Tears pour from her eyes as she shakes her head. She says nothing.
I walk toward Leo, each step causing my vision to blur more. “I don’t understand you. Why? What do you gain here? I took nothing from you, like I took nothing from Mac. He understood things for what they were when I got here. Why’d you turn your back on them?”
Leo’s nostrils flare but he refuses to speak.
I nod, but when I go to open my mouth, nothing comes out. I grow dizzy and have to catch myself on the hood of the smashed-up car. “Bass...” I rasp, my eyes refusing to stay open any longer, fighting to meet his only for everything to grow dark. “Something’s wrong.”
I slip, my hip slamming against the side, causing the ache that had begun to dull to come back with a vengeance. “Mmm,” I cry out, my hand slipping against the sleek vehicle.
There’s a soft grunt followed by a crash at my feet and suddenly I’m falling to the ground, but a pair of strong arms break my fall just as my ass scrapes the gravel. I’m lifted, cradled.
The sounds surrounding me continue to pierce my ears, but I have no strength to open my eyes or mouth.
“Where the fuck have you been?!” Bass shouts. “How could you—”
“Not the time, Bishop,” Royce growls. “Just get in the fucking car!”
“What about these two?” he shouts. “They could come after her again.”
“Leo’s out cold, the girl can find her own fucking way back. We’ll deal with them later.”
My body bounces slightly with each step before it stops, so the arms around me tighten, pulling me closer.
Rough facial hair scratches against my cheek before warm air hits my ear. “I’ve got you.”
My entire body breaks out in goosebumps.
Maddoc.
“You can hear me, can’t you, baby?” He keeps going and even though my eyes won’t open, the tremble of my lips serves as his answer. “I’m so sorry. I promise you, I will never leave you again.” His thumb slides across it.
His words and the way in which they find my skin, both warm and laced with a hint of last night’s whiskey, don’t settle me as they should. A heavy pressure builds against my chest, forcing the air from my lungs.
“She’s... she’s not breathing,” he panics. “She’s not fucking breathing!”
I try to inhale, but nothing comes of it.
“Fuck it, I’m calling an ambulance!” Royce says.
In the next moment, the voices join my sight and I pass out completely.
I drop my head against the wall, directly across from the door they wheeled her through.
The paramedic cut her top off, and there was bruising, both fresh and fading, but there was no damage they could see, so as soon as we got her here, got her up to the Bray Wing this time around, they took her straight back for some testing.
“I never should have fucking left her here today.” Royce kicks the wall with the heel of his shoe, knocking his head against it with a hard thud. His eyes slice to mine, straight fuckin’ anger for me, but his worry for her is what has my throat closing.
“Why do we keep finding ourselves here, brother?” He swallows. “What if she cracks? What if she flips the fuck out, crying and breaking shit.” He licks his lips, bending on his knees in front of me.
“She won’t.”
“How do you know?” His tone begins to shift, rage boiling to the surface. “You don’t know what’s happened and you’ve got Bishop tailing her like a little bitch, doubt his ass would fill us in on anything fucking extra.”
“He wouldn’t.”
Royce scoffs, looking away.
“Bass is more like her than we are. We know her better, yeah, but he understands her in a different way.” I admit what I hate most about him. “He’ll be whatever she needs him to be. He’ll read her mood and say what she needs to hear.”
“You trust him to lead her?”
“I trust him to allow her to lead him.” I look away. “I would have cut his nuts weeks ago if I didn’t.”
“Yeah, well, try being the one she left behind while he walked fucking beside her. He’s gonna pay for it, even if it was demanded of him by you.” Royce kicks off the wall, banging on the damn door in the next second. “I want to see her.”
“Royce, stop.”
“Man, fuck you!” He spins around, shoving me in the chest. “Fuck. You! You haven’t been here, you don’t know the half of the shit she’s been through since the day you ran off!” he shouts at the top of his lungs.
