞
“It’s been two days, Declan. She isn’t getting any better.” I try not to yell but seeing her lying in bed pale and sickly for the last two days is making it hard not to. She started coughing yesterday and I can hear the rumble in her chest when she breathes. This isn’t just a cold or the flu.
“We need to take her to a doctor.” I admit, knowing fully what his answer will be.
But Jessa has barely opened her eyes, and the few times she woke up she was so weak and out of it I even had to help her to the bathroom. I’ve never taken care of anyone like this, never had anyone who depended on me aside from my brothers, and though I hate seeing her this way there is something rewarding about being her anchor, about caring for her in this way.
We’ve been trying to keep her fever down, but it keeps spiking and we don’t have any antibiotics here to give her. We all know she needs to see a doctor, but Declan is still not budging and I’m starting to get pissed.
“We can’t risk it. They’re already looking for her and us. I’m not going to let you risk your lives for hers. She’ll lead them right to us. We were going to kill her anyway, so what’s the point?”
“You talk a big ass game about killing her, but are you really willing to have her death on your conscience?”
“Don’t be ridiculous, you know I’ve taken my fair share of lives. What’s another if it saves us.”
Liar!
“This is different, and you know it,” I growl, clenching my fist to stop myself from slugging him. He needs some sense knocked into him. I’m tired of it. Tired of him pretending there isn’t something deeper going on here. Yes, we kidnapped her in hopes of using her, but things have changed.
“She is nothing!” Declan screams in my face, the veins in his forehead bulge with barely restrained rage and I know I’ve struck a nerve.
I stand toe to toe with him, my eyes bleeding into his. “You keep saying that, but it’s almost like you’re trying to convince yourself, more than me or even Wes.”
“We aren’t taking her to a doctor,” he grits out through his teeth.
“You’re right. We aren’t doing shit. I’ll take her myself if you won’t.”
“I’ll break your legs before I let you walk out of here with her!”
“Assholes!” Wes comes in interrupting our screaming match. “She is breathing funny, you need to come and check on her.”
For someone who doesn’t give a shit, Declan starts moving pretty fast, hell, he’s almost running into my bedroom. I’m right on his heels of course, because unlike him I actually fucking care. I watch Declan sit down on the edge of the bed, listening to her chest with the stethoscope.
I don’t know why the fuck he bothers, I can hear her wheezing and uneven breathing from here. Something that looks like worry crosses his features.
“Let’s put some fucking clothes on her,” Declan finally says, and I damn near sigh. “We can’t take her anywhere naked.”
Thank fucking god.
Wes and I start gathering some clothes that she can wear and then we start dressing her. The sweatpants are way too big on her, but it will have to do. I wrap her up in a blanket and pick her up holding her to my chest. Her face is still, her skin pale, even though she’s burning up with a fever. If she had died a few days ago, I wouldn’t have cared one bit, but now, now I don’t even want to fucking think about such a thing happening.
“Grab my laptop, I’ll hack into the hospital’s computer on the way,” I call out to Wes.
Leaving is a risk, but it’s one we’ll have to take if we want to keep her alive.
“I’ll grab a couple weapons on the way out. You know…just in case,” Wes says before we all head toward the elevator. Declan places a hand on my shoulder stopping me before I enter.
“If this ends badly it’s on you,” he warns as if I didn’t already know.
“Yeah, and if she dies, it’s on you. So, I guess we’re even,” I sneer back. I know I can’t be mad at him forever, he’s doing what he thinks is best for us, but it’s not just about us anymore. It’s about her and us. She’s as much a victim to her father’s bullshit as we are, and I’m hoping when all of this is done Declan can see that.
By the time we get to the hospital, we have a well thought out plan as to how we’re going to do this without getting caught. Declan’s agreed on taking her inside, pretending to be her boyfriend, while I stay outside and work on the computer while Wes keeps an eye on the perimeter. It’s not the best plan, but it’s as solid as it’s going to get.
If everything goes according to plan, we’ll be in and out, with a bottle of antibiotics and maybe a breathing treatment in no time. At least that’s all we can hope for. All I know is that I won’t let Jessa die. We didn’t make it through all that we have just to lose her.
