It was the worst kind of cruelty to connect with someone so deeply and then lose them. The uncertainty of her survival was driving me fucking insane. I needed to show her how I really felt about her, beyond the manufactured cruelty and the maniac who’d tried to burn her.
Unconsciously, I took a step forward, hovering in the threshold again. Then another step. Another. It took me ten steps to realize that my inner Alpha was driving me towards the double doors that led to the surgery suites. It didn’t matter that they were locked. I’d find a way to bust through.
“What the fuck am I doing?” I muttered under my breath, turning around and stalking back to the hallway.
I was losing it, reality slipping through my fingers. If Lucy died would the world stay blurry forever? Would fire ever again snap the pieces of me back into place when I fell apart?
I needed to get the fuck out of here. I turned on my heel and strode away from my brothers, from Lucy’s life hanging in the balance, and from all the damn regret eating me away inside. I slammed the down button when I got to the elevators. When the left one slid open, I rushed inside, chest heaving. As the doorsclosed, I began to feel suffocated, like a fire robbed of oxygen. I was dwindling, flames dying, with nothing left to catch spark and renew life.
“You’re not dying,” I told myself. “You can breathe. There’s air in here. Even though you can’t see it.”
To prove the words to myself, I pulled out my lighter and flicked the metal wheel.
The flame didn’t ignite.
I tried again and again to make the flint strike true and the wick flare.
NITRO.
The memory of the giant tent collapsing with Lucy inside was branded on my brain. I didn’t think I’d ever erase it.
She’d gone in there to save me—her, the one I’d continually mistreated in the most inhumane ways. How could she even think of risking everything for someone like me?
Idiot.
Beautiful fucking idiot.
Sitting in one of the navy-blue chairs in the waiting room, my right knee bounced in sync with my stuttering pulse. From the moment the ambulance doors closed, blocking my sight of Lucy, my heart hadn’t worked right. It was out of rhythm, the organ forgetting how to function.
As my brothers and I followed behind the transport—Xander driving his car, the rest of us on our bikes—every interaction I’d had with Lucy replayed. I’d treated her like dog, giving herbuckets to piss and shit in. I’d thrown knives at her as if she were fucking disposable. Hell, I had even filled a trash bag with the worst of our old clothes, knowing they’d be oversized and tattered, just so I could tell her that’s the best she deserved.
Despite everything, Lucy had crawled into danger to save me. Guilt, sharp as any knife I’d ever wielded, cut through me.
I leaned back in my chair, pushing my hand into my jean pocket and wrapping fingers around the folded blade hidden there. I pulled it out, the cool metal against my palm felt real and grounding. It was something I could control, unlike everything else happening around me. Slowly, I unfolded the knife, revealing its sharpness. First, I ran the razor edge up and down the back of my forearm, shaving the hair. Next, I gripped the hilt in my first, lifted it above my leg, and slammed it down. A last second change of angle caused the blade to sink into the seat of the chair, just shy of my thigh.
Yes, I wanted to hurt myself. I wanted to feel the pain I’d caused Lucy.
But me bleeding out in the waiting room wouldn’t help anything.
I wiggled the knife back and forth, making the puncture wound increasingly larger.
Why did you do it, Lucy? You had no damn reason to try and save me.
You might die, and for someone who belittled you, degraded you, harmed you.The shallow cut I’d made on her cheek throwing the blade at her flashed through my mind. She deserved so much better than me and my pack of fucked-up miscreants.
I could admit now that I’d noticed the subtle shifts in my stability with her around. Yet I’d chosen to ignore everything positive. Like the way her scent made me feel relaxed. Like the way the sight of her sent a pang through my heart. Like theway she’d started consuming my thoughts, even edging out my blades. Why was I so damn stubborn?
I imagined how she’d looked in the moments before risking her life.
Determination in her startling green eyes. Her pink mouth set into a straight line, the same way it looked when she held her ground. That petite body of hers rallying strength, preparing to do something she was ill-equipped to handle.
The weight of what she’d done blanketed over me. It was something that couldn’t be repaid, not in a million lifetimes.
I was still twisting the knife.
Twisting the knife the way my gut was twisting.
The thought of never having a chance to fix things with Lucy, made me feel sick.
