AllFreeNovel
Share Us
So what else am I supposed to do to erase this horrible, clawing feeling in my chest other than to entice Jackson to unleash his pent-up hatred?
He hits me again. I go down hard, my head cracking against the floor. Vision blurring, I spit blood and contemplate getting back up.
More, my body urges.
Liam puts an end to my plans. His massive body steps into view, slightly spinning with the room as he squares up to Jackson. “Get the fuck out of here before I break you beyond repair.”
Jackson bares his teeth but sizes Liam up and recognises defeat. This doesn’t stop him from spitting at my shoes before he leaves. “Whatever. You’re not worth the trouble, anyway.”
I want to argue that obviously I was if he put in the effort to hunt me down. Instead, I close my eyes and let out a heavy breath. Can I sink into the floor? Dissolve into the little flecks of gold in the marble pattern?
Jackson confirmed my every fear. My absence and Lex’s death tanked the band. How many more lives can I ruin before it’s enough?
Hail peels me off the floor, but then I’m screaming at him to quit touching me. “Just leave me the fuck alone!”
Startled, he releases his hold, and I stumble for the front doors, not giving a shit about where I’m going, only that I need to be gone.
My own flesh and blood. I let him die. One selfish decision cost me the only person who has ever cared about me. The only person who recognised my existence. Who reminded me I matter when the people that made me would have preferred I’d not been born at all.
Not true. Hail cares. Atonement cares.
The dark shadow in my mind surfaces.Yeah, but you’re doomed to fail them, too.
The ground lurches beneath me. Only part of my brain registers falling. One heavy blink, I’m looking at the world normally, and the next, it’s sideways. Cold water splashes up at my face. Am I lying on the street?
Cars blare their horns and swerve to miss me. I push my head further into the dirty pot hole of rainwater I’ve found myself in, head spinning and blood running from a cut on my forehead.
I know I should get up, but honestly I’m curious which will kill me first, a car or the rising water. It covers my mouth and nose. I can’t breathe, but that’s okay. Lex couldn’t breathe, either. I wish I could give him the air from my lungs. The worthless beating heart in my chest.
Why did you leave me? Why can’t I hear you in my head anymore? Take me with you, Lex. Please, just fucking take me.
Sobs threaten to break free from my chest, and it’s all over. I’m forcing my head further down into that water. Drowning in the absolute depths of this guilt. I hear my mum’s bitter voice tearing into me.
You did this! You tore this family apart! I told you not to get involved in this lifestyle! I told you to keep your baby brother away from it!
I hear my father’s moan of pain on the other end of the phone when he’s informed of Lex’s death.Why him? Why couldn’t it have been Zander?
The questions I wasn’t supposed to overhear echo in my head, breaking my heart over and over again.Why indeed, Dad?
God, isn’t grieving supposed to be cathartic? Why does my body feel like it’s being ripped in two by invisible hands?
Strong arms pull me off the street. I spit up dirty water. Hack it out of my lungs. Blood immediately drips into my eyes as Liam hoists me up against his solid chest like a child. Why did he follow me?
I writhe against him and plead, “Please don’t take me back to Hail. He can’t see me like this.”
Liam’s hold is like an iron vise. He carries me to his Pantera in the parking lot of the hotel. After buckling me into the passenger seat and leaning the seat back, he grabs a folded towel from his gym bag and presses it against the cut above my brow.
“Try not to bleed on my seats,” he mumbles, and then he’s gunning it through traffic.
Reckless maneuvers take us to the nearest urgent care. Liam sits with me in silence as the doctor stitches my brow back up and gives protocol for a concussion. Then Liam takes me back to his hotel room and props me up in a chair so I won’t be tempted to sleep, though the urge to drink or snort something or pop a pill is still fighting for control.
He drops a bottle of water on the table next to me. “I can smell the liquor on you. Do you make a habit out of drinking that much?”
I wince. “No. Not in years.”
Liam sits down in the chair opposite me like I’m in an interview with an intimidating CFO.
“You try to kill yourself out there?” His tone is hard, his eyes narrowed. And I recognise it as concern, not anger. Liam is concerned about me.