Chapter Fifteen
Jessa
My body feels as if it’s been raked over hot coals and then ran over by a train. My chest feels tight, every breath that enters my lungs burns. I lift my hands to feel if something heavy is laying on my chest, but my arm is stuck. It takes me forever, to peel my eyes open, but when I finally do, I realize my arm is attached to an IV, tape holding the needle in place.
“Welcome to the land of the living,” a gruff voice greets me. I scan the room, my eyes feeling like someone poured salt into them.
The room is bright and smells of bleach, and antiseptic. It’s mostly quiet besides the low buzzing and beeping of the machines I’m hooked up to.
Slowly my eyes make it to the owner of the voice, and I find Declan lounging uncomfortably in a chair in the corner of the room. I blink a few times to make sure this is all real, before I actually open my mouth to talk. Is it possible this is a dream?
“You brought me to an actual hospital?” My voice sounds rough like I’ve swallowed gravel, my throat feeling similar.
“You can thank Trey for that,” he responds quickly, and the small jab makes my chest hurt for a different reason than the illness coursing through my veins. “I would have let you die,” he adds, his eyes cold, and I don’t know why I’m so hurt by his rejection.
“I don’t believe that.” I try and keep my voice strong.
“Believe what you want. When the doctor comes in for his morning rounds you will tell him that you are better and want to go home now. Even if he wants to keep you longer, you will insist on going, understood?”
“What if I don’t?” I question, wanting to push his buttons the way he pushes mine.
He answers without having to think about it, almost if he has already made a plan. “Then I’ll slit his throat and drag you out of here anyway. Don’t be fucking stupid and do what you’re told. I’m sure you don’t want an innocent man’s blood on your hands.”
I swallow, even though it’s hard to. Declan is all hard edges and anger right now and I still don’t understand why. I want to believe that he wouldn’t actually kill someone just to get me out of here, but I’m not willing to risk someone’s life on it, so instead of pushing him further I just nod my head in agreement.
Rising from his chair, he walks over to me, pushing a button on the side of the bed to raise the back, moving me into a sitting position.
“You need to eat something,” he tells me, pushing the side table with a tray of food over to my bed. My stomach growls as soon as he opens the plate cover and the sweet smell of pancakes tickles my nose. Looking as if he’s solved all the world’s problems he walks across the room and takes his seat once again.
I eat in complete silence, each bite landing in my belly with a heavy thud. It fe
els like I haven’t eaten in weeks, and even though I know I should slow down, I can’t. I’m too hungry. As I’m shoving the last bite of pancake into my mouth, a soft knock sounds against the door. For a brief second, I feel Declan’s dark gaze on me. There’s a warning that burns through my body, one that tells me if I do anything stupid, he won’t hesitate to hurt someone. The door swings open before I can tell him I won’t do anything and a middle-aged woman in scrubs walks in.
“Good morning.” She gives me a friendly smile. “I’m Brenda, I’ll be your nurse for the day. Susie’s shift just ended, but she filled me in before she left.” I smile back at her, wondering what exactly she got filled in on, but I don’t dare say anything. I have no idea what Declan told the nurses, or doctors or even where Trey and Wes are. I can only assume they’re close by, since I know there is no way they would leave their brother to deal with me by himself.
“I’m glad to see you’re eating. How are you feeling this morning? Susie said your fever finally broke, so the antibiotics are definitely doing their job,” she continues. Out of the corner of my eye, I watch Declan shift in his chair. He looks uncomfortable, worry stricken. Brenda looks over at him and suddenly her face falls, her smile vanishing, something close to recognition flickers in her gaze and I wonder how she could possibly recognize him. Unless of course they’ve met before?
“Oh, sorry, I didn’t see you there.” The words escape her lips quickly. “You must be the boyfriend who brought her in.”
“Yes, and she is feeling great this morning, to answer your question. Aren’t you, babe?” He looks over at me, and even though he is smiling, all of his perfectly straight white teeth showing, his eyes are telling me that I better agree with him, or else.
“Yes, I’m great. I really just want to go back home, you know there isn’t anything like your own bed.” I tell her, forcing a bubble of laughter out.