Page 121 of Keep Your Guard Up
“Put the pieces back together mate,” he replied. “’Cause you’re not dying today.”
I squeezed Mari’s hand, soothing and warm, three times.I.Love.You.
I was so cold and so tired. I dragged my eyelids open, desperate to watch the woman sleeping beside me.Sleeping—I told myself—because I couldn’t die knowing she was in pain. Her face wasn’t scrunched up like it usually was just before she woke up to her morning alarm. The crease between her eyebrows was absent, smooth skin in its wake. Her face was relaxed, despite the chaos and gloom and hell that surrounded us. I swallowed the boiling anger that rose knowing how they had tainted JJ’s house for her, how they had punished her for mistakes that weren’t even close to being hers—
No.
I refuse.
I dragged my eyes to that silly little ‘chance’ space she had tattooed on her inner arm. An eternal reminder of our love, of our time sharing this planet together. I’d find her—I always could. She was the sunshine in the word of unending darkness—a beacon whose call home I would always answer.
My eyes failed me, drooping and dragging. Mustering any form of consciousness I could, I snapped my gaze up to her face.Even bloody, bruised, and cut up, there was no better sight to behold.
When the cool shadow finally came, it erupted over my mind and body. But there, in darkest of corners, I found that quiet peace amongst the abyss. The place where my Sunny baby’s light would shine brightest. I squeezed her hand one last time.
I.Love.You.
I.Love.You. She squeezed back.
Chapter 65
Mari
“She’s not fucking conscious, that’s why,” a voice growled beside me.
I knew that voice.
“I think it’d be best if you blokes came back another time,” a second voice said with a tone that didn’t leave much room for disagreement.
Other voices, maybe two or three, were mumbling low enough that I couldn’t hear.
The door slammed, the sound echoing in my throbbing head.
“Fucking inconsiderate pricks.” That was JJ’s voice.
The storm clouds in my head cleared ever so slightly and I opened my eyes. It felt like dragging sandpaper over my eyeballs, but I was awake.
I was here.
I was alive.
“Hey, darlin’,” the other voice said to me, leaning over the bed to look down at me.
Al.
“Lynnie!” JJ squealed before throwing himself on top of me.
I sputtered a cough as I tried and failed to force air into my lungs with a gigantic man on top of me.
“Jesus, JJ, get off her. Poor thing already has a concussion—she doesn’t need to have her lungs collapse on her too,” Al said, grabbing onto the back of JJ’s shirt.
“Where’s Chance?” I rasped. Al handed me a plastic cup of water.
“I’m fine, thanks for asking. Only gave me forty-two stitches and a giant-ass lecture when I discharged against medical advice to come up to your sleeping ass.” JJ’s voice dripped with sarcasm, but he didn’t meet my eyes.
“Where is he?” I asked again, taking another sip of water. The cold liquid was so soothing on my dry, aching throat that it tasted like God himself had poured it straight from his sacred fountain.
“He’s still in surgery,” Al said softly, brushing the stray curls off my face. He smiled sympathetically at me, sadness swirling in his hazel eyes.