The nurse ducks from what Royce said was Captain’s room, disappearing through a door at the other end of the hall while Victoria and Bishop appear at the end of it, both not bothering to hide the fact that they’re watching, probably enjoying this shit.
Royce is too hopped up to notice. “She was fucked. I mean straight the fuck up, all-around fucked,” he snaps. “I’d have sworn after all the shit the last few weeks, it couldn’t possibly get any worse. Wrong.”
“What happened?”
“Man, fuck you! I’m not gonna make this shit easy on you. You left, and not just her, you left us all. Captain almost fucking died, he could have, they both fucking could have and who knows, maybe I’d have never fucking found you! You wouldn’t even know!”
“I wouldn’t have stayed gone forever.”
“No, just after the funerals and after this place fucking fell apart. If Raven hadn’t flipped out and I hadn’t asked if she needed her music, I never would have known you had the iPod to even think to use the Find Me app on it.” He scowls. “You didn’t have to see Captain’s fucking face when he woke up after being out of it for over two fucking weeks and we had to tell him his brother abandoned his family like a weak little bitch!”
“I was weak!” I shout back, throwing my hands out.
“Yeah, you fucking were!” Royce booms. “Did you even stop to think how he fucking felt? You know Captain, Maddoc. You know every second he was with her he felt guilt in his fucking bones. He was doing something you agreed to, helping us all, helping her, and he felt guilt for that. You leaving only made it worse. You confirmed, in his mind he had a reason to feel like he betrayed you, something he would die before doing, you pathetic piece of shit!”
“I am pathetic,” I agree with him which only pisses him off more. “I had never in my life felt so damn pathetic, fucking helpless as I did the day I left. Days before that if you really wanna know.”
I step closer to him, but he shoves at me, sending my back flying against the wall.
“You felt helpless?!” he barks, getting in my face. “You fucking felt helpless?” A scoffed laugh breaks through his fury. “Try actually being helpless, motherfucker. Try watching her knees buckle from under her, her body going limp as she breaks down harder than she probably ever fucking has! Try being the one to hold her through that, wishing you could settle her while knowing there’s only one fucking person she truly wanted in that moment! Someone who I’m not even sure deserves her now!”
A knife to the fucking gut.
What the hell happened here while I was gone?
“You abandoned her,” he growls in my face, his body shaking with his rage.
“I gave her away, Royce.” A deep ache forms in my chest. “I gave her away because someone told me I had to.” My eyes narrow. “Never, ever have I allowed someone to come in and take what was mine, never have I not fought with all I fucking had to keep or protect what belonged to me, and I just ...” I trail off, my jaw clenching. “I gave her away, and I will never forgive myself for that. Ever. And I’d never fucking ask you or her or Cap to forgive me for it either.”
Royce punches a hole through the wall beside my head before stepping back, glaring.
“Wanna know what’s fucking worse?”
Reluctantly, his eyes snap back to mine, his body still facing away.
“I want to go to her, make her forget for a little while, make her feel good the only way I know how. And I want to do it now, while my brother is
lying there with bullet holes in his body.”
Deep creases form on Royce’s forehead.
“Fucked up, yeah?” I look away.
He doesn’t say anything.
“I want her, brother. Now, tomorrow, always.” I let out a humorless laugh, closing my eyes when it all becomes too fucking much. “I didn’t think on it when it happened, didn’t have time or didn’t let myself, fuck if I know. All I knew was she was good in that moment. Safe and away from Collins.” I meet Royce’s eyes. “She wasn’t gonna accept. She told me no, like she told him no. She was dead fucking set on marrying Collins, said she would never come between us like that.”
Royce groans, shaking his head. “The fuck you do, brother?”
“Told her I’d leave you guys if she didn’t.”
He takes a deep breath, looking to his bloodied knuckles. “Fucked up.”
I nod.
“And you left anyway.”
