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My eyes scan the room. It’s massive. The hospital back home was a piece of shit that I visited with the boys on far too many occasions. It was squishy with six beds jammed into the same room with cheap curtains between them. This here is different. This room is bigger than my whole kitchen and living room back home in Breakers Flats, and there’s no doubt in my mind that Colton is paying top dollar for it.
Mom and Colton sit in my room, one on either side of me. Mom just sits, staring at my broken and bruised body while Colton holds my hand, his thumb rubbing back and forth over my fractured skin. His head is dropped down onto the bed beside me, and I can only imagine the bullshit running circles through his head.
I meet Mom’s eye and as she gasps and instantly begins sobbing, Colton’s head whips up. “Oh, thank fuck,” he says, relief pouring over him in waves. He searches my eyes just as I do the same to him. “I thought the fucking worst,” he tells me. “The way they were hurting you …”
“I know,” I whisper, trying to squeeze his hand, but my strength is completely gone. I glance back at Mom, desperately needing to ease her worries. “I tried to run.”
A loud, broken sob tears out of her, and tears stream down her face. “I know, sweetie,” she cries. “You would have been so brave.” Her words bring tears to my eyes and I do everything that I can to hold it together. If I break, I don’t think I’ll have the energy to pull myself back together. “How are you feeling? Are you hurting, or do you need some more pain meds?”
“I …” I shake my head, trying to take a mental catalog of everything going on right now. “I don’t really know.”
“Okay,” she says, standing and wiping her tears on the back of her arms, trying to be strong when it’s more than okay to fall to pieces. “I’ll grab the nurse so she can check you out. You’ve been out for a few hours.”
I nod as best I can, but the movement has a sharp, searing pain shooting down the back of my neck. I keep my pain to myself, not wanting to hurt her any more than I already have. Mom leans into me and ever so gently brushes her lips over my forehead. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“Okay,” I whisper, terrified of my voice breaking.
Silence fills the room as Mom looks down at me, struggling to convince herself to walk out of the room. She takes a heavy breath and then finally takes the few steps to the door, keeping her gaze locked on me until she steps out of the room, leaving me with Colton, who hasn’t stopped watching me since the moment his head snapped up.
“How are you really?” he questions, gently squeezing my hand as his thumb continues rubbing back and forth over my skin. Despite the pain pulsing through my veins, his touch soothes me and gives me something else to focus on.
“It hurts so fucking bad,” I tell him, finally allowing the tears to flow freely.
“Fuck,” he panics, raising out of the stiff chair by my bedside and leaning into me. He props his elbow beside my shoulder and dips his head to mine. His lips brush over mine, and I do my best to savor it before he pulls away. “I’m so fucking sorry, Jade. I should never have dragged you out to dinner with me. I knew there was a chance they would come for you, but I didn’t think it’d happen like that. I thought you were safe with me, and I fucking let you down. There were too many. I tried … fuck, Jade, I really tried.”
Ignoring the shooting pain through my arm, I raise my hand to his cheek and force his lips back to mine. “Don’t do that to yourself,” I beg of him. “This is on me. I made the decision to go to the Wolves. I’ve been around gangs my whole life, I should have known that this was a possibility, but I overlooked it in my need to get revenge.”
“I’m going to fucking kill them,” he promises me. “Every last one of them who dared put their hands on you.”
“You can’t,” I insist, hating the words as they slip off my tongue. There's nothing I want more than to end them for the fresh hell they just put me through, but without them, I’m left to stand against Nic on my own. I’ll never get close to him like that, not now, not after everything that’s gone down.
“I don’t give a shit about that, not anymore. They took it too far.”
