Little Phoenix (The Census Book 1)

by Willow Dean

  Jax hastens his steps and drops to a knee at my bedside. With concern creasing his brow, he reaches out to wipe away a tear.

  “Hey Sunshine, it’s okay. I know it’s hard for you right now, but it will get easier with time.”

  I sniffle unattractively in response and wiggle around to try and get a hand free.

  Aus loosens his grip so I can reach out to Jax who takes my tiny hand in between his two large, soft palms.

  Retaining my vice like grip on Aus with my other hand, I rest my head on his chest to keep him close as I can, whilst Jax draws lazy circles on the back of my hand.

  All of them waiting patiently for me to say something. Comfortable silence fills the space as everyone gets lost in their own thoughts.

  Jax placing a tender kiss to my knuckles breaks through the rest of my thinly veiled veneer.

  “It hurts,” I croak out in a pained whisper. My throat feels like I’ve swallowed glass. “It hurts so badly. I just want them here with me. Even if it’s just to say goodbye,” I whimper.

  Peering at me with eyes filled with understanding, Jax gives me a rueful smile.

  He knows. He knows exactly how this feels.

  What terrors has this man gone through to be able to look at me with such knowing? To wear the eyes of a person who comprehends the true extent of just how awful I’m feeling right now.

  “Have you had anything to eat yet, M?” Rick asks lightly from afar. Completely forgetting he was in the room, I startle at the sound of his voice.

  It takes a second for his question to process. I shake my head. Of course, my stomach would choose that exact moment to rumble loudly.

  I turn to hide my head in Aus’s chest as heat flushes my cheeks. I don’t know why I’m embarrassed, or why I turn to hide, but I do.

  Jeez, you really are a mess, Mila. Pull yourself together! Who in their right mind becomes embarrassed because they’re hungry?!

  All three of the guys chuckle as Rick walks out of the room, calling out over his shoulder as he goes. “I’ll go grab you some food and get Doc. Hopefully we can take you home this afternoon.”

  I feel the blood drain from my face as my hands begin to tremble.

  Home? Do I even have a home anymore?

  How can I live there without them? There are so many memories within those tiny four walls. Can I work past that? Can I live in an empty house?

  I don’t think that I even have the courage to step foot in that house again. Not just yet anyway. Maybe with time I’ll be able to find the courage, just not right now.

  Not yet.

  Just the thought causes my stomach to cramp and every muscle in my body to tense.

  Aus catches me stiffening and tightens his arms around me protectively whilst Jax, who I’m quickly realizing is way too perceptible for his own good, squeezes my hand.

  Grasping my chin between his forefinger and thumb, he turns me to face him. “Mila, you won’t be going home to your old house until you are ready. You’re coming to stay with us at our house and you will be under Lachlan’s care. You have nothing to fear.”

  Wait. Lachlan?

  My father’s words ring in my head.

  “Find Lachlan Torres, he will explain everything.”

  A sudden anxiety and irrational need to see him overcomes me. “Lachlan? Where? Where is he?! I need to talk to him!”

  Snatching my hand back, I push away from Aus and go to move off the bed.

  In my haste, I didn’t take into account how weak and feeble I am. So much so, that when Jax places both his hands on my shoulders and guides me back to Aus in the center of the bed, I end up following with little effort on his part.

  My body barely offers any resistance whatsoever.

  “All in good time, Mila. He’s not going anywhere. He will be at the house later and whatever questions you have for him, he can answer them then. A couple of hours isn’t going to change anything. Just relax and have some food. Once the Doctor gives you the all clear, we can take you home and you can get all the answers you want then. Okay?”

  Even though my heart is still racing and my mind demands it needs to see this Lachlan person, I take a deep breath and try to calm myself down. I really don’t want to have to wait for answers, but Jax is right. A couple of hours won’t change anything.

  Plus, I need to get my thoughts into some sort of order before I confront Lachlan and start bombarding him with the endless lists of questions that are blitzing around my head at hyper-speed right now.

  Reluctantly, I relax back into Aus who takes me back willingly. Wrapping his arms firmly around me, he shifts me so that I’m comfortably cradled on his lap.

  Settling down again, it surprises me when I realize that I haven’t even questioned where I am, besides being in a hospital of course. I’m also completely befuddled as to why I am so trusting of these three guys who I barely know.

  Ah well. Who cares? It’s not like I have anything to lose by trusting them now, is it?

  Everything I ever loved has already been taken from me. How much worse could life get?!

  True to his word, Rick brought me food and the doctor followed shortly after.

  Stressing to take it easy, he discharged me and arranged twice weekly check-ups at home until I’m strong and able enough to return to normal daily activities unsupervised.

  Yeah, you heard me…unsupervised, daily activities.

  Daily activities that include washing, dressing, walking, eating…everything. Everything!

  That’s going to be fun in a house full of males. Not awkward in the slightest.

  Any normal teenager would be happy to get a free pass from college at the very least, but I just don’t have it in me.

  Without even a moment of hesitation, I’d attend college every second of every day, for the rest of my life, if only it meant that I could have my family back.

  If only.

