Page 37 of Protect

“Alright. I don’t like it, but I know you have a plan.” I wait for him to nod. When he does, I sigh. “I’m going to try to get some sleep.”

“No worries. I’ll wake you when Dimitri comes in,” he answers. “Not too long until morning.”

I rub Hope’s ankle. “Everything always looks better in the morning.”

It has to.

I breathe out and close my eyes, my hand still resting on Hope’s ankle.

My body is stiff and I groan as I sense Hope move beside me. My eyes slowly open and I realize Dimitri is sleeping on the floor. Knox must be outside. I don’t know how he’s still awake and functioning. I glance back at her and see exactly how bad her bruises are. Her eye is swollen shut; her jaw has a lump. There’s a cut across her cheek and nose, there’s a scab on her lip, and her throat is terrible.

How am I supposed to keep my cool when I can see every fucking finger from Coach’s hand around her throat? She sits up, opens her mouth, then touches her throat as she wheezes. I rub her ankle. “I’m going to get you ice. Knox is outside watching your dad. Dimitri is right there.”

She watches me, not responding. I go to the freezer and see plenty of meat. I sift through it, looking for ice and find nothing. All the way in the back of the freezer, I find peas that are definitely not fit for eating. They’re so covered in frost and ice that I’m sure they’ve been there for years, thawing and freezing over and over. I wrap them in a towel and walk back to Hope.

“On your throat,” I say as she watches me through one squinted eye and one regular. “We’ll take care of the rest of your face too, okay?”

She blinks at me and reaches out for the ice. She quickly pulls it away, like she’s afraid I’ll grab her and haul her up. She presses the ice to her throat and sighs slightly. I blink slowly. Whatever sleep I got was shit, but I need to relieve Knox. He needs somefucking sleep or he’s going to be twice as hard to deal with. I’m at my wit’s end and he needs to be sane to talk some sense into me.

DIMITRI

Knox is walking in when I wake up. Hope watches him move like he’s a threat she’s not sure how to plan for. He sits near her on the couch, leans over to rest his head on the arm of the couch and closes his eyes. “Give me like two hours and I’ll be good.”

I don’t have it in me to argue. I’m exhausted. I push myself up and slowly approach Hope. She looks from Knox to me, but slowly deflates. She moves the wrapped pack from her neck to her face and swallows.

“You need some water, don’t you? Don’t talk, just blink twice if it’s a yes,” I say.

Instead she looks towards the back of the cabin. Something’s on her mind. I won’t push her for answers even if I want to.

Normally I would. I’d sass her or tease her, maybe even push her buttons to piss her off until she tells me. Not today. Not after everything.

Finally, she stares back me at me and blinks twice. I nod and get us both water. I check for food when she finishes her first glass of water and start on making her eggs and bacon. I’m sure we all need to eat, but after what I saw on the live stream, I know she hasn’t trusted food enough to eat much of anything.

As I cook, I keep bringing her water. She’ll have everything she wants and I’m going to prove I can give it to her. Right now, I’ll be gentle. Right now, I’ll cater to her however she’ll let me. I finish breakfast and feed Hope first.

“You have to eat. I know it might hurt, but you need your strength,” I say gently. “Can you try for me? The eggs should be easy.”

She takes a few bites, but I hear her stomach gurgle and take the rest of her plate when she pushes it towards me. I eat slowly while trying not to watch Hope too intensely. I want to categorize every injury she’s dealing with. The welts around her throat look bad. Really bad, actually.

We should be taking her to a hospital and making sure that her windpipe isn’t crushed and there’s no severe damage that could fuck her up for the long run. Based on her ‘good eye’ being bloodshot and red, I have a feeling it’s going to take her a long time to be able to speak without pain.

She closes her eyes before swallowing every time, like she’s preparing for pain. She moves the towel she’s holding to her face and looks away from me. I hate how she’s hiding from me. Hiding everything she’s feeling, flinching when I get too close. All of it.

But I don’t leave her side. I sit in front of her on the couch and hope she’ll find her way to me.

All she has to do is offer a little trust.

Give me the benefit of the doubt one more time.

Not that I’m going to ask for it. I’m not going to ask her a damn thing. Not about what happened in the hours before we got here. Not about how she’s feeling. Nothing that will require her to speak or explain.

I let Knox sleep beyond two hours. I should wake him up. I should go back outside to take over watching Coach. But Hope has started to move. She unfolded herself from the ball she’sstayed in. She rested her calf against me while putting her feet on the floor ten minutes ago.

Now she’s sitting next to me. I don’t want to scare her and it’s still a fifty-fifty chance that she’s going to pull away or lean into me if I move. When she shifts slightly, I brush my hand over hers. She jumps slightly, dropping the towel.

It opens up to reveal thawed peas that need to go back into the freezer to help her.

“You don’t have to hide from me, Hope,” I whisper. “I came here—we all came here to do more than drag you back. We wanted to protect you, to save you. That’s all we’re trying to do. I thought Jaxon was going to punch or kill his way to you.”

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