Chapter 22 #2
Willow pushes up to her feet. “I’m going to go get this one down in a real bed.” She locks gazes with me. “You should go talk to him. Really. It will be a lot easier to do it now than to climb up that mountain to get to him once the snow hits.”
Lucky nods, offering a soft smile. “I agree. Liam and Killian are up there right now, helping him. They can be your buffers.”
I snort. “We all know they’re not actually helping him and they’re all arguing and trying to prevent him from going, right?”
A grin pulls at Willow’s lips. “Of course. And we all know they aren’t buffers for anything; they’re instigators.”
“Also true. So, thanks for the incredible advice.”
Lucky smiles and pushes up from her chair, too. “Anytime. Go talk to him before you come sleep in the guest room.”
Willow winks at me—the suggestion that I may end up sleeping elsewhere if things go well is very clear in the not-so-subtle gesture.
I thought maybe a change of scenery, coming to stay here tonight, might allow me to get some rest. I hoped maybe it was about not being on the mountain anymore, not hearing those night sounds that became the soundtrack to my life for weeks that has been keeping me awake rather than my empty bed.
But I know that isn’t the reason I haven’t been sleeping.
Connor McBride is.
CONNOR
I can feel Killian and Liam’s gazes boring through my back as I work on packing up my supplies to take up the mountain.
Killian leans against the wall near the door, while Liam sits on the arm of the couch in the living room area with Giz in his lap, neither of them saying a word.
So much for helping…
“Don’t you two have something better to do? Like going and hanging out with your wife and girlfriend?”
I raise a brow at them, expecting them to see I am not in the mood for anything they might have to say tonight—or any night, for that matter—about what I’m doing and why.
They both shake their heads.
“Nope.” Liam flashes me a toothy smile, petting Gizmo’s head as the dog snores. “Nothing better to do than sit here until you realize what an idiot you’re being.”
I push to my feet and throw up my hands. “I’m not being an idiot!”
“To go back up the mountain? To still go through with this bullshit plan of yours? You absolutely are.”
Killian’s voice booms around my cabin, almost making me flinch, but I fight it. That big brother voice used to always rattle me, but I’ve been doing my best to try not to let it get to me. To not let him get to me.
The momentary connection we made on our climb up the mountain to rescue Raven started to fray as soon as we got her to the hospital, when Killian insisted I needed to stay when I knew that was the absolute worst thing I could do for her.
It’s only gotten more tense since then, and come tomorrow morning, I won’t be a problem anymore.
I scrub my hands over my face, over the heavy beard that’s been growing there now for over a month, since I went up the mountain with Raven. Something about seeing it when I look in the mirror every day stilled the razor in my hand each time I tried to shave it.
Maybe it’s the memory of the way Raven scraped her nails through it.
That thought haunts me as much as the visions of her injuries.
“Why do you think it’s still for the best?” Liam’s voice is so much softer than Killian’s. He doesn’t yell. It’s so much worse. “I still haven’t heard any sort of rational explanation from you.”
There’s that word again—rational.
I’ve tried to explain it to them, and to Willow and Lucky, so many times over the last two weeks as I gathered more supplies and prepared to head back up to the hunting cabin. Yet, they keep doing this. They keep pushing.
And I’m feeling dangerously close to that edge again.
“Because I’m too unstable, Liam. I’m too dangerous.”
Liam snorts. “You’ve always been dangerous.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
Killian’s gaze softens, some of the ice melting away. “You’re still having nightmares?”
I nod.
Liam gives me a look. “Have they ever stopped?”
My back stiffens.
Only once.
With her.
The woman who ended up beaten, cut, tortured, and abused…almost dead because of me. Because I didn’t protect her. Because I chose the wrong path.
I shake my head.
Liam just narrows his gaze. “Why don’t I believe you?”
“I don’t give a fuck if you believe me or not.”
I storm into the kitchen and start grabbing things from the cabinets and shoving them into one of my backpacks, not even paying attention to what I’m packing.
