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I didn’t cry.
Almost as a rule since I left town, I didn’t cry. I just… didn’t have any tears left, it seemed like.
But I found myself soaking through Valen’s shirt in that bathroom.
I’d never been more thankful for anything than I was for Danny when she demanded Valen head back separately.
“This ride is going to suck,” Danny warned, looking at me in the rearview.
Every moment since it happened sucked. I was pretty sure moving or existing was going to suck for a while.
“Let’s get it over with,” I said, and Danny nodded and got us across town with Valen following right along.
“Scoot,” Danny demanded to Finn as we parked. “Go find your Ma. She’s probably losing her mind right now. Now you,” she said when we were alone, turning in her seat to look back at me. “You okay?”
“I didn’t save her. I… if I was a second faster, maybe—“
“Maybe then their angle would have been better and you would have gotten a bullet in the chest or the head,” Danny said. “There’s no way to know how this might have gone if you saw the truck a second faster or you got to your gun faster or Abigail got a chance to run, or Seth and Finn were outside. There’s no way to know. And you can’t beat yourself up over how it went. You did the best you could in the moment. Now it is up to the others to do their best and find her.”
“But Abigail—“
“Probably feels guilty that you got shot. All this guilt. It’s a waste of fucking time and energy. The only people who should be feeling guilty are the assholes who did this. So no more guilt. What we can do now is hope, right? And heal up.”
With that, Danny climbed out of the car, and there was Valen again.
“Come on. A couple dozen more steps,” Valen encouraged me, reaching for my hand so I didn’t have to scoot so much, letting him take some of my weight as I climbed out of the SUV.
We took a short pause at the bar because Voss had climbed behind it, fixing me a drink and handing me a pill.
“Don’t argue,” Valen demanded.
“I wasn’t going to,” I told him, tossing the pill and chasing it with the whiskey, enjoying the little burn it provided. “Have you ever been shot?” I asked, finding myself unable to stop the question.
“Me or him?” Voss asked, since I was looking more in his direction than Valen.
“Both. Either.”
“I have,” Voss said, nodding. “A few times.”
“A few times? Christ, dude, how awful are you that you make that many enemies?” I asked, getting what I imagined was a rare smile out of him.
“Tend to rub people the wrong way,” he said, shrugging it off.
And, yeah, there was definitely some truth to that. His and Dezi’s animosity was a prime example. Even though there didn’t seem to be any real root to it. They just rubbed each other the wrong way.
“I haven’t been,” Valen admitted. “Been stabbed and beaten to high hell plenty, but haven’t gotten myself any bullet wounds. Did pull one out of Voss’s shoulder once, though. So I know a thing or two about how to help yours heal right. Which means you need to stop fucking moving around, and go lie down.”
His comment should have rubbed me the wrong way. I hated being told what to do. I always had, even as a kid, but that grew stronger as I got older. Especially toward the male population.
But when Valen got a little bossy?
Especially when it was coming out of a place of concern?
Yeah, it was way hotter than it had any right to be.
“You’re going to have to take the lower bunk for a while,” he added. “Think your stubborn ass can handle that?” he added as he started to nudge me forward.
I could have sworn Voss mumbled something at Valen then, but it was too low and gravelly for me to make it out.
