Page 50 of Beyond Repair: Part Two
"Shit, baby!" Trevor booms, fitting part of himself into the updated nest.
At the sound of his voice, Nina lifts off of me just enough to look over at him instead of the pretty flower wallpaper I put up myself. "You all s-swear too much," she hiccups.
Trevor grins, but his humor doesn't hide the stress lines on his face or the shadows in his eyes. "Sorry, baby girl."
"Me too," she whispers, the tears starting back up again. "I'm s-sorry."
I'm already shaking my head. "No apologizing. Just tell us what happened so we can fix it."
She sniffles and pushes against me. I'm reluctant to let her go, yet I help her sit up and snuggle into the mountain of pillows beside me. Her voice is so small when she says, "You can't fix it."
I scoff. "Like hell. I'll do anything for you."
The smile she gives me is sad, but at least she's not cowering away from me in fear. Gray-blue eyes glance around and take in the small room I designed for her. Trevor helped with the new door since not having a way to escape from the inside was scary.
"I love it in here." Pride fills my chest, but it's squashed as soon as her attention finds Trev again. "Don't get mad, okay?"
Trevor stiffens. "Come out of there, and we can chat as a family."
"I don't know..."
She's killing me. I pet her arm that's holding the blanket to her chest. "Ridge and Henry need to see you too. Please?"
Nina sighs and chews on her lip when it starts to wobble. "Can I...Can I snuggle with Ridge?"
"FUCK YEAH!" Ridge shouts, and it's as if his swearing flips a switch. Nina laughs and chokes on that snort while Trevor's expression turns thunderous.
"LANGUAGE!"
"Shit, sorry!" I can hear the cringe in Ridge's tone, but thankfully he goes quiet when Trevor disappears back out there again.
Shifting and wiggling, I shimmy my way out too, and look back at Neen to see if she's okay.She isn't. Tears are filing in her eyes again and she's zoning out on the pictures I taped to the other wall.
They're a collection of ones we've taken these past few months of all of us. I've added two group photos from when we were teenagers but tried to keep it focused on the here and now.
"Kai..." she says my name with awe.So not zoned out then. Almost like she doesn't want to stop looking at the photos, she tears her gaze away from them to look at me. "Thank you. I can't—This is?—"
"You're welcome, flora. I hope this can be a true safe space for you."
She crawls toward me, only catching on her blanket once. "I love you."
I swear my heart literally swells and I can't hold back from kissing her salty tear-soaked lips. "I love you too," I murmur when I pull away. "Now come on, the others need to make sure you're okay."
I hope she really is okay...
