Bound By Thorns (Squad Six #2)

NINETEEN

Kaylan

Broken .

I was utterly broken for this man. I hadn’t anticipated the sudden jolt of pain. I was so angry at myself for retreating back on my word. I couldn’t be fucked anymore. Garret had taken that from me. He had used me all up, chewed me raw.

I was no longer the woman for Logan. I couldn’t be. I didn’t deserve his concern. I didn’t deserve his attention. I was still reeling with pain when I entered my room. The anguish gnawing at me. My abdomen burning from the inside.

It felt as though my insides were rotting away. Everything was rotting away.

I was no longer the Kaylan before the horrors of Ravenrock—untouched, whole. Before all that shouldn’t have happened, happened.

I stayed awake the whole night. And then when the morning hit, I didn’t have the courage to get up and face him.

Sleepless nights stretched endlessly as I secluded myself, each day blurring into the next. Gratefully, Sebastian arranged for meals to be delivered to my room until even the desire to eat abandoned me.

I called up my doctor’s office and arranged for a subtotal hysterectomy. There was no point in trying to save something that was already desecrated. The chances of survival for my tubes and ovaries was close to nothing. What was the point anyway?

Logan didn’t show up either. He didn’t knock on the door, or tried to talk to me. Perhaps he was as mortified as I was, maybe even more. Why wouldn’t he be?

I got my release and when it was time, I teared up.

Another thing to feel guilty for.

Two days before my operation, I stepped out of the Blackthorn building for the first time in a week, heading straight to the hospital where I’d face the mutilation of my body once more.

Dr. Sander stopped by my room to explain the procedure. They’d try to save what they could, she said, but if things looked bad, they’d proceed with the hysterectomy.

I wasn’t allowed to eat for eight hours before the surgery. Not that it mattered—I hadn’t had much appetite lately.

Alone, with no one to accompany me, I had listed Sebastian as my emergency contact. Someone should know if things turned south.

As the hour drew near, I was ushered into pre-op where a nurse tried to lighten the mood. Her cheeriness bounced off me. I felt nothing but numb as I was rolled into the operating room, surrounded by a team ready to begin.

That’s when the reality of it all hit me hard.

“Take a deep breath for me and count back from ten, okay?” the anesthesiologist instructed, looming over me with a mask.

Terror gripped me as the mask descended, the room spinning slightly as my nerves peaked. I counted back from ten as I was told.

Ten.

Nine

Eight.

Seven.

Logan

I hadn’t seen her in days. She seemed to vanish into her room, a ghost behind closed doors. I lingered there often, my hand raised to knock but always stopping short. Fear that she no longer needed me—fear that I had caused her enough pain—kept me from tapping that door.

She skipped meals, avoided the gym, and the little interaction anyone had with her involved returning untouched food trays. My concern deepened when I watched her leave in a car Zane had prepared, with Sebastian giving her a comforting hug. A familiar sting of jealousy hit me—not out of suspicion, but envy that they could be there for her, see her, talk to her, hear her.

When she didn’t come back after two days, anxiety took over. I needed to know she was alright. I stormed into the command center where Zane was immersed in his work.

“Zane,” my voice might have been more demanding than I intended, “Can we talk?”

He swiveled around with a measured smile. “What’s up?”

“Do you know where Kaylan is?”

His expression tightened, and he turned back to his screen. “That’s none of our business, Logan.”

Frustration surged through me. I leaned in, unable to mask the urgency in my tone, “Listen, Zane. I need to know. Where is she? Please .”

He sighed, meeting my gaze with a resigned look. “She’s scheduled for a medical procedure. That’s all I can say.”

“Where?” My voice was a harsh whisper.

He shrugged, noncommittal, and I stormed out, the name New York Metropolitan Hospital ringing in my mind as my next destination. I knew she had been admitted there after her gunshot wound. That hospital was my best bet.

I borrowed a car from the massive fleet, betting they wouldn’t notice one missing temporarily, and drove straight to the New York Metropolitan Hospital. My steps were hurried as I entered through the main doors and headed straight to the reception to ask for the surgery wing—instinct told me that was where I’d find Kaylan.