  Jax, Aus and Rick brought me to their house and settled me into one of the spare rooms. I say spare room, but I suppose it’s my room now. My house now too.

  Shit.

  That’s going to take a lot of getting used too!

  They even brought some of my stuff over from my actual house as well. It was really quite thoughtful of them, although I don’t quite know what to make of them going through my underwear drawer.

  Despite my discomfort over the little things, what they’ve done for me is nothing short of amazing. I still can’t believe the kindness and consideration they’ve shown towards me.

  Me. A stranger. A complete stranger who is now living in their house.

  Yeah, it hurts my head too.

  They even collected one of my favorite pictures that lined our hallway. It’s one of the four of us when we went camping last year and it’s a memory I will forever cherish.

  Seeing my family's faces again made me realize just how important it is to treasure every moment in life and how easily it can all be taken away.

  That thoughtful act was a slightly harder one to take. I may, or may not, have completely broken down and made the guys feel super guilty.

  Despite it being difficult to see their happy -and very much alive- smiles, I’m extremely grateful for the memento. It makes me feel closer to them and gives me a small sense of closure.

  Even if it is just ink on paper, their images are forever frozen in time, content and protected as they should be.

  I quickly put a stop to the guys’ apologies by thanking them profusely for their kind and considerate actions. Having the picture wasn’t bad, just unexpected.

  It took a while, but I finally managed to get through to them just how much that picture meant to me and just how much I appreciated them retrieving it for me. Despite my less than positive reaction.

  Rick gave me a brief summary on what transposed after the crash. Withholding quite a bit of information I dare say. I may not have been awake for most of the aftermath, but it’s sorely obvious that there’s a lot more to the story than what he has given me so far. />
  Plus, it’s not hard to tell from his body language that he’s keeping his cards close to his chest. For what reason, I don’t know. Doesn’t mean I’m not going to try to find out though.

  Trying to soften the blow, he reassured me that Lachlan was going to fill me in this evening, as according to him, there were a lot of things that even he wasn’t privy to.

  How true that is I don’t know. What I do know though, is that I was put in a medically induced coma for three weeks and on a ventilator for a good part of that.

  It certainly explains why it feels like I’m swallowing barbed wire every time I try to speak. Not to mention the dramatic weight loss and the nearly non-existent muscle mass.

  Bandages remain comfortably wrapped around nearly every part of my body. Most of them merely as a precaution or to give some form of comfort, yet they still need changing every other day until my wounds are sufficiently healed.

  That’s going to be so much fun. Not.

  Fortunately, the guys have already been shown how to sort that aspect of things, so I don’t have to worry about figuring out how to wrap myself like a mummy on Halloween. It’s just one more thing to take off my already overloaded mind.

  To be honest, it probably wouldn’t make that much difference if I was to just leave them be. It’s not like I’m even going to be leaving my bedroom anytime soon, let alone escaping the house to go roll around in a ditch or sprint some assault courses.

  Nope. It remains the little old hermit life for me. Whoopie!

  The majority of the bandages cover minor cuts. The only exceptions to that are the lacerations, or should I say gashes, that were caused by being dragged over a broken window.

  Oh, and the wound on my forehead from where that overgrown meat sack smashed my head into a tree and cracked my skull.

  Tip for you…don’t try either. They hurt like hell.

  At least the whole, harrowing experience did have one benefit though. It most certainly bolstered my creativity and encouraged my list of torture methods to grow more abstract and imaginative by the second.

  I’ve never really been the most artistic or innovative person either, I’m more of a logical outdoorsy type, and so the change came as a pleasant shock. If you categorize developing psychopathic tendencies as pleasant that is.

  Even though the guys and I had discussed my injuries and recovery before we reached the house, I still didn’t expect the sight that greeted me.

  Half stumbling into my new room with Aus at my side, I started when the reflection of a stranger looked back at me in the mirror.

  Pale and gaunt, with hollow cheeks and sunken red eyes, the house of horrors reject stares back at me in surprise. Her cheeks and collarbones standing out at attention against bruised and mottled skin.

  Although the cuts and bruises on her face are practically healed, she’s still wrapped in a patchwork quilt of bandages from head to toe. The most prominent being those cocooned around her head and torso.

  My heart still aches at the anguish and guilt swimming in her eyes.

  She- No. Me. I. I look broken. Abused. Defeated.

  Unable to fully comprehend or accept anything else on top of the already mounting pile of emotions and self-hatred, I had yet another meltdown.

  As someone who doesn’t usually have a problem with managing her emotions, this overwhelming sensitivity to anything new is not something I am used to.

  I’m in unfamiliar territory and I do not like it. Not one bit. Yet, I can’t help but feel resigned at the fact that this may become the new normal for me.

  Something has broken inside of me. Something irreplaceable. Something that I’m not sure can be fixed.

  At the sound of my panic, Jax came rushing in to calm me down. Again.

  Too concerned with figuring out how to breathe, I didn’t notice Rick and Aus silently moving around us to remove all the mirrors from the room and adjoining en-suite.

  Aus returned sometime later and reassured me that I could have them back when I felt ready.

