CHAPTER FIFTY
ZADE
The exact fraction of a second her fragile, trembling fingers curled around my bandaged hand, the universe shifted on its axis.
The reality of what we were, of what I was, hit me with the crushing weight of a sudden, shattering impact.
I've lost the game. For months, I played the part of the hunter, the captor, the absolute ruler who demanded her submission.
But sitting here in the sterile, suffocating quiet of this hospital room,
watching her chest rise and fall beneath a thin cotton gown, I realize I am completely, utterly at her mercy.
As much as I roar to the world that she is mine, as much as I stamp my mark into her skin and claim her in the dark....
she doesn't ever have to voice the words that I belong to her.
Because the truth is already violently carved into my bones....I am hers. Entirely. Hopelessly.
I watch her through the dim, filtered light of the recovery ward.
When the nurse had finally brought the plastic cup, her pale, cracked lips had parted, greedily sucking the freezing moisture from those ice chips.
It should have brought me some semblance of peace to see her swallowing, to see her body accepting sustenance, but it did nothing to cool the acid burning in my veins.
Because every time she tilts her head, the harsh, fluorescent glare from the corridor catches the dark,
swollen bruise marring the porcelain skin of her cheek...
It's an angry, violet stamp of a coward's hand, and looking at it makes my blood physically boil beneath my flesh.
It ripples through my muscles, a toxic current of pure, unadulterated violence that demands a tally in bones.
I lean in closer, staring down at her face.
Her eyelashes flutter weakly, casting long, fractured shadows over her cheekbones.
She is trying so desperately hard to force her eyes open, to anchor her gaze to mine and stay awake,
but the green of her irises is heavily bloodshot, clouded by a profound, suffocating exhaustion that makes her
look terrifyingly small.
Terrifyingly weak.
Earlier, when the nurse had rolled her onto her side to change the heavy, blood-soaked dressings on her back,
the friction had caught the edge of her wound.
A sharp, broken whimper had slipped past her lips.....a sound of pure agony that shattered the quiet of the room.
In that exact moment, a violent, primal urge had flared within me.
I wanted nothing more than to reach inside her chest, wrap my hands around her pain, and rip it out of her myself.
I wanted to burn the world down just to spare her a second of discomfort.
Because the guilt is a living, breathing monster clawing at my throat-I am the reason she is in this bed.
My world, my past, my enemies brought that steel nail down into her flesh.
But it's more than just guilt.
Seeing her hurt does some unpleasant,terrifyingly soft shit to my black heart, fracturing the armor I spent a lifetime building.
She had tried so hard to fight the dark, to pull herself out of the fever dream, but the fresh sedative the nurse had pumped into her IV line was a ruthless predator.
Slowly, the fierce defiance drained from her limbs, her fingers slackened against mine,
and she drifted back into a deep, heavily medicated sleep.
I reach out, my rough, calloused thumb gently caressing her warm, feverish cheek, steering clear of the bruise.
The dry heat of her skin radiates against my palm, a physical proof of the infection her body is violently fighting off.
It is completely impossible for me to fully articulate or explain the kind of suffocating, blinding pain currently crushing my chest.
It feels like a physical hand squeezing my lungs, reminding me that for all my power,
all my wealth, and all my lethality, I am still just a man standing over a hospital bed, terrified of the quiet.
"He's going to pay, Wildfire... I promise you, he'll pay for every single drop,"
I whisper into the heavy silence of the room, my voice cracking into a rough, jagged edge.
I lean my head forward, letting my forehead rest heavily against her cold, still knuckles, letting the smell of her skin anchor me to the spot.
A few minutes bleed by in an agonizing stretch of time before the heavy door quietly clicks open behind me.
I don't need to turn around to recognize the footsteps.
Nate enters the room first, his broad shoulders hunched, his expression somber and carrying the weight of the universe.
But it's the fragile shadow sliding in behind him that catches my attention. Mio.
The girl looks like she is a mere two seconds away from completely collapsing onto the cold linoleum floor.
The vibrant, sharp, and untouchable charm that usually defines her existence has been entirely stripped away, leaving behind a hysterical, broken girl who looks smaller than I've ever seen her.
Her entire face is flushed a deep, angry red, the skin blotchy from crying, and her eyes are so heavily swollen and puffy she can barely focus on my face.
