Broken

by Drea Blackery

  “I told you to stay away from him!” Allie’s eyes were stark. “Theo has nothing but enemies, and now he’s dragged you into his mess!”

  I swiped my tears away impatiently. “It’s not so simple, Allie. He regrets everything. He wants to make amends.”

  “Because he’s tried everything else! K, he’s the son of our father's murderer!”

  “He’s also lying in that operating theatre after he protected me, so please don’t say that about him. Not when he’s in there.” My nose stung. “Allie, he refused to let go of the man even for a second. He held onto that knife like it was his last mission to keep me safe, and now I don’t even know if...if he’s…”

  Allie was stunned. “You’re in love with him.”

  “I’m sorry.” I pressed the heels of my hands against my eyes. “I’m so freaking sorry…”

  There was a long silence, then Allie cursed and pulled me to her. I cried harder into her shoulder, letting all my fear out.

  “Only you could love a guy like that,” she muttered, patting my head like she used to when we were kids. “I’ll hold myself back for now, but only until he’s out. Then all bets are off.”

  I waited outside the operating room all through the night. Allie brought me clothes to change into, food to eat. Ryland handled the police, and Cam and Gabriel took turns to stay in vigil with me.

  I went through the motions like a zombie, my mind unable to process anything that wasn’t Theo. I tried to recall memories of our times together to bolster myself, but it only made it worse. If Theo didn’t make it, I didn’t know what I would do. I’d wasted so much time with him—ten years of misunderstandings and grudges when we could have had so much more.

  He would live. He had to.

  It was almost eight hours later when the light above the surgery room turned off and the doctor emerged.

  All of us sprang to our feet despite being exhausted to the bone. I hadn’t expected Cam or Gabriel to care, but they looked as disquieted as Ryland as we waited to hear what the doctor had to say.

  “The patient’s condition is stable for now.”

  A ragged sob escaped me. Allie caught me as my legs buckled, and Ryland supported my other arm.

  “That said, he’s not completely out of danger yet. He’ll be kept under scrutiny in the critical care unit under sedation. You may visit during hours, but one at a time only and in intervals. It’s the crucial period for his recuperation, and we’ll keep monitoring his progress.”

  The doctor's words dampened my initial relief. I had wanted to know that Theo was definitely alright.

  Allie put her arms around me and squeezed, guessing what was on my mind.

  “He’ll be fine,” she whispered. “Bad guys like him don't die that easily. That’s just how unfair the world is.”

  It was two entire days later when I finally got the green light from the doctor to see Theo. Gabriel and Allie were with me, but they both shook their heads when I gave them a questioning look.

  “I’m not going in there to pat his shoulder and kumbaya like I actually give a shit.”

  “But you’ve been coming by every day.”

  Gabriel shifted uncomfortably. “Just keeping an eye on things.”

  Allie gave me a quick hug. “I won’t be able to stop myself from putting Theo back into surgery,” she muttered. “I’ll just wait outside for you.”

  The critical care unit was a large, clinical room fitted with monitoring screens and steadily beeping machines.

  Theo lay in the hospital bed in the middle of the room, hooked up to several of those machines. The dark navy hospital shirt he wore had been unbuttoned to expose the bandages across his body, and the swathes of white were a painful reminder to me of how close he had come to death.

  He wasn’t even out of the shadows yet. They hung in the air, mingling with the sterile smell of the hospital and cloying medicine.

  Swallowing hard, I went over to his bed, gingerly pulling up a chair by his side.

  Theo’s eyes were closed, and his face was unnaturally pale. The lights in the room had been turned down, making the shadows under his cheekbones stand out harshly.

  I touched his hand, and he stirred.

  “Karin,” he rasped, his amber eyes darting hazily.

  “Shh, I’m here.” I quickly took his hand in mine. It was cold as ice, a vast difference from his usual warmth. “Did I wake you?”

  “No.” He licked his dry lips. “Hurt?”

