Page 24 of Freeing Souls

Grinning, I peck him on the lips. “When I realized the two shits I fell in love with overthink fucking everything.”

Grayson rolls his eyes as we both face forward again. He leans his head on my shoulder as we watch Rage and Harley circle each other in the ring. “Kick his ass, Harley!”

Harley

After boxing with Gabe, my bones feel like liquid. I needed to wear my body out and get rid of all this jittery shit inside me. After seeing all those images of the people up forsale,I couldn’tstop myself from thinking about every look on their faces, the fear in their eyes, the tear stains on their cheeks, the bold smeared makeup, some looked lost, some broken, and some looked like there was no life left in their eyes.

I know those feelings all too well, and I just want to reach through the screen and save them all right now. Telling them it isn’t always like this. But yet it is. The world is as awful as they, as I, have seen. I am one of the lucky ones who found people who would have my back, but a lot of these people don’t have that. The fact that I could’ve, that I should have been one of them, makes me all the more determined to do everything I can to help them.

As unwanted memories of Tammy and the basement come into my mind, I scrub my body harder than necessary, turning my skin red. Taking a breath, I force it down, reminding myself we will save them. We will destroy this stupid, disgusting ball; it just can’t happen today.

After shutting the water off, I step out of the shower and dry off before putting on Cade’s t-shirt I stole before I came in here. Walking back into my bedroom at the club, I am ready to just crash into bed and sleep, but I come to a halt when I find Cade, Grayson, and Ryker all sitting in my bed, clearly waiting for me.

Putting a fake smile on my face, I say, “I thought we all agreed my bed isn’t big enough for all three of you to stay with me.”

“We wanted to talk before going to bed,” Ryker says, straight to the point.

As I let the smile fall from my lips, my shoulders drop, and I find myself tempted to just walk out the door. I don’t know what has been with me lately, but sitting down and talking isn’t something I want to do which is why I’ve thrown myself into finishing my classes the last several months. We are all done now, which means I don’t have that excuse anymore.

Ryker jumps up from the bed and heads straight for me. I open my mouth to say something, but before I can, he picks me up and carries me back to the bed, tossing me down between Cade and Grayson.

He crawls over me and straddles my thighs so I can’t go anywhere. When he smirks down at me, I scowl at him. “What are you doing?”

“Talking. You know, that thing people do when they are in a relationship,” Ryker snarks.

“We talk all the time.”

“Baby girl, we just want you to tell us what’s going on,” Cade says.

“Remember we talked about dealing with things together?” Grayson adds.

My mouth opens and shuts a few times before I huff and tell them the truth. “I don’t know.”

Ryker threads his fingers with mine before pinning them on either side of my head and leaning over me so our faces are inches apart. “I can tell you,” he breathes. “It has nothing to do with today and what we discovered. It has to do with the explosion five months ago. It has to do with Atlas.”

Denial is on the tip of my tongue, but before it can slip out, a hand covers my mouth, and Cade growls, “Don’t lie to us.”

“We’ve let it go on for months, but you aren’t okay. You need to talk about it. You had to see Atlas on his deathbed. That isn’t something anyone should have to see.”

I clench my eyes shut as my body shakes and memories of that day come back to me.

“God, it’s so fucking good to see your annoying ass face,” Lincoln chuckles from the other side of the bed, staring down at Atlas, who has been awake for about an hour now. After the third attempt at taking him out of the coma, things finally went well.

“I knew you’d miss me, fucker,” Atlas rasps. “Where’s Bri?” he asks, glancing between Linc and me.

“She comes once a day for a bit, but it’s been hard, so a lot of the time, she is at the club with someone,” I say gently.

“Yeah, but this is news she needs. I’m going to step out and call her, see if she can get here soon. Stay with him, yeah?” He glances at me, and I nod.

Once Linc walks out the door, I just stare at Atlas. “You're weirding me out, Harls.”

“You scared me,” I tell him honestly. “It’s been a month, Atlas. I thought we were going to lose you.”

“You can’t get rid of me that easily.” He laughs and then coughs. I roll my eyes and stand up to grab his water cup.

Before I can give it to him, the machines start beeping wildly, and there's just one solid sound. A flat line. Atlas’ face becomes pale and blank, like every thought and feeling he had has just been wiped away.

The room becomes chaos as nurses rush in, yelling things like code blue, call the doctor, get her out of here. I stand frozen, backed against a wall as they lay his bed flat and begin CPR. My chest tightens watching them pound against his chest as he lays unmoving.

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