I am raw.
Grayson swears under his breath. Almost as if in a trance, he settles carefully onto the bed next to me, gathering me in his arms. “We’re here. You’re going to be okay now. Everything is going to be fine. Darius will be safe, they won’t kill him.”
“But how can you know?”
They already killed Auggie and Tripp, what would stop them from doing the same to Darius?
I am a blubbering mess. Now that the tears have started, I can’t turn them off. I feel as if I am mourning some part of myself. As if, right now, I am letting loose the emotions of ninety-nine lives that I lived.
I try to turn away from Grayson, but then Axel is slipping carefully onto the other side of the bed. Both men are hanging precariously over the edges, using me as the anchor to hold them in place, but even still, they are gentle, aware to not jostle me.
And then Axel begins to hum a familiar tune from my childhood. It is the same one from our ride home from the river party.
“How do you know that song?” I wanted to ask him before, but I forgot.
One of probably a million things I have forgotten.
Axel nuzzles further into my side, inhaling me. Even over the harsh acrid of chemicals I can smell him. Smoke and leather.
“I learned it in an early timeline, I found that it always calmed you down. Helped you sleep.”
I shift uncomfortably in the small bed. For just a single instance, I feel as if I might suffocate, but then Grayson wraps around me further. His arms securing me in the here and now.
“Do you understand now? Why all I wanted was to keep you safe? We watched you die so many times,” Grayson grumbles into my ear.
His hot breath tickles the skin there, invades me, enters my bloodstream, ventures its way to my gut. All of the brothers have slowly filtered into me.
Except it wasn’tslowlyat all.
“How long have you lived through this?” The question slips out on its own.
“Years.” Axel’s arm wraps over me, above Grayson’s. “Now you need to get some rest.”
“But Darius–”
“His lawyer spoke to Grayson earlier. His bail hearing is in a few days. We can’t do anything until then.”
I want to argue, to scream and shout. Darius needs us. How many days has he been alone in a jail cell?
I have hundreds of swirling emotions, thousands of questions, millions of prickling stabs of anxiety.
But I am exhausted. Even though I haven’t been awake long, my body is not cooperating with me.
Axel‘s arms tighten, tugging me closer to him, my face burrowing into his chest.
My throat is still raw, my mouth dry, my body a mess, but here, wedged between the two brothers, I allow myself to relax.
I can’t do anything if my body isn’t healed.
My eyes flicker over Axel’s shoulder to the door of the hospital room. To the large glass window in the middle.
There’s movement, and I think perhaps the nurse will come in and separate us, but then it’s gone. My blinks are longer and longer as Axel continues to hum.
And just as unconsciousness takes hold, I see a shimmer of light leading from me to the hospital door. To the person that is, once more, standing on the other side.
5
September 1st
