by J Bree
“It’s my fault, I’m the one that inducted him. It lands with me, I’ll do whatever it takes to make it right, Aves, but all that matters to me right now is that you’re okay. Did he do anything?” I croak back at her, speaking around the lump in my throat. A tremble takes over her and my stomach drops.
“He… burned me a little. It’s fine, I’m fine. He slapped me around a bit too when I didn’t scream. I don’t know how you do it Lips, I thought I was going to pass the hell out. If it wasn’t for Aodhan… I don’t know what would’ve happened.”
Ash curses under his breath and, blood be damned, he crushes her into a hug.
“Get off of me, you’re gross and I’m fine!” she says weakly, her voice trembling as the tears she was holding back finally fall and her arms clutch at him desperately.
She makes that little gasping noise in the back of her throat and I try not to lose my shit at the sound of it. Harley finally decides enough is enough and snaps, “We’re going to the fucking hospital now, no more talking about shit that can fucking wait.”
No one argues with him.
He carries me the whole way over to the parking lot as if I weigh nothing and bundles me into Illi’s car, the both of us in the backseat and Illi’s shirt still pressed firmly against the bleeding mess my stomach is in.
I glance up to see who is following us and find Avery back in Atticus’s arms, trembling and his head bent low as he whispers in her ear. Ash and Blaise are both watching her like they’re about to rip them apart.
“Fuck. Maybe Morrison should come with us instead, kid,” Illi grunts as he starts the engine, and Harley scoffs.
“No fucking way, they’re dragging Avery away from that dickhead and following us.”
The doors behind my family swing open again and out hobbles Aodhan, propped up by the same guy he’d brought to the meeting at Hannaford, and Avery rips herself out of Atticus’s arms to throw herself at the injured Irishman.
“Well, fuck.” I gasp, and Harley grimaces.
Aodhan grips her back just as firmly, even as he wobbles on his feet. The O’Cronin hovers by them both and his eyes look clearer than they had been when I first met him. Ash watches them and I don’t know if it’s the fact he’s covered in blood or not but he looks kind of like a serial killer himself. Jesus.
“Just what we fucking need,” Harley mutters, and Illi pulls the car away, driving as smoothly as the shitty, pothole filled roads in the slums will allow.
“He saved her. She told us herself, the Jackal didn’t have time to do much more to her because of what Aodhan did,” I murmur back, and he kisses my forehead.
“I know. I… I think I trust him now. I think Ash likes him a helluva lot more than he likes Crawford too.”
I nod and let my eyes slip shut for the rest of the trip. Every inch of my body hurts but it’s a great distraction for the mess that my head was in.
Once I have my stitches in, a bottle of pain meds I refuse to take in my pocket, and a fresh set of clothes on I sign myself out of the hospital. I fucking hate them after spending the week sleeping in it when Harley was drugged, and I completely ignore my family when they all bitch me out over it. I don’t care, I’ll survive. I’ve survived bullet wounds and stabbings with nothing but dirty needles and a bottle of whiskey before so I’m good. I’d rather be in agony at home than drugged in that fucking place.
Ash drives the Cadillac back to Hannaford, snapping at Blaise about his rough driving, and Harley stretches out on the backseat with me tucked into his lap. Avery laces her fingers through mine and glares out of the car window like she’s hating the whole fucking world. I get it, I get how bad being tortured by that man is, I get how terrifying a shower of bullets and gunfire is when you have no weapon of your own, I get how scary it must have been to see me covered in all of that blood. I never want to put her through this again and yet this is our fucking life. There’s no way I can protect her from it forever.
The stairs are fucking impossible.
I try to walk it but the first one nearly knocks me the fuck out, so I relent and let Harley carry me. Classes are in, so thankfully there’s no students around to see it, because I don’t even have the strength to hold onto him properly, his hands have to hold my legs in place around his waist. Avery stays tucked under Ash’s arm and keeps making all of these weird gasping noises but my own head is too full of pain and hurt and stop to be able to concentrate on it and question her.
