It hurt doing that. Breathing. Of course it did—my ribs were shattered and broken from my heart exploding. But physically it did too. And it was getting worse. But it was easy to ignore when I focused on the pain in my chest.
“Not many people know Gage is an addict,” Bex continued.
“Recovering,” I snapped.
“Addict is always an addict, recovered or not.”
I didn’t reply because her voice mimicked Gage’s.
“Gabriel physically saved me from my Hell. And I mean in the literal way of breaking in and unchaining me from the bed I was being raped in. Killing the man who’d been doing it.”
I flinched.
She wasn’t handling me with care like the rest did. Like they thought I was fragile and if they spoke in gentle words, I might not break. Bex knew I was already broken, so it didn’t matter how she spoke to me.
“I also mean figuratively, that he reached into the flaming pit and wrenched me out. Sure, I did some of the work too. I’m an independent woman, after all.”
I imagined she winked based on her tone.
“But there are different kinds of Hell for each of our demons. At any time, they’re trying to drag us into a different one so we can experience a new type of suffering. That’s what life is, after all. Various types of suffering.” She paused, and I watched her trail a black-tipped fingernail down the scars on Gage’s arms.
“Gage took me out of another one. Or at least he showed me I wasn’t the only one in there. I owe him a debt for that. I can’t do much about that.” I saw her nod toward the bed in my periphery. “But I can do something about this.”
She was standing right in front of me at that point, blocking my view of Gage.
I panicked, wanting to move, needing to move, but my muscles didn’t obey me. They were locked, solid iron from being in the same position for so long.
“You need to get out of my way,” I hissed between my teeth.
She gazed down at me, eyes hard and soft at the same time. “Nope,” she said firmly. “I’m going to make it so when Gage wakes up, it isn’t to the view of his old lady looking like a fucking corpse. He’s coming out of Hell. You really want him to think he’s still there?”
I let her words sink in, though they fought against every one of my instincts that told me I had to sit right there for as long as it took.
“I’m makin’ sense,” she said. “So how about you stand up. Then you can come back and not scare Gage back into the pit once he comes back.”
She outstretched her tattooed arm.
I stared at it for a long time.
Then I grasped it.
And tried to stand up.
But of course by then, the stab wound I’d sustained and forgotten about—and no one had noticed because of the sheer volume of blood I’d been covered in, assuming it was all Gage’s—had gotten infected and spread poison throughout my body. And the arm I outstretched was attached to the shoulder I’d dislocated ripping myself out of the binds far too late to stop Jade from shooting Gage.
So the second I took Bex’s hand, I fell into a pit of my own.
My mind was cotton wool.
That’s exactly what it felt like. Too soft. Too grainy. Uncomfortable. Not the right shape. Moldable when it should’ve been solid.
Images moved behind my eyes. They were shut, but I wanted them to open.
It didn’t work.
Only various shapes and lights moved.
“You didn’t think to fucking check her,” a familiar voice growled.
It was too familiar. My heart skipped with it. But it couldn’t be real. It was too awake. Too alive. And the last time I’d seen him, there was no life left.
It was the cotton wool. Tricking me.
“Brother, she wouldn’t let anyone near her. It was enough to get us near you,” another voice replied.
Not as important as the other one, so I didn’t bother tasting the sound of it to figure out who it was.
“She screamed at us, waved a gun every time we tried to get close to her. When she realized who we were, and that’s only because I think she forgot who the fuck she was for a second, she finally let us touch you. She just sat there in the hospital waiting room, not looking at anyone, not talking—fuck, barely even breathing. Didn’t let anyone near her, let alone examine her. Second you were out of surgery, she very calmly told the doctor she would scratch his eyes out if he didn’t move and let her into your hospital room.” There was a chuckle. “Didn’t think she was much like you before, but fuck was she then. And she refused to move for three days. Three days without sleeping, eating, barely talking. And she was so fuckin’ covered in blood that we didn’t notice—”