  “I’m okay. I’m not hurt at all.” I smiled tremulously. “Shouldn’t you be asking about yourself?”

  Theo shifted his head in a weak version of a shrug. He looked about the room like he had not expected to be here.

  “The doctor said you have severe internal injuries, and you’ll need to be monitored.” I brushed my fingers over his bandages, forcing a smile. “You’ll feel horrible the next few days, but if there are no complications you’ll get better right after that.”

  “So I’ll get worse first?” Theo closed his eyes. “Sounds like a cop-out...in case I keel over.”

  My throat closed up. “Don’t talk like that. That’s not gonna happen.”

  “Did the doctor say that?”

  The doctor had refused to answer that question when I asked him. Tears started pricking at my eyes, and I stood up, intending to go to the window to hide them.

  Theo’s hand found mine as I got up. “Don’t go.”

  “I’m just letting in some light. The moon’s out today. You like that.”

  “Stay.”

  I was shaken by the raw need in his voice, and my own need to be near him.

  “Okay,” I said softly, sinking back into the chair. “I’m not going anywhere, I’m right here.”

  Theo visibly relaxed, but his hold on my hand didn’t loosen.

  “Is there anything I can get you? Are your bandages too tight? Do you want me to stop talking so you can rest?”

  “No.” He watched me solemnly, his eyes half-lidded from the effects of the medications. “Don’t cry,” he murmured. “I’m not worth your tears.”

  I tried to hold them back as he lifted his hand and dabbed clumsily at my cheeks. “But you are. You kept me safe from the man.”

  Theo’s jaw clenched at the reminder of the attack. “Who was it?”

  “We don’t know yet. Ryland said he was caught near the scene last night. The police are interrogating him now, it’s a matter of time until he spills who hired him.” I held Theo’s hand against my cheek, trying to warm it up with my heat. “I hope it isn’t Estelle. If the police find out about her, it’ll get dangerous for all of you.”

  “Not her. No motive.”

  Theo was right. Estelle wouldn’t ruin her only hope of escaping New York. It was someone else who wanted him dead. Someone with enough money to hire a contract killer.

  I paled at that thought. “Do you know anyone else who wants to hurt you?”

  “List is… miles long. But perhaps… “ Theo paused to consider. “Get Ryland to check. Charles Presley.”

  My mouth parted. “The man in the restaurant that day? The one you refused to sell to? But why would he do this?”

  Theo smiled in satisfaction, vengeful even while fighting for his life. “Threatened him,” he said.

  “What? Why?”

  “He talked shit ‘bout you.”

  I was stunned. “Theo, I don’t want you defending me if it means you end up hurt!”

  Theo watched me through sleepy amber eyes. “You’re upset.”

  “I’m terrified!” My throat was painfully tight. “You were bleeding out in my arms and I couldn’t do a single thing. I thought you were going to die.”

  “‘Course not. Plan to milk it for all’s worth.”

  “Don’t joke about that.”

  Theo turned his head in a small shake. “Should’ve known better. I only…get you hurt.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “Stay with Ryland. Don’t go out alone until it’s ove
r.” His hand tightened around mine. “Swear.”

  “I swear,” I whispered. “Is there anything I can get you? Anything you need?”

  A faint notch had already formed between Theo’s brows; the sedatives were taking effect again.

  “No.” His shallow breaths evened as he fell back into slumber. “You’re all I need.”

  I pressed his hand against my cheek, never wanting to let go. “Then I’ll stay.”

  ***

  My body was on fire when I next awoke.

  It was too fucking hot. My body felt only agony, a thousand red-hot needles pushing out from under my skin. There was a heavy fabric over me, and something tight winding around my chest and stomach.

  I couldn’t fucking breathe.

  I tried tearing the constrictions off, but my hands refused to cooperate. They brushed my torso weakly before falling to my side in a useless heap.