  Jax being the mind reader that he is, knew exactly what I was thinking, and jumped on me a second before I planned on blurting out and apologizing for how childish I was being.

  Berating me gently, he reminded me it was only natural to feel so overwhelmed and upset after such a traumatic event.

  Me? Well, I still felt like a complete idiot reacting the way I did. I mean let’s be real here, hair grows back and so does muscle. None of the lasting physical effects are irreversible so why stress over it?

  See…logic.

  Another bit of good news is that I won’t even have any scars.

  Not that I’m all too concerned about my appearance in the first place, seeing as I’m not a particularly vain person, but it still should have made me feel more positive. Right?

  Wrong. Instead, it gave me a strange, misplaced sense of dread.

  Considering the extent of my injuries, I would have expected scars or at least some of those temporary ones that pink over and stay for a while. So far, I can see neither. Nothing but creamy white or mottled green and blue skin has made an appearance thus far.

  Either way, Jax dealt with my needy moments amazingly. He helped me to realize that my feelings would settle in time and gave me the confidence to start picking myself up again.

  With the trauma my mind and body sustained, and all the drugs I was given, it’s no wonder that my mental stability is affected so acutely. Hence, the reason the three of them remained at my side until I was awake, and why they continue to be cautious with me now.

  I dread to think what it would have been like to wake up alone.

  It was touching that even though they didn’t know me personally, they had all sat at my bedside at some point.

  All except the twins that is. Not that they didn’t want to, but they knew out of the five of them that they were the least familiar with me, and didn’t want to cause unnecessary distress for me should I wake up with memory loss.

  It was a good call.

  Jax has described them to me since and I vaguely remember seeing them at the party. It’s like their images are ingrained in my head, but are forever blurry.

  In a way, I’m glad that they hadn’t sat with me. If I’d woken to them at my bedside with as little memory as I did, I likely would have completely freaked.

  Despite my seemingly now frequent and ugly breakdowns, the guys have been extremely patient with me. I really couldn’t have asked for anything more. They are all so attentive and seem to have thought of literally everything.

  They even went as far as to provide me with a brand new, cutely wrapped toiletry kit that was coupled with a matching fluffy dressing gown and slippers.

  The kit even had some simple makeup and a hairbrush in it, not to mention the loofah, foot scrub, facemasks, shampoo and conditioner, toothpaste and a hell of a load of other stuff.

  It’s super sweet, and if I was in a better headspace right now, I would be swooning. Hard.

  It already feels like I am a part of their little family, despite not knowing any of them properly.

  Sure, I knew Rick through college and way before the party, but I only briefly met Aus and Jax at the party and the twins in passing later on.

  Nevertheless, they’ve all shown me a certain tenderness and understanding that you’d expect from a close-knit family.

  Not the twins yet obviously, as I still have to meet them, but you get my point.

  They obviously aren’t brothers by blood, yet they are as close as brothers can be. It’s not hard to see that they are as thick as thieves and look out for each other like family do.

  There’s clearly history between them that has brought them all together, yet not once have they mentioned anything.

  I would ask, if it weren’t for the haunted look in their eyes that they disguise with a practiced façade.

  Maybe I wouldn’t have noticed such subtle things like that before everything in my life went tits up, but I guess now that I’m somewhat broken
too, it’s not hard to recognize the pain that lurks beneath.

  Regardless of what they are each going through, not once has their veneer cracked. Practiced and poised, it remains iron clad whenever they are around me.

  Still, no matter how skillful they are at maintaining that front, they can’t hide their true dispositions from me.

  Despite it having only been mere hours since I came around properly enough to interact and take in my surroundings, it’s not hard to see aspects of each of their personalities shining through.

  Even if it wasn’t a well-known fact before all hell broke loose, it comes as no surprise to learn that Jax is the comforter of the group.

  Exuding a quiet and calming demeanor, he’s extremely perceptive.

  It’s uncanny really. Whenever I start to lose myself, or the emotions get too much to handle, he always knows exactly how to help drag me back out of the deep, dark hole I find myself in.

  Apparently, he has a greater understanding of my deepest fears than I do.

  It sure seems that way anyway. He seems to know exactly what I am thinking or feeling without me even having to utter a word.

  Each time it happens, he seems to recognize and align himself with my pain on a much deeper lever that extends far past that of pure knowledge.

  It’s not hard to deduce that the coping mechanisms he practices with me were developed through his own experiences.

  Though each action is insightful and has purpose, it’s obvious that he’s not the leader of this little family.

  As the logical thinker and peacekeeper of the bunch, he’s on the complete opposite end of the scale to Aus, who is definitely the gruff one of the lot.

  Without knowing the twins, I couldn’t say for sure, but let’s just call it a woman’s intuition.

  So far, Aus is the only one who hasn’t molly coddled me. He continues to prompt me to find, but not surpass my limits, whilst the others insisted I be carried everywhere.

  Rather than babying, he encourages independence whilst watching with a hawk’s eye. Only stepping in should he feel that I’m going too far.

  Shockingly enough, Aus is also the one who gives the best hugs. So far, anyway. He’s the perfect definition of a giant grizzly teddy bear.