When we get back to our room, I insist on a shower even though I’m in absolute agony. I can’t stand the smell of the hospital on me and I need to get comfortable so I can pass out for three days. Avery starts on dinner, scrubbing at every pot and pan before she cooks, and I’m positive we’re going to be ordering a whole new freaking kitchen by morning. Even that isn’t enough to get through to me that she’s not okay, my brain is fucking scrambled.
Harley directs me into the bathroom and strips me off carefully, his frown getting darker every time I gasp or wince. When I nearly blackout at lifting my arms over my head Ash cusses us all out and grabs scissors to cut it off of me.
Thank fuck it’s not one my Vanth shirts.
Then Ash rolls his sleeves up to hold me up while I shower. I’m so fucking weak I can’t do much more than stand there so Blaise strips off and climbs in with me, soaping and scrubbing gently until I smell like me again. When they turn me so they can wash out the blood from my hair something breaks in me and I finally cry.
Deep gulping sobs.
I can’t fucking help it. I hate the Jackal. Hated him and wanted him dead. I needed to get my family clear of his poison.
But for over half my life he’s been my shadow. Not a good one but he also never let anyone else hurt me without consequence. It’s not a good thing, it’s not okay, but my brain is fucked up on drugs and blood loss and I’m too fucking overwhelmed with relief that he’s gone to hold the tears in. I’m a fucking mess.
“I’m sorry,” I croak, and Blaise pulls me into his chest, resting his cheek on my wet hair.
“You’re allowed to feel shit about it, Star. It’s… fucking confusing but I’m sure this is all hard for you.”
I try to gulp down the sobs but it only makes them worse. “I hate him. I hate him so fucking much and I’m glad he’s gone but I still feel like I’ve lost something. I feel like that part of me is over with and I’m fucking scared without it.”
He cradles my cheeks and gives me a little peck on the lips. “It’s okay. It’s okay to feel like that. Let’s get you dry and into bed. Sleep will help fix… this.”
I stay in his arms under the warm stream of water until my tears dry up, and his hands never stop stroking and soothing my skin. I tell myself the second I get out of the shower, I will never think about that man again. He isn’t ever worth mourning or remembering, that part of my life really is over.
When I have my head together I glance up to find Harley gone and Ash leaning against the bathroom sink, watching us intently. I expect him to be pissed at me, but his face is calm and blank, and when Blaise hands me over to him, his hands are gentle as he carefully dries me off. I get choked up all over again at the intensity of his love for me.
I refuse to put clothes back on, it hurt too much getting them off in the first place and everyone here has seen me naked anyway. I try not to cry as I get into my bed and Harley climbs in with me, refusing to eat or talk or do fucking anything aside from stroking one of his big palms down my spine. It hurts to breathe, it hurts to exist, but somehow I still manage to fall asleep like that.
I don’t wake up for two days.
When I finally come back to the land of the living, Avery is a freaking mess.
I wake in-between Blaise and Harley, and I feel like a stinking wreck. Covered in sweat, my eyes still gritty with sleep, I need to pee so bad I think I might actually piss myself on the way to the toilet but I just barely hobble there in time.
I take a shower and though it still fucking stings like a bitch, I
no longer think I’m going to pass out in pain. The chair someone has left for me in there helps. When I get out, I find Avery standing in the kitchen in her Chanel bathrobe, bags under her eyes, whisking eggs in a bowl. I ease myself into a chair and then curse at myself for not making a coffee before I sat down.
“Don’t be fucking dense, Mounty. I can get you a coffee,” Ash snaps, because apparently he can interpret my huffing and groaning, and steps up behind me to kiss the little patch of skin of my neck he loves so much.
Avery startles and glances back over at us like she had no idea we were even in the room.
“Lips! Fuck. Never do that to me again. No more being stabbed and checking out for days, I can’t do this on my own,” she hisses, looking a little fucking crazy and I give her a lopsided grin, pretending it’s not agony to breathe and getting worse every second I’m sitting upright.
