Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 76953 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 385(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76953 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 385(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
He was an enormous guy. The bed looked too small for him. But he looked reduced, smaller, pale.
“Hey,” I said, my voice catching on a cry as I moved closer to take his giant hand in both of mine. “It’s me.”
I never got to see him still.
Sometimes, in bed, I would doze off for a little while. Each time I woke up, he was still wide awake, holding me, running his hands over me.
Maybe if I’d seen him asleep, seeing him in the hospital bed like that wouldn’t have been so upsetting.
“I, um, I guess I need to thank you. You know, for taking bullets for me. But, well, you shouldn’t have done that. Because now look at you.” A loud, ugly sniffle escaped me at that.
“I think he’s gone,” I told him. I heard mixed things whether people who were unconscious could hear you or not. But I figured if he could hear me, he’d want an update. “I think I killed him.” I nudged my hip onto the edge of the bed. “So, you can just wake up now. It’s safe.”
I paused, rubbing his hand, my gaze vacillating from his face to the monitor.
“Hey, so, I just really, really need you to be okay,” I said, my voice thick with more useless tears.
I knew I wasn’t supposed to, but I slid up onto the bed that wasn’t nearly big enough for him, let alone both of us.
My head rested on his chest, his big, familiar body comforting and horrifying at the same time.
“I think I might be in love with you,” I whispered. Then I gave in to the migraine stabbing behind my eyes and the bone-deep exhaustion in my bones and mind.
It was the sensation of an arm tightening around me that finally woke me up some time later.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Perish
It was the goddamn beeping that woke me up. Steady. Relentless. Annoying as hell.
And in my drugged mind, I couldn’t place what it was, just that I wanted it to stop.
I turned my head toward it and slit my eyes open.
It was like someone stuck those paddles on my chest and shocked me.
It all came rushing back once I realized where I was. In the hospital. That beeping? My own damn heart. It tripped faster as the events of the day before swirled around in my head.
Gracie leaving.
Gracie being taken.
The sound of her cry when she’d been struck.
Then just… rage.
So much that I barely even registered the burning sensation of the first bullet.
Those second and third ones, though, those were a bitch.
But nothing was as painful as Gracie’s screams, of seeing her attacking Cameron on her own, of her busted face as she came running over to me.
The only comforting thought to ease the pain I felt was that her dad was there, her family was there, that they would take care of her, keep her safe, no matter what happened to me.
I tried to lift my arm, but felt a pinched weight at my shoulder, making pins and needles prick up and down my arm.
It was then that I looked down.
That I knew what the weight was.
Gracie.
She was curled around me, her head on my chest, her leg wedged between my thighs, her hand resting over my heart.
Gracie, who didn’t smell like herself. She smelled like antiseptic and antibiotic creams.
My mind flashed back to the old bagel shop, to the blood on her wrists, her hands, her legs, and, yeah, her face.
They’d taken her somewhere to get help.
Then she’d somehow managed to find her way to me.
I knew I should have been worried that the club would find out, that they’d see her curled over me and come to all the right conclusions.
I just didn’t give a fuck.
My arm tightened around her.
I felt her coming awake, her body jolting slightly, her breath gasping inward.
“You’re okay,” I murmured.
“I’m okay?” she asked, pulling up to look down at me.
Christ.
Her face looked rough. Scratches and bruises were everywhere. She had a pretty impressive black eye going on.
I tried to lift my other arm to reach out toward it, but the pain sliced through the meds dripping into my veins, making a grunt escape me as my arm fell heavily back down on the mattress.
“You were shot,” she said, tone soft, like she was informing me for the first time.
A strange little laugh escaped me at that. “No shit.” She rolled her eyes at that. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“Don’t lie.”
“My head hurts. But I was mostly worried about you.”
“I’m fine.”
“You don’t know that yet.”
“Maybe I can be of some help with that,” a voice said, making both of us jolt.
Seeing a doctor standing there, Gracie scrambled off the bed, her face going red.
“Sorry, I was…”
“Keeping the patient warm,” the doctor, an older man with soft green eyes, said. He gave her a smile. “Staying warm is very important for recovery. I would like to examine your husband now.”