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Oh God.
The knife in my chest twists, wrenching my guts some more as I race to the bathroom and throw myself at the toilet. Retch after retch, I hug the porcelain like it’s my best friend.
Except he’s gone. Jordan’s dead, and it’s my fault. If he hadn’t been with me, he would’ve still been alive. He would be at the academy, getting on with his life. Dancing. Laughing.
The retches become guttural sobs that sound more like coughed-up howls. Rather than making me feel better, they tear through me like fired blades, scorching and singeing my insides until I can’t breathe and everything around me starts to blur. Exactly like it did when I tried to pull him back to me. In the same way it did then, my surroundings darken, getting bleaker by the second as I try to push through the panicked fog storming around me.
“You and me, baby.” Strong arms wrap around me and lift me away from the toilet. “You and me, Swan.”
The air swarms, hot, heavy, and as Freddie sits me on the vanity, and unlike anything he’s ever done, he bear hugs me. It’s not a simple hug or a light embrace. It’s unlike any hug I’ve ever had, and instead of retching my guts out, I’m heaving for breath. That awful pain in my chest is overwhelmed by the ferocity of his hold.
“You and me, beautiful…you and me…you and me…” he chants endlessly, rocking me from side to side. “Only ever you and me…”
Me and him.
The pain in my chest dulls with every spark of his words. Second by second, there really is nothing but Freddie and me. As I catch my breath, he pulls away to look at me, ocean eyes boring into mine as he strips me of his T-shirt and then strips himself of the one he’s wearing.
“You’re dressed.”
“I had a few things to take care of.” Pausing while he flips the shower on, still peering around the concrete wall at me, he adds, “Casper’s downstairs.”
“What? Why? I…I…” I don’t want to see him right now.
Every time I think of him, all I want to do is scream and shout at him for interfering. If he’d only let me get in Jordan’s car, this might have never happened. We would’ve been at the Aviary right now. He would be alive…
“Talk to me, Swan, because I’m trying here. I’m really fucking trying to stay put instead of going out there and fucking shit up.”
His stare goes down to my thigh and the worst of my insignificant injuries. It’s more of a shallow gouge from where I had to kick the safe escape hatch open and my leg caught. Although it hurts, it doesn’t hurt enough to detract from the real pain of losing my best friend.
In turn, my eyes fix on the bullet wounds on his arm and chest before they rove down to the red marks on his sides and flit back up to the one on his collarbone.
“What happened to you?”
“Doesn’t matter.” Before I can ask any more questions, he shows me his toothbrush, loaded with his bright pink toothpaste that burns the insides of my mouth numb with how strong it is. “Open.”
I do as he instructed, opening my mouth so that he can brush my teeth because it’s one of his quirks. For someone that is so insistent on not caring much for anything, he dotes on me in the most bizarre and intimate of ways. While he continues obliterating my taste buds with the radioactive paste, I trace the mark on his collarbone. It takes me a moment for it to dawn on me, but the more I look at it, the more familiar the shape imprinted right above his bone becomes. And I see red.
“Spit.”
Following his order with more gusto than necessary, I hack into the sink, swallowing down what’s left of the toothpaste before I ask, “Is that why he came here? To hurt you too?”
“Georgina…”
“After everything he’s already done…” Pushing him away, I thrust myself off the vanity, awkwardly landing on my sore foot. I might not be limping anymore, but the force it took to get myself out of the car yesterday has left it tender.
“Will you please be careful!” Freddie’s voice booms around us at the same time as he catches me and perches me back on the side. Bracing an arm on either side of me, he prisons me in place.
“Let me go.”
“No.”
“You don’t understand. You’ll never understand. If he’d let me get in Jordan’s car…if…if he hadn’t—”
“You would be dead too.” The statement is low and unwavering, like a monotone guarantee. “Casper did the right thing. You can hate him. You can yell and rant, but he saved you.”
“You don’t get to take his side right now!”
Pushing away from me, he looks up at the ceiling, hands on his hips and his body in full glory. Every muscle is tense and taut, making him look every bit the unforgiving and deadly god he is. The light golden stubble peppering his jaw glitters as it catches the soft golden light above us. He’s fatally beautiful with all his anger and might visibly coursing through his corded limbs, flushing his light golden skin a faint raging shade of red.