“I’ll be fine, Aves. Everything is fine.” I aim for a soothing tone, but my voice sounds fucking terrible after two days of sleep. Also, I’m kinda starving.
Ash sets a cup of coffee in front of me and I gulp it down in one go. Gimme the fucking caffeine, maybe the fine tremble in my hands is just withdrawals. He waits patiently for me to finish and then refills because he is the single best human being on the planet. I’m dumb enough to say this out loud.
“Lies. I am. I’ve been covering for you for days, I also had all of the finals moved back for you, which wasn’t easy at all but I love you so I made it work,” Avery snaps, still grumpy as fuck.
She places a plate in front of me, full of eggs and bacon and mushrooms, and I could cry. I mumble a thanks under my breath as I get to work, refueling being more important to me right now than anything else and Avery takes a seat next to me.
“You know I cooked French toast the last two days, hoping the smell would wake you? Figures that the morning I let the idiot boys bully me into something else you’d wake up,” she snipes, sipping her own coffee and moving the eggs around on her plate.
I pause in my inhalation of the food and give her a proper once over. “What’s going on? Why are you so worried about me? I know I slept but that’s what I needed to do to heal.”
She bites her lip. “I can’t sleep. I keep dreaming about the Jackal and… what he did to me. I know that’s pathetic—”
Ash and I both cut her off.
“It’s not fucking pathetic.”
“Don’t start that shit again, Floss.”
Her lip trembles but she holds it together. “Lips, you had to be stitched back together. You have internal and external stitches, your face looks like you just climbed out of a freaking boxing ring, and you had to kill people. You slept like the dead! I only got roughed up and yet here I am being unable to shut my fucking eyes without blinding terror. It is pathetic.”
I shrug at her and get back to my food. “I’m pretty sure the blood loss helped me out. I’m feeling the repercussions too, Aves. My body is just taking what it needs first. You’ll be ok. I can sleep in your bed with you tonight if you need.”
Ash scoffs at me. “Not with all of her thrashing around you won’t. I’ll stay in her bed until the nightmares ease up, it’s fine.”
I’m not ok with this, not at all, but I keep my mouth shut and just keep chewing. I need another week to heal up, then I’ll be able to fix Avery and deal with whatever she needs to have her usual fire back.
Avery’s alarm goes off and Harley and Blaise both cuss it to high fucking heaven, only stopping when they realize I’m up and about. Harley lurches over to me, cupping my face and pressing his forehead against mine as he breathes me in. I’m glad I had the shower.
“You fucking scared me, babe,” he murmurs, and I clutch at my necklace. It hurts too much to lift my arms around his neck, but his eyes flare when he sees the golden heart in my hand.
When he takes a seat, Blaise drops a kiss on my forehead and slumps into a seat across from me, looking like he’s either hungover or halfway to the freaking flu. He gives me a slow smile. “It’s been hell without you, Star. Maybe now everyone can stop being such morbid fucks now you’re back.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Avery managed to push the exams back a week, thank fuck, so I have a few extra days to lie in bed and feel shitty about my wounds. I turn into a grouchy bitch but the real cause for my angst isn’t the pain I’m in, it’s watching Avery slowly lose her shine as her nightmares get worse and worse.
If I could go back, I’d have killed the Jackal myself and made it ten times worse than Ash and Illi did. I’d have killed myself trying but fuck would it have been worth it.
Ash sleeps in her bed every night and we’re all woken by her thrashing around. I think about finding her some type of therapist or something, but when I ask her about it she arches an eyebrow at me and snarks, “You first, Mounty.”
No fucking thank you.
When I’m finally forced to get dressed in my uniform and leave our rooms, I sit through my exams in absolute agony. I guess I’ve always done my best work under extreme pressure so it’s not like I’m worried about my marks, but every breath feels like I’m being stabbed all over again and the walk between classrooms has my vision blurring around the edges.
Harley is a snarling, enraged asshole to everyone, and I have to remind him that he needs to do well in these exams too. It doesn’t mellow him out at all and I make a note to get Avery to check his scores before they post.
There’s no way I’m dealing with his sulky ass if he gets shitty scores, I’d rather we change them.
