I find a long nightshirt that, after shaking free the wrinkles of being folded for so long, looks like it would fit her.
“Aerin?”
Her head lolls slightly to the side and she gazes up at me as if I’m as far away as the moon. “Mhm?”
“Lift your arms for me.”
She obeys and my jacket slips from her shoulders. As she whines in upset, I drape the nightshirt over her head and gently pull her hair through.
As the fabric spills down her body, I carefully ease her arms through the sleeves and smooth the material as it falls past her knees.
Averting my gaze as much as I can from her naked body, anger continues to simmer beneath my skin like a fever even as I smile at her.
“Better?”
She nods. But given how compliant she’s been to all my requests, I can’t tell if she’s really telling me or just agreeing.
As I’m guiding her back to bed, there’s a soft knock on the doorframe.
Bullet places a bottle of water on top of the dresser and vanishes. Grabbing it, I tuck Aerin back into bed, and she clutches at my hand with an iron-like grip.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I assure her, gripping the bottle with my thighs and unscrewing it with my free hand. “Here, drink this for me.”
Guiding the bottle to her lips, Aerin stares at me with fogged eyes until the rim brushes her lower lip, then suddenly she’s gulping down the water like she hasn’t had a drink in weeks.
I monitor her drinking carefully.
Once a quarter of the bottle is drained, I set it aside.
Water droplets cling to her lower lip and when she doesn’t swipe them away, I gently do.
A bruise shadows her face from where she was struck and her skin, still cool to the touch, is faintly warmer than it was before.
She blinks and two tears trail down her cheeks. “Sorry,” she murmurs, shaking her head.
“Don’t. You have nothing to be sorry for.”
Her grip doesn’t slacken on my hand, it remains like a claw, so when she settles back down on the bed I stay with her.
It takes no time at all for sleep, or the lingering effects of the drugs, to pull her back under, but even as she sleeps she continues to hold onto my hand like a lifeline.
I’ve failed her.
Guido made it my mission to protect her, and instead I’ve been falling for her, growing distracted, and now this has happened.
She deserves better than me.
And yet, who else would take care of her like this? Given everything that’s happened, I don’t trust anyone else within that estate to protect her.
The hours trickle by. Aerin’s breathing gradually grows easier and softer as she relaxes. Just as dawn trickles pink light through the single curtain covering the bedroom window, her tight grip on my hand relaxes. She rolls over on the bed and continues to sleep with a soft sigh.
As much as I’d like to stay, hunger curls in my gut and the hours of sitting beside her on the bed have stiffened my back.
Groaning softly, I rise and head back through the apartment. Bullet’s asleep on the couch, Pidge is still by the window on his laptop, and Rex is absent.
“He’s patrolling,” Pidge says before I can even ask.
“Does this place have any food?”
