“Try and escape me now, Sweetness.”
Garrett
Pacing around the tiny waiting room I’ve been forced into while the doctor preforms his morning check-up, I can’t stop replaying the other night in my head. Like a scratched DVD that plays the same scene, glitches and jumps back over and over. His blood coating my hands, the warmth leaving his body, the words lodged in my throat I wish I’d said. His life was literally slipping away and no amount of praying or crying could bring him back to me. I can’t even consider if the air ambulance hadn’t shown up when it did, I refuse to travel down that path knowing a part of me won’t come back.
My fingers clasp into fists, my body shaking with the need to be back at his bedside. It’s been two fucking days and not a single doctor can tell me why he’s not woken up yet. Dax, Huxley and Avery have been staying at a motel on the edge of the city, returning during visiting hours like one of the nurses suggested I also did. Like I told her, either I’m allowed stay with Axel at all times or she’d better get a second bed ready in his room, ‘cause I will jab a scalpel into my throat if that’s what it takes. Not only was I permitted to remain, we now have security standing guard by the door, and I got a free evaluation from a psychologist so I can’t complain. Nothing like a mental sweep of my childhood trauma to get the juices flowing and I know where to direct all of that unearthed murderous intentions. Wyatt fucking Hughes.
The same nurse who called security on me walks past the glass door, rounding the safety of her desk before nodding for me to return. I fly into the hallway, making her jump as I jog back to Axel’s. A part of me thinks she’s kinda overreacting, although I had snatched a needle from her trolley and had it pointed at my jugular for extra effect. Nodding to today’s guard with a cocky smile, I slip into the room and my heart finally settles at his sleeping form.
“Sorry that took so long,” I talk to Axel, as I have been since we arrived. Pretending he can hear me is all that’s keeping me calm, literally all I can do in this helpless situation. Reaching over to fluff his pillows, this private room and its small luxuries being the best thing I’ve ever spent my trust fund on, I kick off my shoes and jeans to slide beneath the cover beside him. Shuffling down, I rest my head on his shoulder and link my fingers in his.
“I was thinking after you’re all healed, and I’ve painted my bedroom walls with Wyatt’s blood, we should go away somewhere. You know, like a trip away. I’ve always wanted to visit Italy. We could hit Florence first to see Michelangelo’s David, row on down the canals in Venice, rave it up in Vatican City with the Sistine Chapel, finish with the Pantheon and a villa in Rome. Just me, you and a never-ending supply of pizzas.”
I’ve always had a secret passion for history and architecture, since I was a child who’s only friends lived within the pages of books from my father’s study. It never bothered me when my parents travelled the world, in fact I preferred it over lying in bed listening to their constant arguments. I’d learnt to look after myself from a young age, content in my own company and rarely scared of anything. Maybe it was because I only read non-fiction, no tales of monsters lurking under the bed or vampires in the closet filling my head.
If there was food in the fridge, I was happy – until there wasn’t. My parents had decided to take a month-long cruise, leaving nine-year-old me with a wad of cash and a list of numbers for local takeaways, but I didn’t call for any. I guess I’d given up on caring for myself, wondering how long it would take before someone else noticed I wasn’t attending school, or I didn’t turn up for basketball practice. Eleven days. That’s how long. I barely remember being scraped off the floor by a police officer, the blue lights flashing beyond my eyelids, waking in a hospital bed with a tube through my nose leading to my stomach bringing me back from the brink. And that’s the last time I gave a shit about being loved, until now.
I’ve decided to give Axel every part of me when he wakes up, including the monster hidden beneath my cocky façade. The one that’s extremely close to the surface right now, teeth bared and claws at the ready to rip chunks out of Wyatt and this Perelli asshole and anyone else who dares to get too close to my family again. Then we’ll see if Axel really wants me. Leaning upright, I pull across the TV suspended by a metal arm until its hovering over our knees. Unhooking the remote control from the side of the bed, I flick through channels until I find a Planet Earth documentary. When I run out of things to say, I read aloud the subtitles just so Axel can have the comfort of my voice should he need it. A bit of familiarity to latch onto and pull himself back to me.
∞∞∞
“Hey, I’ve told you before – you can’t be in the bed with him,” a deep southern twang wakes me with a snort. A large woman with pale skin and a smirk on her lips jabs me in the side playfully, her blue and white dress straining to conceal her insanely huge breasts. Sitting upright, I stretch my arms high above my head and my back gives a satisfying crack before swinging my legs over the edge of the bed. The nurse, who