"Why didn't you call me, Zade...?" her voice cracks on a jagged sob, trembling with a suffocating layer of terror and grief.
She looks past my shoulder,
her gaze landing on Alice's unmoving form, and a fresh wave of panic washes over her features,
draining whatever color she had left.
"I left my phone in the car, Mio. I'm sorry," I say, my voice dropping into a rare, genuine register that I rarely afford anyone outside of my immediate circle.
I stand up from the plastic chair, my joints popping from the hours of absolute tension, and step directly into her path.
I look down at her shattered expression, letting her see the lack of malice in my eyes. "I'm sorry for the outburst this morning. I am sorry for every single thing."
She doesn't even try to speak.
She doesn't offer a snarky comeback or a defensive line.
Instead, she throws her entire weight forward, crashing violently into my chest.
She buries her face into my shirt....right against the fabric that is still stiff and stained dark with Alice's dried, crimson blood....and begins to sob so violently that her entire frame shakes against my hands.
"It was all my fault, Zade," she wails, her fingers clutching at my shirt like a drowning person reaching for a lifeline.
Her voice is muffled against my chest, thick with a guilt that I know all too well.
"I left them there. I shouldn't have left them alone... I wish I had stayed. I wish I hadn't walked away. How can I be such an useless friend? How could I let this happen to them?"
"It's not your fault, Mio,"
I murmur firmly, my hands coming up to grip her shoulders, anchoring her steady against the tide of her own grief.
I ignore the sharp, phantom ache in my own bandaged palm as I force her to listen to me.
"What happened has already happened. The past is done. And it's not a friend's job to be 'useful.' You aren't an instrument to be used or played when things go wrong. Everyone has a right to get mad, to step away, to be human. The only thing that matters right now is that Alice is going to be fine. The doctors stitched her up, and she's fighting. And Ellie... Ellie is absolutely perfect."
I pause, shifting my gaze over her shoulder to point a heavy finger at the man standing by the window.
"Because that motherfucker standing right there is about to be a father to twins."
Mio freezes against my chest.
Her ragged breaths instantly catch in her throat, her sobs cutting off as her tear-stained face snaps violently toward Nate.
Nate just stands there by the glass, the moonlight cutting across his features.
A sheepish, emotionally exhausted, and completely overwhelmed expression breaks through his usual stoic mask.
He scratches the back of his neck, his eyes shining with unshed tears, and offers a small, tight nod of confirmation.
"I... I want to apologize to Alice. And to Ellie,"
Mio hiccups, pulling back from my embrace as she wipes the back of her hand across her wet, blotchy cheeks.
She looks at me, the hysterical edge finally softening into something deeply remorseful.
"I shouldn't have behaved the way I did this morning."
She slowly detaches herself from me entirely, her eyes filling with a fresh wave of tears the moment her gaze drifts back to Alice's still form.
She walks over to the opposite side of the bed, her movements cautious, as if a sudden noise might break the fragile peace in the room.
She gently grasps Alice's free hand, her fingers trembling as she sinks into the plastic chair beside her,
burying her face against the edge of the mattress and whispering a soft, broken string of apologies against her skin.
I step back, letting my shoulders hit the cold, sterile hospital wall,
my eyes tracking every single line of Alice's face as the monitor continues its rhythmic, agonizing countdown.
I look at the clear plastic oxygen tubing resting beneath her nostrils,
the slight hiss of the machine helping her lungs expand.
I look at the faint, beautiful freckles dusting the bridge of her nose, skin that usually hides behind the frames she wears like a shield against the world.
Without her glasses, with her red hair tangled and matted against the white pillow, she looks so impossibly innocent lying beneath those harsh medical sheets.
So fragile. So entirely unsuited for the violence of the world I force her to inhabit.
And looking at her now, with the dried blood of her sacrifice still coating the fabric of my clothes and the skin of my hands, a terrifying, absolute realization settles deep into the hollow spaces of my soul.
I will crawl on my knees through broken glass.
I will bleed my own empire dry.
I will tear down world, kill every man who dares to look her way, and worship at her altar for the rest of my miserable, darkened life if that is what it takes to keep her safe.
To keep her alive.
To keep her to myself.