Page 29 of Healed

“Thank God for that,” Vienna muttered. “I didn’t have much left in the tank.”

“Well, I’m so glad you used the last of your reserves on something so meaningful.”

“You know what, Gabby?” he said, slapping his hand over his heart. “You are so welcome.”

“Lie down properly,” I grinned, pushing his head backwards.

“I want to make sure I bleed everywhere possible. Don’t want just the one big patch. I want to make Sunshine have to work to get this clean.”

“Do you want to live to see another day?” I asked.

“Depends. Will I hurt as much tomorrow as I do right now?”

“Maybe. You might be missing a limb or two depending on how seriously Sunshine takes it.”

“Worth it,” he said, but he did flop back onto the backseat as I asked, hissing slightly and tensing his jaw at the pain.

I did my best to concentrate on the roads, following the stream of headlights from the motorbikes in front of us, but I couldn’t help my eyes from looking in the rearview mirror, nor could I stop my hand from adjusting it until it was focused on the giant spread over the back seats.

“Stop looking at me, Princess. I’m fine,” he said without opening his eyes.

“I’m not looking at you.”

“You are. I can feel it.”

“I am driving, actually. Something you bikers may not be familiar with, but it does usually involve looking in mirrors.”

Besides, I didn’t need the mirror to look at the roads behind us. I knew what I was driving away from. I knew what I was leaving behind. And as we continued driving, entering Disciple territory, I didn’t need any mirror to remind me of streets I knew like the back of my hand.

My eyes went back to the mirror, and I saw Vienna with his eyes open, staring back at me.

I quickly looked at the road, hearing his smug chuckle from the backseats.

His eyes closed again, but the corner of his mouth stayed lifted, and I hated how much I wanted to keep looking at him.

He looked awful. Truly awful.

There was dried blood in his beard, in his hair, smeared across his cheek and down his neck. One side of his face had swollen enough that I was half convinced Rachel’s slap had only been adding insult to injury, and his cut was ruined, torn and stained and carrying more blood than leather.

He looked like exactly what he was.

A man who had come for me.

A man who had almost died because he thought I had.

A man who had spent ten years standing in the dark outside my window because neither one of us had ever been strong enough to fully let go.

“Luke?” I whispered.

He opened his eyes again, and for a moment, just a moment, the years weren’t there. The blood wasn’t there. Nico wasn’t there. It was just him and me on some dark road, saying everything except the things that mattered.

“Yeah?”

“Thank you,” I said softly. “Thank you for coming for me.”

He was quiet for a moment, and I waited for the joke. For the stupid comment. For anything that would drag us back onto safer ground.

“Thank you for not being dead.”