Page 48 of A Wrench in the Plan
“Hey,” he whispered softly.
I pulled his face down to mine and kissed him. The moment our lips met, the guilt began to well up again, moving like acid through me.
So, I kissed him harder. Held his face tighter. Breathed in his scent deeper. All the while, I thought I could make things right. I could forget the things that slammed into me while I had been looking into Cat’s eyes. While I had leaned in to kiss her. I could tell myself it was all emotions that had manifested because of the circumstances, but I knew that was a bullshit excuse.
“Hey,” Evan whispered as he broke away from my lips. His thumbs swiped at my cheeks, and that was the moment I realized I was crying. “It’s okay. You’re here. You’re safe. Cat’s safe.” His smile was weak. He was so worried about me. I’d never cried in front of him. Not even when all that shit went down about my family and finding out that I was basically a child born out of rape. “It’s all okay,” he promised me again.
But it wasn’t.
And I was a coward because I couldn’t tell him what I’d done.
Our relationship was… more or less open, so it shouldn’t have felt like a betrayal. Yet, to my heart, it felt exactly that. I loved Evan, I was sure of it because I felt him deep in my chest. But how could I really when I gave Cat something that I felt belonged to him? And yet, I wouldn’t take that moment with Cat back.
“What’s going on out there?” I asked. I’d seen Mom and Dad just long enough for them to see that I was alive. Then I’d sent them away ’cause they both looked so tired. “Did my parents find a hotel?”
The look he gave me told me that they hadn’t even tried.
I let out a long sigh.
“They’re in the waiting room with everyone else,” he said. “They want to check on you but don’t want to disturb you. You should be resting, but I can tell that you aren’t.”
“I just…” My head shook as I dropped my gaze to my lap. “I don’t want to close my eyes.”
He stared at me for a long moment.
“Cat said the same thing,” he whispered sadly.
“How is she?”
“She’s about to be discharged.” He looked out the window across the room. “They stitched her face up, and she’s got some bad bruising. Physically she’s… well, she’s able to go home.”
“What happened to her face?” I asked. Concern shot through me as I tried to sit up, but the pain in my side had me wincing and sinking back into the bed again. Ev went to help me but stopped short as if he was afraid to hurt me. “I’m not breakable. Shit sucks, but I’ll be alright. What happened to Cat’s face?”
“You don’t remember?” I shook my head, wracking my brain but I came up blank. What was the last thing I remembered? “They cut her.” His finger drew two different lines down his face. Tears welled in his eyes.
Me, though? I didn’t want to be sad. I didn’t want to cry.
What I wanted was to end them for doing that to her.
“I’m gonna kil—”
“I’d watch it if I were you,” he said softly. “This place is crawling with local PD. They seem pretty incompetent, but it’s still best if we don’t go around saying shit like that. The hospital had no choice but to call them since we came in with three people having been shot, one of them also beaten and near death. And a woman who looks like she’s been tortured and…”
“She wasn’t,” I said. “He was going to.” My hands fisted against my thighs. “He… fuck Ev, she should have never…”
The rage was bubbling up inside of me.
“What happened?” he asked in a tone that sounded unsure if he really wanted me to answer. I probably should have kept it to myself. It was her story to tell, that was if she even wanted to.
But…
This was Ev, and she was our Cat. Maybe a part of me needed him to know so he would understand what I was going to do when…
“Are there any of them left?” I asked.
A knock hit the door right before it swung open, stopping Evan from answering my question.
In walked a man that I didn’t recognize. LT and my dad right on his heels.
