“I died.” My brain isn’t fully operational, but my memories are slapping through my mind in rapid succession.
“Not this time.” Grayson leans against the hospital door. Taking up his spot as a sentinel. If Axel is exhausted, then Grayson is on death’s doorstep. His face is gaunt, his beard thicker than I have ever seen it, his shoulders slumped downwards.
Guilt eats into my gut as my eyes flicker up to him. Even past his fatigue there is a wariness in his gaze that I don’t remember. He isuncomfortable, shifting from foot to foot.
Unwelcome memories churn deep in my belly, a fork twisting and turning.
We kissed. I took his keys. I drove to my own demise. He called me.
He told me.
“But I did before. Ninety-nine times.”
Grayson jumps forward, his attention flashing to me. “So, you do remember.”
“Just this lifetime. What you told me before, I took your car and–” I cut myself off, the memories of Julia’s body scrape their way into my mind.
Axel pulls the water away, setting it down on the table beside us. He regards me with his typical intensity as he carefully brings his hand up to my cheek. He moves languidly, slowly, as if to not startle me.
“The hundredth timeisthe charm,” he says.
And then the rough hot pads of his fingers are gripping my face, tugging me to him. His mouth pressing against mine, his lips scorching me, marking me.
He is consuming me, like I am the little lamb he has established me to be.
Distracting me from my own internal turmoil.
He is everywhere. Lighting my skin on fire, replacing the trauma of one hundred lifetimes, searing into my nerves. He is everything I didn’t know I needed in this instance.
A small, tiny oasis in an otherwise chaotic state.
“Cut it out,” Grayson growls.
Startled, I jerk back from Axel and cast a look over his shoulder.
Grayson has stepped closer to the bed; he reaches over it and physically tears Axel away from me.
I turn behind me waiting for Darius to break them up.
But he isn’t there.
“Darius?” I am not sure if it is the concern or the word itself, but either way, it causes the brothers to separate and turn to me.
Grayson offers an almost imperceptible head shake, and Axel clenches his jaw.
“Tell me the truth.” I need to hear it. To know what has happened. “Is he okay?” I swallow around the gravel in my throat. Reaching over, I take the water from the table and gulp down a few sips.
Grayson watches me and waits until I am done to answer. “He’s safe and alive.”
But I can tell there is more to it than that. “How can you be so sure? Where is he?”
Axel lets out an exasperated grunt. “Fucking stop beating around the bush.” He whips his focus to me, his hands clenching into tight fists. “Darius is injail.”
My heart beats louder,fasterin my chest. Each thump echoed by an eerie beep on the machines I am still connected to. “Why aren’t you rescuing him?” For the first time since I came to, I try to get up, but my body is weak and my legs are stiff from disuse.
“Darius made his choice.” Axel leans over me again, his bright eyes boring into mine. “He’s going to be fine. Can’t you fucking trust us? It’syouwho almost died.Youwere shot.”
My vision blurs as tears form. “I’m sorry.” My emotions are a thousand broken chords, each more choppy than the last. And all of them play the most disgusting song together.
