“He’s dead,” I answer definitively.
“Good.”
A quick knock at the door is our only warning before Malec walks in, dressed in his uniform and with an exhausted expression on his face.
“Glad to see you’re awake,” he says, walking over to the bed and glancing at Jensen’s bandages. “Did Liv fill you in on the investigation?”
“Not yet,” I answer. “He just woke up.”
“What investigation?” Jensen says, trying to track our conversation. I can tell he’s still not up for all of this.
“I have to do a death investigation for Noah. It’s required–”
“I did it,” he says suddenly. “I killed him.”
“Jensen…” I start, but he keeps going.
“I stabbed him to get him off of Olive.”
I rest my hand over his heart to get his attention as Malec smirks. “Jackson already knows what happened, Jensen. We’re not in trouble.I’mnot in trouble. I don’t need you to take the fall for me.”
“It was self-defense. I know that. I was only telling you that an investigation is required, not because I’m assigning guilt.”
“Oh,” he sighs, letting his head fall back to his pillow again.
“I need your side of things for my report, but it can wait. I just wanted to come in and check on you. I’ll let everyone else know you’re awake and just as thick in the skull as before.”
I conceal my laugh, but not well enough. Leave it to Jensen to take the fall for a crime just to protect me… Even when it’s totally unnecessary.
“Malec,” Jensen says suddenly as Jackson goes to leave. “Thanks for getting there, and being there with her when… When I could have…” He clears his throat. “Thank you for not letting her be alone.”
“That’s what family does, Hayes. I only wish I had gotten there sooner.” He tips his head and leaves us, letting silence fill the room.
I don’t have a chance to say anything, though, before a nurse and a doctor walk in to check on him. I stand back, watching them poke and prod at him, and I flinch every time he winces.
“The pain killers will need to be alternated every six hours, but you should be able to go home tomorrow,” the doctor says, and the room empties once more.
I can’t move. Jensen’s looking at me tenderly from across the room, but I can’t get my limbs to cooperate. I almost lost him…
“Come lay with me, dove.”
I shake my head. “You’re hurt.”
“I don’t give a fuck. Come here.”
His insistence has my feet moving, but I stop at the side of my bed, not going any further.
“I need to have you right here.” He pats the sliver of mattress beside him. “Nothing you can do will hurt me more than what already happened.”
My face tugs down in a frown, and he taps the bed again. This time, I take my time, gingerly crawling in beside him. If I hurt him, he doesn’t say. He doesn’t make a noise or flinch at all as I ease down on my side next to him.
“Head right here.” He uses his chin to point to his chest by the inside of his shoulder. “That’s perfect,” he says with more grit in his tone than I would like, but if he wants me beside him, then I’ll stay right here.
“Malec found Noah’s car. And his apartment. He wasn’t bluffing… He had photos of me all the way back from undergrad and beyond. He had photos of you. Mr. Arkett. Elliot. And some of my random dates in college.”
“I don’t even remember him from high school,” Hayes utters.
“He had journals filled with rants about Mr. Arkett preying on me. He wrote that he wished he had intervened when you had, so he could have been the hero… He was delusional, but I guess I blacked him out completely.”