“I tried, but I couldn’t fucking do it,” I admit. “Standing around, seeing them together. Imagine me sitting back when his mouth touches hers, knowing what goes down at night when they’re alone. Then later, playin’ family with Zoey?” My jaw flexes. “I’d have fucking cracked. I’d have taken her from him, fucking everyone over in the process. Leaving was the only option.”
He glares a minute before he starts talking again.
“I don’t feel for you,” he says quietly. “I can’t, not after everything she’s been through recently. I tried to be there for her, to make her feel safe, to hold her, and she let me. It helped some, I know it did, but not efuckingnough. It will never be enough.” He swallows, his eyes trailing the blood drops at his feet. “We could never be enough for her.”
“You could be.”
“We aren’t.” He shrugs. “She trusts us, but it’s not the same thing. She loves us, but it’s different.”
I let out a deep breath. “I never should have allowed this to happen. I never should have let them take what was mine to have.” I look to Royce.
His brows meet in the center, a defeated look taking over, and he sighs. “You were saving your niece, man.”
“Yeah,” I rasp. “By ripping out my beating fucking heart.”
“You—”
“Stop, Royce.” My shoulders sag. “Don’t make excuses for me.”
I lick my lips, my chin hitting my chest a moment.
I look up, meeting my brother’s eyes. “Tell me something.”
His eyes pinch.
“Would we ever allow that little girl to be taken from us, hurt or harmed in any way?”
“Never.”
Instant.
“Exactly.” My brows jump into my hairline and I take a step closer. “Why did we not weed out everyone who tried to deny us? Who threatened to take from us?”
“I don’t know, man, it was a lot to take in.”
“So we’re too weak to handle it, like Dad said we would be?”
“That’s not what I fucking said,” Royce spits through clenched teeth.
I push forward. “You heard the other families in that room. This is our fucking feud, they have no place in it. They want us to settle it. Us or them, they don’t get to say, and they don’t give a fuck. They’re only waiting for the end result, a tight, strong council they can depend on when push comes to shove.”
Royce’s body slowly morphs, the tension in his shoulders fading as his fists open at his sides. He stands taller, his chin lifting subconsciously as a calm settles over him.
“Madman...”
I nod.
Yes, brother.
“Say it,” Royce demands.
“We made a mistake.”
Royce plants his feet directly in front of mine. He lifts his palm, so I lock my hand in his, letting him pull my chest closer.
Deserved anger and resentment radiates off every inch of him, but even pissed at me, we’re family first. “We didn’t spend the last few years rebuilding this fucking town, growing our team, for nothing. We aren’t placeholders. These old fucks don’t get to step back in and tell us what our next move is supposed to be. We were the next move before Dad got home and Donley slid back into light, and everyone knew it. Let’s remind them, Madman.”
I nod, fucking ready. “We go to the Graven Estate.”
Royce scoffs, stepping back, but a hint of a smirk tips his lip, humor finding its way in his eyes.
“What?”
He licks his lips. “Graven Estate is nothing but ash, brother.”
My mind races.
“She went in like a boss, burnt it to the ground.”
My eyes fly to Victoria when she speaks.
She glares at me, pushes off the wall and then disappears into Captain’s room.
The fuck?
Royce’s hard slap to my back has my eyes flying to him.
“Told you, crazy shit, bro. Wait ‘til you hear the rest of it.”
My eyes slim. “You gonna fuckin’ tell me or not?”
He lets me go, pausing at Captain’s door. His eyes hit mine, hardening. “Nope.”
He goes inside, but my feet freeze in place, my eyes sliding sideways when movement catches my attention.
Bishop stares at me.
“What?”
He shrugs against the wall, pushing off just the same. “Surprised is all.”
“Yeah, you were probably hoping I’d never fucking be back, huh?”
Bishop stares blankly. “Nah, man.” He shakes his head, moving his earphones into place. “I’m surprised you ever left. Didn’t expect that. Not from you. Not when it came to her.” He grabs his side and limps back into the waiting area.
