Page 18 of Black Hearts
Chapter Three – Juliet
I felt so tired. So very tired. Nothing in my body wanted to cooperate, and yet, I was aware enough to know that being tired meant I was alive. My mind was fuzzy, but I could picture what had happened: me getting stabbed by the man I’d revered growing up. My father, no longer Daddy to me, the man who would rather kill me than let me be happy with a man—or men—who wasn’t him.
And then I swore I remembered seeing Jaxon and Will and Bennet… but everything was kind of fuzzy, like I couldn’t quite picture it in my head.
I couldn’t move. At least, I was pretty sure I couldn’t move. I couldn’t really feel anything at that point; no parts of my body seemed to be aware of where I was or whether or not I could actually wake up fully and move. It was almost like I was there in my head but not quite in control of everything else yet—the weirdest liminal sensation I’d ever experienced.
Even though I wasn’t fully there, I managed to think back to Daddy… no, my father, and what he did to me. It would take me a long time to stop calling him daddy; that had been so ingrained in me for years now, but the man didn’t deserve that name. The colder, more distant father suited him better, I think.
How could he have hurt me like this? How could he have said he’d basically wanted me to replace my mother? I couldn’t even comprehend how twisted his mind must be in order for him to think that was okay, that nothing at all he did was wrong. He made excuses and he believed them, and knowing I’d been so brainwashed by this man my whole life made me sick.
Sick or dead. Or both. If this was what death was like, it sucked. There was no warmth, no light, no white pearly gates. Nobody welcoming me into their arms, saying how much they’d missed me and how happy they were. I was alone in my thoughts, and though I struggled to wake up, I couldn’t.
Time went on, and I fought internally.
My ears were the first thing to come back, and I heard the low beeping of something somewhere close to me.Hospital machines, maybe? I didn’t know, as I’d never heard them before.
Well, at least I wasn’t dead. If I was hearing hospital equipment, I was probably in the hospital, which meant my guys had saved me and I owed them my life. I guess I owed them in more ways than one. Not only had they made me feel truly alive, but they also had literally saved my life. If it wasn’t for them, my father would’ve killed me.
My eyelids were too heavy to lift, but that didn’t stop me from trying. Every nerve in my body was weighed down, but I did my best to wake myself up. My ears heard someone say, “I think she’s starting to wake up.” Everything was too fuzzy; I couldn’t tell who it was.
Someone grabbed my hand and squeezed it, and the sensation was the first thing I felt—besides the overwhelming need to pass back out. The feeling of their hand on mine, their warmth flooding intome, gave me strength I couldn’t get anywhere else. I attempted to squeeze their hand back, but I wasn’t sure if I succeeded.
“Juliet,” the one holding onto my hand spoke my name, whispered it like a prayer. He must’ve sat close to me, because his voice sounded like it was right there, coaxing me back into reality. “We’re here with you. It’s me, Will, and Bennet.”
My lips parted, and it took everything in me to muster up the strength to say his name: “Jaxon.” It didn’t come out quite right; my tongue fumbled over the word, my throat dry and hoarse. My eyes still wouldn’t open, but the more seconds that passed, the more I began to feel my body.
Jaxon’s hand tightened on mine. He held onto my hand like he never wanted to let me go. Though I couldn’t see anything yet, I could imagine the others huddled around the bed I was in, watching, waiting. I’d bet anything they itched to go after my father, but I was their priority, so they forced themselves to stay here with me.
I couldn’t say that I was happy everything had ended up like this, but I didn’t know how else it would’ve ended. They’d find my father eventually, and then they’d make him pay for what he did to me. They wouldn’t hurt him for all the girls he’d killed in the past, not for my mother and revenge for her death.
No, they’d hurt him for me.
There was one point in my life when I would’ve hated the thought, gotten physically ill over it, a time when I would’ve tried to stop them, beg them to let it go. But now? Now everything was different. I was different. I wasn’t the same girl I’d started this journey as, and maybe it was wrong, but I wanted them to catch him. Killing was wrong, but if they got him, they’d save future girls from the same fate as all those others who’d lost their lives to the hands of my father.
I didn’t know how much time passed before I was able to crack open my eyelids and see Jaxon’s expectant face. His green eyes appeared tired, weary of the world, but when those eyes watched me wake up, they were accompanied by a grin.
“I knew you’d come back to us,” he murmured, leaning over the side of the bed to place a gentle kiss on my cheek.
My stare moved off Jaxon, to Will and Bennet, who huddled around the bed on the opposite side. Will had taken my other hand when I’d started to stir, and Bennet huddled beside him, blue eyes on me. None of them looked particularly well-rested, leaving me to assume they’d kept themselves up in worry of me.
It was sweet that they’d come for me, and it made me feel good to know they cared this much. Even Bennet.
“Thank you,” I whispered, my voice cracking. I swallowed, and I was suddenly aware of the fact that my throat hurt. Not sure what the heck happened, if they had to do some surgery and had to put me out or not. At this point, I wasn’t sure if I cared what happened or not; I was more concerned with what the future held.
“Get her some water,” Jaxon ordered, and Bennet, to my utter shock, nodded and went to do as he was told without a single complaint. He watched as Bennet walked out of the room before returning that gaze to me. “How are you feeling?”
I blinked, and the process of blinking had never felt more arduous. It was like everything I tried to do was a million times harder than it should’ve been, nothing in my body wanting to cooperate. My throat hurt every time I swallowed, and my mouth was dry. My lips were cracked and hurt, too. I had some wires hooked up to me to monitor me, along with an IV in the back of my hand. I had no idea what kind of fluids they were pumping me with, if it was some kind of medicine or simply something to hydrate my body, but it wasn’t enough to make me not feel like crap.
But I guess being stabbed and left for dead tended to do that to you.
“Been better,” I whispered, and my answer caused Jaxon to grin again. That smile, those dimples… I wanted to lean over to him and bury myself in that chest, let those arms wrap around me. I wanted to let him protect me, let them all protect me, even if that meant I had to bury myself in their darkness.
I would never become one of them, never enjoy the thought of killing or torturing or maiming people for money… but I wouldn’t change them. They were the men I’d fallen in love with, they were the ones who’d captured my heart when I wasn’t paying attention.
Them, and Theo.
And Markus.