  I heard a soothing murmur by me, but my first instinct was to struggle. I threw my arm out with all the strength I had left, shoving against a soft weight. Sharp pain lanced through my side at the movement, and I heard a woman exclaim the same time I yelled in agony.

  “Did he tear his stitches?” A voice from my dreams, anxious but clear as a windchime.

  Unfamiliar hands touching my body. “No, but he needs to keep still or he will. We can do it—”

  “No, please let me. He just needs to know it’s me.” The voice was drawing closer, a feminine, familiar sound I couldn’t quite place. It calmed me instantly.

  “Shh… It’s okay,” the woman murmured. A cool hand smoothed my damp hair back from my forehead. “I’m right here. You’ll feel better in just a bit.”

  My mouth felt stuffed with wool. I wanted to struggle but I couldn’t find the strength to lift a finger. Where the hell was I?

  I parted my mouth. “Hot.”

  A slim tube gently touched my lips, and a tiny stream of cool water dripped into my mouth. I swallowed gratefully, the water absorbing into the sides of my parched mouth and tongue instantly.

  “More,” I rasped.

  Another stream of water, and then another, then the tube was taken away. I wanted to protest, but a cool towel touched my forehead soon after, taking some of the heat with it. I groaned in relief as the soft fabric dabbed gently, soothing my burning forehead, my neck, my face.

  I had never felt anything so good in my life as this simple towel and the gentle hand that was holding it. The woman made soft sounds of encouragement as she worked on me, bringing relief with her every touch. My fingers twitched at my sides, wanting to hold onto her so she could never leave me.

  Before I could beg her to stay, darkness claimed me again.

  This time I was back in Barclay, in the common room the night the three senior boys took a blade to me and carved their names into my skin like I was an animal that they owned.

  I could feel the knife piercing my flesh, but it wasn’t just the pain that was killing me; it was the shame. In that moment I wished they’d simply plunge the knife into me and be done with it.

  But they didn’t. They took their time about it, letting the blade twist, digging into my flesh again and again and marking my body with their names. I bellowed and thrashed until my arm pulled from the socket, but I was only one against three.

  I lay in my dormitory room after, blindly taking in the stone ceilings above my bed, the patterns of the gray slabs that I had memorized over the years.

  It was the beginning of winter. A storm fell outside the arched windows in turrets, but my body felt like it was being held down in burning oil.

  My wound had turned infected. The veins on my stomach were a deep dark red, tracing under my skin like poisoned streams in my body, delivering the blackened blood to my heart with every beat. My body was wracked with feverish tremors, but still I refused to go to the nurses’. I couldn’t have anyone know of the shame etched on my skin.

  The pain was killing me, but it didn’t stop me from doing what I needed to do. I bit down on my leather belt, dug my fingers into my wound and ripped it open.

  Then I poured salt into the raw flesh to destroy it. Anything that it wouldn’t form in their names.

  As I fell back in agony I prayed for the pain to end, but there was no one there who could hear me. I was alone.

  Help me.

  A soft hand touched my forehead gently, shocking me with its coolness. I opened my eyes but saw no one with me.

  “I’m here,” that voice whispered, the ghost who haunted my dreams every night.

  “Who?”

  “Karin.”

  I didn’t recognize the name, but I knew it meant something to me. She was someone important, but she hadn’t come into my timeline yet, bringing with her the only times in my life I could forget the pain.

  “Don’t go,” I tried to say, but no sound left my lips.

  “I’m right here.” The cool towel touched my forehead and cheek again, taking the burning heat away. My panic eased as the woman kept soothing my overheated skin with the damp towel, murmuring gently to me.

  I didn’t know how many hours passed, or how many days, but in that time I re-lived the nightmare in the common room a hundred times over. I found myself on my knees again and again, wrenched back by my hair and neck, the blade digging into my flesh.

  “Stop,” I pleaded hoarsely, but it never stopped. I always ended up beaten and carved up, shaking with fever throes and clawing desperately at my skin.

  But every time I was sure I would die of the burning pain, there was that soothing voice again, pure and clear, pulling me back from the darkness.