I’m about to drop against the wall when Captain’s door pushes open again and Victoria sticks her head out. “He’s asleep right now, but I thought you’d want to know... when she’s done back there?” Her eyes slide between mine, and I’d swear pity is hiding behind her shield. “They’re bringing her in here. It’s a double room so...”
My chest stiffens, but I manage a tight nod.
She pokes her head back in and out again, this time concern is marked. “Don’t leave, Maddoc,” she whispers before she disappears.
As soon as she’s gone, I allow myself to fall against the wall.
Fuck, man.
I take a deep breath, attempting to settle myself.
I was only gone for a few weeks, how much could have really happened in that time?
Does she hate me?
Even as I think it, I laugh at myself.
Yeah fucking right, that’d be too easy.
My baby, she’ll forgive me.
Or worse, she won’t even be mad. It’d be easier if she was.
I have no fucking clue what happens now. All I know is we’re done listening to others, we’re done taking orders. They promised this town to my brother and Raven, we’ll fucking show them how strong they are. We’ll stand at their sides – a king and queen and their knights.
They did what was asked of them, and they were hurt after.
No fucking more.
With us or against us, period.
Our town.
Our people.
Captain’s girl?
My back slides against the wall, my ass hitting the floor.
Fuck.
I groan, my hand lifting to my hair, but something keeps it from extending. I blink several times, trying to focus and slowly, the white walls come into view.
My eyes jerk down, finding I’m in a fucking hospital bed, tubes in my arms.
My jaw clenches and I slam my head against the pillow, grinding my teeth when it causes a slight pain in my shoulders.
I close my eyes, replaying what I last remember in my head – the maid, the girl, the crash. Leo and Vienna.
Maddoc.
I gasp, shooting up in the bed.
My eyes scan over every inch of the room but only Victoria is here, sleeping on a little couch in the corner.
Maddoc.
Maybe I imagined hi
s voice, his hands.
I bite into my cheek, shaking my head.
Angry and confused, feeling like a weak and lonely bitch, I tear the tape from my skin and tug the stupid ass IV from my arm, pushing the tape back down as best it’ll hold. I bend my elbow to help stop the bleeding and I throw the blanket off me, finding my body is fine. Bruises, but at this point, I might as well get ‘em tattooed on.
I reach over, turning off the monitor beside me and remove the blood pressure cuff, peel the little stickers stuck to my chest, and tug the one free from the dressing around my ribs.
I swing my legs over the edge of the bed, giving myself a second to take a breath, and then slowly stand.
Once I’m sure my feet are steady enough, I take the four steps to Cap’s bed.
His eyes open when I pull at his blanket. They fly to mine, worry followed by sadness clouding the color in them. He lifts his arms so I can climb in, covering myself with the blanket.
“Are you okay?” he whispers.
“Stop asking me that, Cap. I’m always good,” I rasp. “This isn’t new to me, the trouble. This is what my life has always been, one problem after another. It’s different, but not new.”
“That’s a shitty way to live, Raven.”
I nod. “Yeah, but I’m alive, right?” My chest tightens. “Captain, so many people have been hurt because of me. All I had to do was be born, keep breathing and it ruined so many people’s lives.”
“You were important, worth the risk even if they didn’t know you.”
“And that’s some bullshit, no?” I pick at the blanket covering us. “Brayshaw demands loyalty, earns trust and respect, yet I was a fucked-up kid, being a dick and running around the streets getting high, putting myself in danger I never even balked at, while these people who require so much from others, gave so much for a girl who didn’t know they existed. A girl who wouldn’t have fucking cared if she did.”
“You were Brayshaw.”
I shake my head, squeezing my eyes closed. “Raven... interesting name, isn’t it? Only one letter short...”
Cap tenses beside me, his fingers finding my chin after a few seconds. He brings my eyes to his. “Raven?” he broaches, eyes tight.
“That’s what my mother said to me before she died. One letter short.” I swallow. “How could I be so blind? How could we not have put it together?”
Reign of Brayshaw (Brayshaw High #3) Page 22