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"He gave you a false sense of security."
"Exactly. And then from there, you were sent to Sunny, his brother. Who worked with you, gave you some progress. And then when everyone thought they were finally, finally on the road to recovery, he would... well, he would purposely hurt you worse and then declare that therapy wasn't the answer and send you to Mitchell. From there, well, there was no hope for you. You were in so much pain that all you could think of was getting out of it."
The silence after I finished talking was sharp and painful to my ears, unable to figure out what he was thinking, what he thought of the situation, of me.
"And because you worked for them and know all this, you're a threat not only to their medical licenses, but their freedom. The law is coming down hard on pill mills the past couple of years." He paused, finger stroking underneath my black eye slightly again. "Which one did this?"
"Sunny," I supplied automatically. "He's the one used to causing people pain."
His jaw tensed again at that, so much so that I could hear his teeth grind for a long minute before he got control again and relaxed it.
"Just so we're clear here," he said when he was calm again. "You understand that whatever bullshit plan you might have had about going back to them so I didn't get involved..."
"Lazarus, they aren't your prob..."
"They put hands on what was mine," he cut me off. "That makes this my problem. And seeing this damage, sweetheart, yeah... it doesn't make it a problem. I'm going to be fucking happy to get my hands on them- show them what its like to raise their hands to someone who knows how to fucking fight back."
"Lazarus, I don't want anything to happen to..."
"Know something Reeve reminded me of this morning?" he asked, but went on without a response. "He reminded me that I'm part of a brotherhood now. It won't be three against one. Your problems might be my problems now. But my problems are Henchmen problems. So don't be going and worrying about me."
What was there to say?
Try as I might, I couldn't find the right words.
So I stopped trying.
I pushed my legs up over his and scooted into his side, resting my face against his chest and taking a deep breath, breathing him in, letting him fill me up, filling up the hollows I had allowed to form when I walked out of his apartment and, I thought, his life, a couple hours before.
His arms didn't even hesitate in going around me, squeezing me tight.
"I wore a helmet," he told the top of my head, planting a kiss there. "But on the way back, I'm pretty sure I was pushing eighty-five. You scared the shit out of me, Bethany."
It was an almost unfamiliar realization- to know someone cared enough about you to worry.
It felt like ages since I had that.
It had been about three years for me- before my mom got really sick.
And it was somehow completely different when it came from a source that wasn't a parent- someone who kind-of had to love and care about you.
It was a whole other kind of warm and swirling sensation inside to realize someone didn't need to care about you, but chose to.
"I get this is new here, Bethany. And I get that the circumstances surrounding it aren't traditional so maybe you're second guessing this. But you need to factor in that I am not a traditional kind of guy either."
A cage-fighting, ex-heroin using, current outlaw biker who was involved with arms dealing.
Yeah, that was pretty damn non-traditional, I had to admit.
"And I'm willing to accept that maybe you won't be fully comfortable trusting your feelings with regard to me until you've been clean long enough to know that A- I don't have some goddamn Florence Nightingale syndrome, B- you don't have some Stockholm crap, and C- your feelings have nothing to do with the withdrawal. But I am not going anywhere. I get this is high risk. I get that there is a real chance for ups and downs here and not some bullshit 'why can't you take out the goddamn trash' kind of issues, the real kind."
Like relapse.
Like the fight back toward sobriety.
Like his illegal professions and friends.
Like literally anything could happen at any moment that would put our relationship to the test.
Or end it.
That was true.
"I guess what I am saying here is- do you have any idea how rare it is in life to find a soul that is cut up in all the same ways as your own? I think when you find that person who can understand everything you have been through because they have been through it as well, you need to hold onto them. You need to try to make it work. It will be worth all the struggles and all the progressions and regressions. You're worth that, Bethany. Whether you believe that about yourself or not."