At the surgery wing’s reception, I waited impatiently for my turn. When I finally reached the front, I blurted out, “I’m here for Kaylan Bennett.”

The receptionist raised an eyebrow, her gaze shifting between me and her computer screen. “Are you the emergency contact?”

Without hesitating, I lied, a shot in the dark, “Yes, my name’s Sebastian.”

She nodded, seemingly satisfied, and directed me to the post-op ICU where Kaylan would be transferred within the hour.

I paced the ICU waiting area, my anxiety visible in the rhythmic tapping of my foot. When they finally wheeled Kaylan in a gurney, my heart sank. She looked pale, intubated, a shadow of herself. I felt a surge of protectiveness, remembering how she had once given me her warmth.

When the surgical team appeared, I approached them quickly. “Hi, I’m here with Kaylan,” I introduced myself confidently, “Sebastian Blackthorn. Can I get an update?”

“Hello, Mr. Blackthorn, I’m Dr. Sander,” a doctor greeted, motioning towards a private room. “Would you like to step into this room? It’s better to discuss in private.”

I followed her into a room furnished with two couches facing each other, a small table in between. Once seated, the doctor, her kind face now unmasked, began, “The surgery went as expected. We were able to save one of the fallopian tubes and one ovary, so we didn’t proceed with the subtotal hysterectomy initially planned.”

I nodded, barely processing her words, my mind racing with heavier questions. “Could you explain why this surgery was necessary?” I asked tentatively.

The doctor’s eyes narrowed slightly, possibly catching on to my cover, but she continued, “Given the extent of internal lacerations and an infection likely from previously used non-sterile equipment, the surgery was crucial. She’s been on antibiotics and painkillers for severe abdominal pain, but this procedure was inevitable.”

The weight of her words bore down on me, and I braced for more, the tightness in my chest growing.

“Mr. Blackthorn…Sebastian,” she began again, her tone softening, “may I call you Sebastian?”

I nodded absentmindedly, overwhelmed by the pieces falling into place in my mind.

Severe abdominal pain.

She was in pain, and it was my fault. My untamed impatience got the better of me that night. I had failed to understand her, to be there for her. I had fucking hurt her.

The doctor continued, “Kaylan suffered an immense amount of trauma to her abdomen—”

No .

“—and with two incorrectly aborted pregnancies—”

No, fucking NO!

“—she had no other choice. And as with anyone who is a victim of—”

Don’t say it.

Please, don’t say it.

“—sexual assault, she’d need more than just this surgery. I have recommended therapy. But, she’s been…”

Her voice grew distant. Too muffled for my brain to comprehend. The floor seemed to drop from under me as I absorbed her words, each one delivering a sharp jolt of pain.

Forget the tightness in my chest, it felt as though someone had clawed my chest open and left me to bleed out.

I willed her to stop—to halt the collapse of my world—but no words would form on my lips.

Somewhere deep in the recesses of my mind, I had known it, but hearing it confirmed, laid out in such brutal terms, was gut-wrenching.

“Thank you, Doctor,” I managed to choke out to Dr. Sander who was oblivious to my world obliterating.

She gave me a reassuring smile and stood, signaling the end of our conversation. “She’ll be in recovery soon, and you can see her then. Just remember, she might not be ready to talk about everything right away.”

As she left, I sat back, overwhelmed by a torrent of guilt and realization. The room felt stifling, too small, as if the walls were inching closer with each passing second. I needed air. I needed to think.

Stumbling out of the room, I found my way to a quiet corner of the hospital. My words, my actions, hammered at me, everything echoing the brutality of what she had endured.

The truth stung—I had been so wrapped up in my own suffering that I had failed to see hers, even when she was right there in front of me.

I hadn’t just hurt Kaylan, I had destroyed her.

Hell, the things I had said and done. I just hoped I hadn’t done an irreversible amount of damage to us. I wanted to be there for her. So I vowed to be anything for her. Anything.