Page 99 of Bad Luck, Hard Love
He doesn’t hesitate. Not even a little bit. “I'd hand you the knife if that's what you want.”
A strange calm washes over me at his words. Not peace—I'm too broken for peace right now—but something close to it. Certainty. The knowledge that Terrance will never touch me again, never hurt anyone again. And I'll be there to see it happen.
CHARLOTTE
I've seenthe inside of enough hospitals in the past forty-eight hours to last several lifetimes. The antiseptic smell clings to my clothes like a second skin—a reminder that I survived.
It’s been two days since Terrance. Two days since Thor and the club tore that hangar apart to find me. Two days of bandages, and fitful sleep plagued by nightmares that leave me gasping for air.
I stand in the doorway of Thor's hospital room, watching his chest rise and fall beneath the thin blanket. The doctors sayhe's lucky—the bullet went through his thigh without hitting any major arteries, and despite three broken ribs, there's no internal bleeding.
Lucky. As if anything about this situation deserves that word.
“You going to stand there all day or come in?” Thor's voice, rough with pain medication and exhaustion, startles me from my thoughts.
“I thought you were sleeping.” I move into the room, settling carefully on the edge of his bed. My body still aches in places I don't want to think about.
“Hard to sleep when I can feel you watching me.” His hand finds mine, fingers intertwining with a gentleness that belies their strength. “How are you feeling?”
“I'm alive.”
It's true, if incomplete. The doctors cleared me of any life-threatening injuries, though the list of what Terrance did to me fills half a medical chart. Contusions. Lacerations. Sexual assault. The clinical terms for a nightmare I'm still living.
Thor's jaw tightens. “That's not what I asked.”
I look down at our joined hands—his knuckles still scabbed and swollen, my wrists wrapped in gauze where the restraints cut too deep. We're a matching set of broken pieces.
“I don't know how to answer that question,” I admit. “I feel...everything and nothing at the same time. Like I'm watching myself from outside my body.”
“Dissociation,” he says, surprising me. “V's wife explained it to me. It's how your brain protects you from trauma.”
“Is that what this is? Protection?” I laugh, the sound hollow. “Doesn't feel very protective.”
Thor's fingers tighten around mine. “He can't hurt you anymore.”
“Can't he?” I gesture to my bandaged body. “He's still here. In every bruise, every nightmare. In the way I flinch when someone moves too quickly.”
Anger flashes across Thor's face, quickly replaced by something softer. “Come here,” he says, shifting painfully to make room beside him on the narrow bed.
I hesitate, suddenly unsure. The hospital bed seems too small for his massive frame, let alone both of us. But the need for contact overpowers my hesitation.
“You'll pull your stitches,” I protest weakly, even as I'm carefully arranging myself against his uninjured side.
“Worth it,” he murmurs, his arm coming around me with exquisite care, as if I might shatter under too much pressure. Maybe I will.
We lie in silence, the steady beep of his heart monitor marking time. Through the thin hospital gown, I can feel the heat of his skin, his solid strength. Alive. We're both alive.
“Ratchet's being discharged tomorrow. Stubborn bastard threatened to remove his own IV if they tried to keep him another day.”
“And V?”
“Still in ICU, but stable. Presley's with him.” His fingers trace gentle patterns on my arm, avoiding the worst of my bruises. “They’re hoping he can move down to a regular room tomorrow so Raze’s wife can bring his kids to see him.”
“I'd like to meet them someday,” I say, surprising myself with how much I mean it. “His family.”
Thor's chest rises and falls in a deep breath. “You will. Once all this is over.”
“Over,” I repeat, the word hanging between us like a promise still waiting to be kept. “When will it be over, Thor?”
