Page 186 of Craving Consequences

“Everly?” Lachlan murmurs, voice heavy with sleep. “What’s wrong?”

I hit the hardwood with both feet and sprint for the bathroom. I get inside and shut the door with a crack and a flip of the lock.

“Everly!” Van’s voice barely registers over the pounding in my head.

I barely make it to the toilet before my supper of roast beef soup makes a reappearance. The acrid bile tears up my esophagus, burns tears in my eyes. It rips my stomach muscles already tender from Bron’s kick. The heaving assault has my entire body writhing with unimaginable agony.

Distantly, I am aware of their shouts, their fists on the door. I can hear the concern and panic in their voices as they try rattling the doorknob. I vaguely consider crawling out the window, but I know I’m not brave or stupid enough for that.

“Open the door, sweetheart,” Lachlan demands.

I don’t have to. Van jimmies the lock and the thing swings open without any help from me. It hits the wall and is forgotten as the two rush in.

Lachlan scoops my hair up. Van runs a rag under warm water and dabs it lovingly across my cheeks, through the snot and vomit.

“Hey, easy,” Lachlan murmurs gently, folding his massive frame behind me and holding me close. “We got you.”

The feel of him, the warmth and scent of him, the comforting feel of his arms cradling me like I’m the most precious thing in the world only drives the anguish deeper. It tears my heart from my chest and mashes it to nothing as I break against him.

“I’m sorry,” I sob. I wail through the panic destroying my sanity. “I’m so sorry. Please don’t hate me.”

I’m gathered off the cold floor and into his lap.

“I could never,” he swears into my temple where I can feel the vein throbbing beneath the heat and sweat coming off my body. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

I am fully aware there’s still a fifty percent chance that I am not pregnant. A week is far too early to know anything, and I would have been comforted by that idea, except we didn’t do it once. Or even twice. They came in me every chance possible, and I let them. I wanted it.

I begged them.

I begged Lachlan to fill me without taking a single precaution to prevent the one thing that ruined his life once already. I willingly and knowingly did this to him again.

God, I’m going to lose him.

I’m going to lose him and Van. I’m going to be alone and broken, hidden from everyone in the middle of nowhere without my parents, my town, my best friend. I will have nothing and no one, and after the day I’ve already had...

“Jesus. Sweetheart ... what...?”

His arms crush me like he’s trying everything to keep me together when my sobs turn to heaving gasps, but I have to push away from him to keep from suffocating. To put space between me and the man whose life I’ve ruined.

“Go,” I choke out.

“Not happening,” Van states firmly, but with an edge of alarm.

“Go!” I snarl. “Leave me.”Because you will.“Please ... please, just ... go.”

“Fuck that.”

Without giving me a chance to react, Van scoops me up into his arms. I’m lifted off the hardwood and pressed into his chest.

The bathroom and the stench of vomit vanish as I’m carted back into the bedroom. He plops down on the edge of the bed and sets me in his lap.

“Now, no one’s leaving this room until you tell us what’s wrong,” he says, capturing my chin and forcing my face to his. His expression softens. “Talk to us. Whatever it is, we’ll fix it.”

That’s easy enough for them to say. Maybe even easy enough to accomplish. Their only solution would be to get rid of it, and I can’t. I won’t. If there’s a baby, I want it. I want that piece of them, and they’ll say no. I’ll have to pick and I can’t.

“This isn’t going to work,” I gasp, words hitching around the hiccups. I’m shaking so hard, my teeth chatter. “You made a mistake coming here.”

He wipes my cheeks. “Nope. You had your chance, remember? This is done. You’re stuck with us.”

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