She pulls her hand out of mine, and for a second, it feels like rejection, until she suddenly darts right past me and straight for Levi, who collapses on the floor.
Levi
I thoughtI could handle the pain, and I wasn’t about to show these two fucks my weakness, but Grey cut into my abdomen so deep that my muscles are beginning to cave in on me.
Goddammit.
Aspen runs up to me and goes to her knees in front of me, picking up my arm to support it with her shoulder. “I’m here.”
Her pretty ocean eyes keep me afloat, keep me present, keep me from wanting to lash out at everything around me.
“C’mon. Let’s get you upstairs,” she says. “Apollo, help me!”
“Oh shit,” Apollo says as he hurries to support my other arm.
“I don’t need help,” I mutter, standing.
I shove them away, but the second I take a few steps into the room, the pain becomes too much, and I crash into Grey.
“What the—” He barely stays put with my weight on top. Sighing, he puts his shoulder underneath my arm. “Fine.”
I grumble with annoyance as he drags me toward the stairs.
“Let. Me. Go,” I growl.
“And let you fall again? I don’t think so,” he replies.
“Now, now, boys, play nice,” Apollo muses as he supports my other arm.
“I can walk,” I insist.
“We can see that,” Apollo says.
Aspen runs up the stairs and immediately raids Apollo’s room, and I can hear her throw stuff around.
“You looking for another mask, Freckles?” Apollo asks.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I ask.
“Oh, she went through my room once, trying to find her ‘stalker.’” He makes quotation marks with his free hand. “A.k.a. you.”
“Interesting. And you’ve been going behind my back to fuck her while pretending to protect her and Grey from me,” I quip.
“Not behind your back. Right in front of your eyes,” he retorts, grinning. “And I kept everyone alive, didn’t I?”
“Barely,” Grey grumbles, still holding me, despite the hate practically fuming off him, and the feeling is mutual.
When we get to my room, Aspen has already opened the box of supplies she stole from Apollo’s room and is rummaging through it until she finds what she’s looking for. After Grey and Apollo put me down on my bed, she barks, “Out of the way.”
They take a few steps back, watching us from the doorway, but all I can focus on is how she’s kneeling in front of me, and I swallow away the lump in my throat.
She dips a cotton pad into some alcohol and leans in. “This might hurt.”
She wipes my wound clean, but the pain doesn’t faze me as long as she’s here with me, looking at me, touching me. And when she stops, I grasp her wrist and make her stay.
I can’t.
I thought I could do this.