  I began to crave that voice. When she was near, the nightmares were kept at bay, and the darkness seemed further away. I came to rely on that voice like a lifeline. I needed to see her, the person who was holding the flames of hell back for me. I needed her more than air itself.

  I cracked my eyes open one day.

  My vision was glazed, and I saw only vibrant hair and a vague glimpse of lovely features, but I already knew she was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.

  She smoothed my hair from my forehead, cooling me with the towel again, whispering her soft words to me. An angel with hair like fire, saving me from the flames.

  “Heaven?” I rasped. That didn’t make sense. Heaven wasn’t where I would end up after the sins I’d committed.

  “Just me,” the angel whispered. “Keep hanging in there. Stay with me.”

  I wanted to give her anything she asked. I would have gladly given my life if she would have it, but I was so fucking exhausted from the dreams. I didn’t think I had it in me to go through another one of them again.

  “Don’t go,” she whispered, saying familiar words dredged from somewhere in my past. “Stay with me. Please stay with me.”

  I want to.

  But her words reminded me of a worse nightmare, one that I had forced myself to lock away for a decade.

  I’d never been able to confront those faces, but it seemed that the nightmare had grown tired of waiting.

  It was here for me.

  Ten years ago

  The smell of gunpowder and blood choked the air in Horace’s study. A cleaning girl was collapsed by the door, screaming for help, and Estelle was nowhere to be found.

  I stood at the threshold of the room, stunned into silence at the scene. The moment I saw Horace Beckett's lifeless body slumped over his desk, I knew we'd fucked up.

  It was supposed to be a game. It was never meant to end up in death.

  Fucking hell.

  Ryland closed in behind me. “What’s the matter, you look like you've seen a—” He halted in his step when he got a glimpse into the room. “What the fuck…?”

  Gabriel and Cam were close behind Ryland, but before they could ask their questions, I turned and left the scene, making my way towards Estelle's bedroom in ground-eating strides. Servants rushed past me, arriving from all across the Beckett mansion, drawn by the sound of that single lethal gunshot and the
servant girl’s screams.

  I could practically taste the confusion and panic in the air, and I couldn’t lie:

  I was afraid.

  When Estelle had asked my help to extract money from Horace two weeks ago, the plan that had come to the four of us had been laughably simple.

  Ryland would get hold of a gun. Estelle would take it to Horace and point it at her head, or hell, fire a stray shot to make it convincing. Horace loved Estelle more than life, and so he would give her the money. We’d each get a cut, and I would throw it in Karin’s face as revenge for her rejection.

  Depraved as it was, it was supposed to be nothing more than a charade. A game. Now a man was dead, and not just any man—Karin’s father.

  Fury choked me. For fuck’s sake, it wasn’t supposed to happen this way!

  I burst through the door into Estelle's room, expecting to see my mother packing her things to flee.

  Instead, she was seated at the foot of her bed wrapped in a silk robe, looking pale but otherwise composed. Her hands were clasped around a glass of wine, and they held not even a tremor.

  That was when I knew.

  She had planned this from the start.

  “Tell me it was an accident,” I said hoarsely. “Tell me you didn’t just murder your boyfriend.”

  “I had no choice.”

  I was incredulous. She might have been discussing the weather instead of a fucking murder.

  “No choice in shooting an unarmed man in his face? Do you even hear yourself?” I stabbed my hand into my hair, pacing the room like I was trapped. “How the fuck did a suicide threat turn into a homicide?”

  Estelle pushed to her feet, her stiff movements showing the first signs of disquiet. “He was going to make a new will, Theo. I couldn’t risk him changing it.”

  “So you killed him in cold fucking blood?”

  “I’ve played this game for two years!” she snapped. “Lay on my back while that fat, greasy fucker stuck his cock into me! I’m not going to walk away a loser. I earned this.”

  I couldn’t believe my ears. “You’re mad. You’re fucking insane.”