I sit for lunch and do my best to eat at least half of my plate. It’s hard to do, I can’t take full breaths, only shallow panting, and when he notices Ash shoves some aspirin in my hand.
“That won’t get you high but at least it’ll be something in your system.”
I grimace but take it, it really does hurt that much.
“Shouldn’t it be healing by now? This feels like it’s taking for-fucking-ever,” Blaise mutters, and Avery shoots him a glacial look.
“It’s been a week. How about you stop acting like a spoiled toddler and join the real world. She has three stab wounds, a broken nose, and gravel burn. I think she’s allowed to be in pain, asshole.”
Blaise’s eyes turn to slits and I nudge his foot with mine under the table to remind him to keep his cool. The dark circles under Avery’s eyes are so pronounced that even her massive amount of beauty supplies can’t hide them. She looks tired, brittle, sort of fragile in a way she never has before, and if he snaps at her I’ll be pissed.
Even if she is being a little harsh.
“I’m worried about her, Floss. I’m worried she has an infection or something that’s slowing down the healing. I’m worried about her, not myself,” he grits out as gently as you can when you’re talking between your teeth.
Avery’s eyes snap to mine. “Is it red? Puffy? Do you have a fever? Why does Morrison think it’s infected? Ash, we’re taking her into the hospital, grab the car.”
I grab her hand under the table and give it a squeeze. “It’s fine. You’re all just on edge because something extra shitty happened. I’m fine. Just stop getting on each other about me, wait until I’m back at a hundred percent before you start your snarking.”
Harley snorts at me, filling my juice up and sniffing the glass a little before handing it over because we’re all paranoid like that now. “You need to be at a hundred percent to ignore us all over lunch like you normally do, babe?”
I grin. “Yeah, takes a whole lotta energy to block you lot out.”
Ash tucks Avery under his arm and murmurs in her ear when her eyes stay glued on me, assessing and critical, “I checked her out in the shower this morning, I promise you they’re fine.”
Avery shoves him away. “Gross. Harley was in there with her, I don’t need to hear about your group sex. In fact, I’m banning you all from showering together in my bathroom the second Lips can stand in there on her own.”
I squeeze my eyes shut
the second I see the smug grin start on all three of my guys’ faces because nope, I’m too wounded to deal with this. That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it.
After our finals are over for the day I tuck my arm into Avery’s as we head back to our room together, slowly and steady in our steps. When we get back, Avery triple checks all of the locks are in place and then gets me set up on the couch, fussing over me like I’m the freaking queen and not just her injured friend.
I feel guilty as fuck.
She ignores me when I say that to her, just grabs us both ice cream and turns the TV on. I nudge her gently and she shakes her head at me.
“I was the one who let our family down, Lips. I knew you didn’t fully trust him, I knew he forced your hand. It’s my own fault I was taken and it’s my fault you’re hobbling around with fucking stab wounds.”
Ok, Avery swearing still sounds so freaking wrong. I shut my mouth but only until she takes a deep, shuddering breath.
“I’m only going to say this once Aves, so listen up. You did nothing wrong. Yeah, we now know that we need to have better plans in place for this shit, but you were supposed to be safe here. Atticus has a hundred men watching this school and yet Diarmuid walked right in. I was supposed to make sure only people we trust are allowed to get close to us and yet I let him manipulate his way into our family. I can’t change that, no matter how shitty I feel about it, but I’m not going to let it eat me up either. We’ve had a bad year. We’ve still got a ways to go before we’re out from under it all. But we’re doing it together and without any useless guilt because I swear to you Aves, not for one second have any of us blamed you for being snatched. Not for a single second. You’re my sister, closer than blood, and I won’t hear a word against you. Not even from you.”
From the corner of my eye, I see a single tear roll down her face and she hastily wipes it away. I don’t comment on it, we’re not the type to cry about shit and I know how exposed you feel when the tears fucking happen. I just sit there, eating my ice cream and watching some stupid reality TV show with her as we both haven’t gone through hell.