Page 86 of The Burdens We Share
Ivory
VOICES. I HEAR VOICES.One that sends ice down my veins, and one that sends fire through my heart, heating me up from the inside with a swell of emotions. Dallas. I hear Dallas.
Memories flood my senses as I make a weak attempt at opening my eyes. My lids are so heavy and my head is pounding. My arm burns, my chin stings. Bones feel broken, but all thatmatters is that Dallas is here. He came for me. I hear Calvin recount his little plan, but I clearly missed whatever came before that.
I hear Dallas’ deep voice and my heart aches to be with him, “Well your delusional little plan isn’t coming into play because I’m here and I have a swarm of SWAT on their way to ensure you don’t make it out of here alive. But you’re mine, Worshire. I will get my hands on you and I will fuckingendyou,” he vows, and my heart flutters.
My brain catches on small detail though.Worshire. Why does that sound familiar? I try to think and it takes me a moment before I place the memory.The man who killed her is named Calvin Worshire. I knew him in the military and we were friends at one point.Oh my God. Calvin is the man who killed Dallas’ mother?
I need to move. I try with all of my strength to open my eyes, to move, to dosomething. I feel frozen in place. I feel a thin coolness at my neck and feel my head get pulled back, my throat on perfect display. “If you kill me, I’ll only take her with me,” Calvin’s unhinged voice threatens. A knife. He has a knife pressed against my throat. He’s going to fucking end me if I don’tmove.
Dallas growls, “Touch her again, and it will be the last mistake you make.”
Doors barge open and I hear male voices flooring the room, shouts, and threats being made. This has to be the SWAT team. They’re finally here, but Calvin still holds all the power. Dallas would never let them touch Calvin as long as he has a knife pressed to my throat.
This can only end one way. With me dead unless I justmove.
I use all of my willpower to dosomething.My fingers twitch at my sides and I feel so defeated. This can’t be the only movement I make, I need to use everything in me for just a few seconds andthen I can let myself fade out again, give in to that dreamless sleep my body aches for.
Through sheer force of will, I manage to crack my eyelids open enough to see the room, but not enough that anyone can notice I’m conscious. I see Dallas and immediately a rush of adrenaline courses through my veins. The fury in his eyes along with that hint of fear that’s reserved for me eat at my insides. I’d give anything to make that look go away.
Dozens of SWAT have their guns raised and pointed at Calvin, but they don’t shoot. They can’t. Every man in this room is completely at his mercy because of the position he has me in. This man has done enough. He’s stalked, tortured, and terrified me formonths. He has made my life a complete living fucking hell and I refuse to let him win again. No. This ends now. With me.
Fueled by pure adrenaline and a lot of my own rage, I raise my arm, pushing his wrist from below so hard and quick that the blade barely nicks my skin, instead slashing up towards his face until warm liquid sprays the side of my face and his other arm releases me. I fall to the ground, unable to support my own weight, and the limited vision I had ceases as my eyes flutter all the way closed and gunshots fill the room.
Chapter 27
Dallas
She hasn’t woken upyet. It’s been three days. Three days of agonizing torture that feels much like being stabbed only for the wound to heal and then being stabbed again in the same spot.
After my courageous girl caught Calvin off guard and saved herself, slicing the side of his face, I shot him right between the eyes just as the SWAT team started firing shots into his chest. I had raised a hand to stop them just as Calvin fell back and wasted no time rushing to my girl. I’d pulled her into my arms and sunk my face into the crook of her neck, breathing in her familiar scent and reassuring myself that she was alive. Harvey had an ambulance on the way and I haven’t left her side once. Not when they hauled her onto a stretcher and rushed her to the emergency room, not when they stitched up her arm and gave her a blood transfusion, not when they cleaned up the blood on her face and applied liquid bandage to her facial wounds, and especially not when they set her up in her own room with an IV drip and a breathing tube.
Lucky. That’s what they’d called her. The doctors were surprised she made it considering how much blood she lost. Strong. That’s what I call her because she fought tooth and fucking nail to survive.
I sit at her bedside day and night just watching the steady rise and fall of her chest. I need to watch her breathe so that I can breathe. A part of me worries every time her chest falls that it won’t rise back up. I know it’s all residual fear from nearly losing her, but it’s fear I don’t think will ever go away. Not after seeingthe condition that piece of shit left her in.
A hand grips my shoulder, “You gotta eat, man. I brought you a sandwich from Romeo’s.” Harvey’s voice is stern, but I can hear the concern in it. He’s in the same boat that I’m in. He hasn’t once left Brody’s side since that night because part of him worries that the second he does, she’ll be gone again and he may not get her back this time. I know the feeling all too well. And so does Slater.
I don’t even look up at him, “I’m not hungry.”
He sighs, “You’re no good to her if you’re dying of starvation.”
I reply, “It can take up to three months to die of starvation. It’s been three days. I’ll be fine.” I can’t eat. I don’t have the stomach for it. Not when Ivory still hasn’t woken up and not when there’s a strong chance she’ll never be able to look me in the eye when she realizes that Calvin targeted her because of me and that everything she went through has been my fault.
Brody’s soothing voice comes from somewhere beside Harvey. “Dallas, she’s going to be fine. The docs said that she could wake up any minute.”
“They said that yesterday,” I remind her, again not removing my eyes from Ivory’s face.
Harvey tosses a bag in my lap, “Eat the fucking sandwich.”
I finally look up at him and see the same look on his face that houses what I feel inside. Brody sits beside me and reaches for my hand, gently squeezing it. Her face is banged up. She’s got some bruising on her cheek and forehead along with a split in her lip, but aside from that she looks like her usual self. “She would want you to stop worrying so much and eat the damn sandwich and you know it.”
Two figures enter the room and my gaze shifts to focus on them. Aria and Slater. Out of the three girls, Aria definitely looks the best in terms of injuries. She just has a shallow cut on the bridge of her nose and some light bruising on her arms.Slater’s hand is in hers and the sight makes jealousy rise in my chest like an angry storm. I should be holding Ivory’s hand right now. She should be conscious, alert enough to look up at me with those perfect chocolate eyes of hers.
Aria frowns when she sees Ivory still unconscious, “Still nothing?”
Brody shakes her head and reaches for the bag on my lap, careful not to touch me. She reaches inside and withdraws the sandwich, unwrapping it partially and extending it to me. I make no move to reach for it, but Harvey shoots me a warning glare like he’d personally harm me for not accepting Brody’s kindness, so I take the sandwich and shove it into my mouth, taking a bite. I don’t taste it, I just chew and swallow so that they get off my back. Brody gives me a soft, satisfied smile before she rises from her seat and stands at Harvey’s side.
