“What happened?” someone demands. Hawke, I think, though I’m too distracted by the pain to bother looking and confirming my assumption.
“I’m fine,” I mumble.
“Give us some space. I’ve got her.” Jagger loops his arm beneath my knees, keeping the opposite around my shoulders as he lifts me and cradles me to his chest.
With a sharp inhale, I try to breathe through the jostling no matter how gentle Jagger is, but shit, it hurts. Seriously, my ribs feel like they’re on fire.
“You good?” he asks.
I don’t bother answering his question. I’m far from good. Obviously. I feel like I was run over by a truck. Instead, I shift against his chest, surprised by how comfortable it is compared to standing, but I’d never admit it out loud. “What are you doing?” I ask.
“Carrying you.”
“I can walk.”
“Want to get there by tomorrow,” he says, with an almost endearing dryness. “Let me take care of you, all right?”
Take care of me? No one wants to take care of me. The idea alone is enough to make me want to cry. I didn’t come here to be taken care of. I came here to… Why am I here? I shouldn’t be here.
As if he can feel my reservations and the way I’m seriously second-guessing the decision to show up here, he rasps, “I got you, Vi.”
Giving in, I tuck my head against the crook of his neck and nod, too exhausted to fight it. My thoughts. My indecision. Everything. “Okay,” I breathe out.
We make it up the stairs, passing Hawke’s room and a small study, finally reaching a large bedroom. It must be his. Jagger walks through it to the connecting bathroom and sets me on the counter as if I’m made of broken glass. “You good?” he asks. He keeps his hands on my waist on the off chance I keel over right here and now. Then again, with how I feel, it’s not an entirely ridiculous assumption.
I force myself to nod. “I’m good.”
His gaze bounces around my face as if he doesn’t believe me before forcing himself to let me go. “Where does it hurt?”
“Ribs, and…” I lift my hand and motion to my face.
“Got it.” Gently, he clasps my chin with his thumb and forefinger, inspecting my mouth, nose, and the raccoon eyes I know I’m sporting thanks to the glimpse I caught of myself in my rearview mirror in my car before I finally managed to knock on Jagger’s door.
“Trust me,” he murmurs. It isn’t a request, but I lift my face a little higher as he carefully runs his forefingers along both sides of my nose. “I don’t think it’s broken.”
I don’t think so, either. If it was, the scent of his cologne wouldn’t fill my nostrils, and I’d be more focused on the pain instead of just how close Jagger is. He skates his fingertips beneath the hollows of my eyes, following the bruising I know is there. All things considered, it shouldn’t feel good, but it does. His touch. Or maybe I’m so starved for gentleness, I’ll take it wherever I can get it. Guess that says more about me than it does him, and it’s best I remember it.
Somehow, his already black gaze seems to darken even more. “Who did this to you?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
His eyes drift to mine. “Who did this to you, Vi?”
There are rules in The Drift. They might not be written down anywhere, but they’re there nonetheless. And one of them is simple. What happens in The Drift stays in The Drift. You don’t go running to Harden Heights for help. You don’t go running to their politicians or their police or their people, and you sure as hell don’t go to their crowned princes themselves. They’ll only find a way to use it against you. But for some reason I can’t explain, maybe it’s an accumulation of the haunted house and the run-in with my dad and the drive here and the feel of Jagger’s calloused hands on my busted up face, but I’m too tired to fight it. To lie or to deflect. Tomorrow, maybe. But tonight? Tonight, I can’t do it anymore.
“He, uh, he got mad he lost a bet,” I whisper.
Recognition dawns on him. “I’m gonna kill him.”
“Don’t.” I reach for his wrist and keep Jagger close. “He’s nothing more than a pathetic old man who only knows how to pick fights with people who are smaller than him. He isn’t worth your time.”
“Debatable.”
“He isn’t,” I push. Lifting my gaze from his chest, I peer up at Jagger. “Promise me.”
“Little Thief.”
“Promise me,” I beg.
