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She sighed, then breathed deeply of his scent. He wasn't Jasper, that was true, but he was synonymous with home. "Thank you." Lifting her head, Archie met concerned green eyes. "I guess we should get moving if we're going to make it to the hospital in time for visitation."
"You need to eat before we go anywhere, little bit. Connie has the Xanax if you feel you need it."
She narrowed her eyes. This was a sudden turnabout of events. She would swear on any given bible that Atticus was going to pin her down while Connie shoved the pill down her throat, not thirty minutes earlier. "Wait a minute. You're letting me choose whether I take it or not? You're not going to force it on me?"
"If you'd continued to be a stubborn ass, I would have. Still will, if your anxiety becomes problematic. For now, you're talking calmly and coherently, you’re relaxed for the most part. Drugs might mellow you out, but you don't need them right at this point in time. What do you think, Connie?"
The bedroom door closed behind the Mistress as she stepped inside, a tray in her hands. That raised the question of when had she slipped outof the room? Connie lifted her eyebrow at Atticus's query. "Sorry, I missed that. What do I think of what, exactly?"
"Giving Archie a Xanax."
"Hmmm." Connie's gaze swept over her as she strode over and set the tray down on the bedside table. With warm hands, she cupped Archie's face and let her gray eyes wander. "Considerably less upset than when I left. Lucid, clear eyes," she added, tilting Archie's head back against Atticus's shoulder. "Pulse is slightly elevated, but within normal range," she continued, pressing two fingers to a point in Anarchy's throat. "No. Let her be for now."
Thank God for that. She couldn't go to Jasper all doped up. He needed her to be perfect, and she would be just that. What she'd done was wrapped around her heart like thick steel chains, engraved with Gerald's name on every link. A hard and heavy burden to bear. She tried to imagine how she'd feel if it was Jasper's name on those links, his death on her hands because she hadn't made the right decision.
Dead, she thought. She would be dead, inside and out.
The sooner she comprehended that, the faster she could move forward. There was no evidence connecting her to Gerald's murder, nothing left to suggest she'd even been at the scene. She had the utmost faith in Atticus—if he said it was all taken care of down to the bodies and vehicles and everything else, then it was. He didn't get paid the big bucks without there being a damned good reason to pay him astronomical amounts to clear a crime scene.
Maybe she had to throw aside her moral compass and look at the real facts.
Jasper versus Gerald.
Instead of stripping Gerald down to being a human being, a mother's son, she needed to take a long, hard look at the real picture. Dominic's blood had run in the veins of Gerald, just as it did in Jasper. Both boys had grown up in the same house, with the same training, and the same evil bastard as a father.
Jasper had broken away from that life as soon as he'd been able; Gerald had stayed and developed his skills as a killer. Yet they had both ended up on the same stretch of road, at the same time, through Dominic's meddling.
Gerald's own actions had brought him to last night.
Fuck, she shouldn't be laying blame at the feet of the man she—wait. Why shouldn't she? Hisactions were as much a part of the shitstorm as hers. If he hadn't been trying to abduct the man she loved, Gerald wouldn't have been standing in the road.
A spoon tapped gently on her bottom lip as her thoughts spiraled around and around. One minute casting all the responsibility on herself, spinning in the next to throw it at Gerald. The bottom line was, undeniably, she had killed him, but where did the real blame lie?
Her lips parted and the spoon slipped into her mouth. Wrinkling her nose as she tasted soup, she almost spat the mouthful out. Her stomach was in no shape for food—it felt raw and cramped. She glowered at Atticus as he pressed his forefinger firmly against her lips and shook his head.
"We're not going to sit next to Jasper with your tummy rumbling, little bit. I said we'd take care of you, not starve you. As soon as you've eaten up, we can go."
Her shoulders sagged. Food was not her friend right now, but being apart from Jasper when he needed her was making her anxious. She really hoped seeing him would settle some of her deeply-ingrained fears. Stubbornly, she pressed her lips together.
"Daddy Dom," Connie reminded her with a roll of her eyes. "He can sit there all day."
"Indulge me, little bit. I had a shit night and no babygirl of my own to take care of to brighten my day." Atticus wiggled his eyebrows. "Might make you feel a little better too, until Jasper is released."
Archie puffed. She pouted. There was even a petulant squirm.
In the end, she did indeed indulge him.
*
He liked being right, even when it sucked.
A few quality drugs and several hours of forced sleep left Jasper feeling like a new man. Well, almost. To his relief, the anti-inflammatory meds seemed to have reversed his temporary paralysis, reducing the swelling on his spine. It felt as though someone had swung a sledgehammer into his lower vertebrae, but the pain meds were working. It was more of a dull, resounding ache through his back.
He had full movement in his arms and legs, some residual stiffness in his digits. Overall, he felt as though he was made of stone, slow and clunky. He'd made one trip to the bathroom which had almost ended in disaster, shuffling his feet on the vinyl floor like an old man, with Liam's arm supporting his back and Loki gripping his hand.
The nurses had scolded them all good and fucking proper for going against the doctor's advice to stay in bed, but as Jasper pointed out, he had legs and he was gonna use them. There was nothing in heaven or hell that would convince him to let someone shove a catheter up his dick. He'd rather drag his useless carcass across the floor with his teeth.
Of course, the urgency regarding Anarchy wasn't helping to keep his patience flourishing. Loki and Liam had been close-mouthed for hours, just shrugging and telling him Atticus and Connie were in control of the situation. Jasper knew his kitten would be safe, but it was the emotional trauma that was worrying him. The mental toll of ending a life.
