Page 70 of Wicked Ruin

Valentina. Why did Valentina stay with me?

Then Cavin is standing in the doorway, and he looks like he hasn’t slept in a fucking week.

“You’re awake,” he says.

Bridget.

It comes back all at once, and it comes back wrong. The crack of the shot. The way she went so still against me, I thought she’d been hit. Her face when I turned her around. The blood on my hands that wasn’t mine, and the ten seconds before I knew for certain it wasn’t hers either.

I throw the blankets off.

“Bridget.” I’m already moving, already trying to get my legs over the side of the bed. “Where is she? Where the fuck is she? Is she okay, Cavin? Where⁠—”

Cavin crosses the room in two steps, puts both hands on my chest, and shoves me back hard. My shoulder screams. I don’t care about the shoulder.

“Cavin.” I’m grabbing his arm. “Where is she? I need to know she’s⁠—”

“She’s fine.”

“Let me go! I need to see her. I need to⁠—”

“Declan.” His hands are still on my chest, pressing me flat. “She is fine. She is not hurt—she’s somewhere in the hospital, but not as a patient. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”

I stop.

He holds me there another moment, just to be sure, and then takes his hands away slowly, like he’s not entirely convinced I won’t try again. He straightens up and gives me a long, hard look. The kind that doesn’t come with words because it doesn’t need them.

I lie back against the pillow and try to remember how to breathe.

But I don't stay down. I get about halfway up before the pain in my shoulder registers, and I go back against the pillow whether I want to or not.

“She's here. She's in the building. She's down the hall with your parents, and she's grand. Would you breathe⁠—”

“It was a trap.” The memory is coming back in pieces, jagged and wrong, and I'm trying to sort them into order but failing. “They were there for me, Cavin. It wasn't—she was just—she was in the way. She was only there because I—” I stop. My hand finds his arm without meaning to. “Tell me she's not hurt. Tell me again.”

“She's not hurt.” His voice is different when he says it. Slower. Deliberate. “You threw yourself on top of her, apparently. Like a sack of wet concrete, is how she described it.”

I press the heel of my hand against my eyes.

“She would say that,” I manage with a half smile.

“She did say that.” He pauses. “She also didn't leave. I want you to know that. We couldn't get her to leave.” He pauses. “I tried. And the lass soaked my fuckin’ shirt, crying, when we got here.”

I don't say anything to that I can't take back. We’re on thin fucking ground here.

“Aye. Thankfully, Bridget's guards didn't listen to you when you told them you could protect her because I threatened them with bodily harm if they left her. They came out immediately, and whoever went after you disappeared. No leads yet.” He pauses. “Apparently, a girl who spent most of her childhood in hospital has some connections and knows who to talk to. She's been at your bedside since you came out of surgery.”

I grin at that, and it pulls at something in my chest that isn't just the wound.

That's my girl.

“Got my phone?” I rasp.

“Right here.” He takes it from the bedside table and hands it over. I squint at the screen. Messages from Seamus, from Colm, from Lorcan.

“Seamus let Valentina know. She said to let her know how you were doing.” Cavin's voice is carefully neutral. He's better at that than most people give him credit for.

It's about as much as I expected. We barely know each other. Why would she care if I got shot? And yet, if she were injured, I'd be razing the city to find out who did it because that would be my duty.