It can all be sorted out later, when I’m up there and alone.
When my brothers aren’t breathing down my neck.
A light knock on the door stills my hand. Gizmo jerks awake and barks, leaping from Liam’s lap and racing toward the sound. Killian pushes off the wall and opens the door, stepping to the side to allow someone in. When he moves out of the way, all the air rushes from my lungs.
Raven stands in the doorway, a plaid blanket wrapped around her, her blond hair twisted up in a messy bun at the back of her head, and God, does she look beautiful, even with the cuts and bruises still healing on her face.
She always just has this energy, this light, a glow.
There’s a reason I always thought of fireflies when I saw her.
Killian looks to Liam and inclines his head. “We need to go.”
Liam grins and scoops up Giz from the floor. “Yeah, wouldn’t want to leave the girls by the fire by themselves.”
“Fucking traitors…”
I mutter it under my breath, low enough that I’m sure they can’t hear me, but Raven does, raising a blond brow as she steps in and closes the door behind her.
Just like every time we end up literally anywhere alone together, the energy and tension starts building immediately.
This time, it is one hundred percent my doing.
I created this, ruined that little sliver of peace we found on the mountain, by letting those horrific things happen to her.
And I can’t even look at her because all I see is how she looked that night when I found her tied to that chair, how limp and lifeless she was when I held her in my arms on that drive down the mountain, and it sends me to that dark place again.
I give her my back, continuing my packing, but I can feel her watching me.
It goes on for far too long. Long enough that I’m sure she’s doing it intentionally, allowing the pressure to build until it will eventually crush me.
Finally, she releases a sigh, but I won’t make the mistake of believing that means she’s conceding anything. “So…you’re going.”
I zip the bag and start another one. “Yep.”
“You’re really going to finish the cabin and live up there?”
The hurt in her voice almost makes me drop the box of crackers in my hands, but I manage to regain control of myself quickly enough to shove it into the bag and continue before she notices the trembling.
“It’s best for everyone.”
I truly believe that.
The last two weeks have proven to me that I’m doing the right thing by leaving. I’m saving everyone here—especially Raven—from my instability. From the nightmares, the short temper, the clearly terrible decisions I’ve been making.
“Is it?”
Raven doesn’t say anything else until the silence finally makes me turn to look at her. She stands with her arms crossed over her, clutching the blanket, and the question in her gaze, the judgment, is enough to make my chest ache in the way only this woman can.
“I can’t keep doing this, Raven.”
“Doing what?”
I spread out my hands. “This. Acting like everything’s okay.”
“We’re safe now.”
“Maybe. From the Lorells.” I shove my hands through my hair, pacing away from her, needing the space. “But I thought you were safe up on that mountain, too, and I was wrong.”
She flinches. “That wasn’t your fault.”
“Then whose was it? Who brought you there? Who left you there alone?”
“I could’ve fought you, Connor. Both times.”
“You would’ve lost.”
Despite how tense this conversation is, a smile pulls at her lips, which have finally healed. “I think, if we looked back at all the arguments we’ve had over the years, the numbers would say otherwise.”
Shit.
She’s probably right about that.
I stormed away more times than she did, unable to control my anger, or my frustration, or my own reaction to her. And sometimes because I knew she was right about whatever asinine thing we had started another battle over.
But she won’t win on this.
When it comes to me leaving, I won’t cave.
“Just let me go, Raven. Let me go back there where I can have some semblance of peace.”
She presses her lips together, considering me, examining me with those eyes that always seem to see far too much. “Have you slept at all?”
“Hell…” I scrub my hands over my face and shake my head. “No.”
“Me, either.”
I let my hands fall away and meet her gaze. “Nightmares?”
She shakes her head and takes a step toward me. “No. Just a bed that’s far too big and pillows that are way too comfortable and fluffy and a blanket that isn’t wool and scratchy and a mattress that’s very empty.”
My chest tightens.
“Connor, I haven’t slept since the night before you left the cabin. Since I fell asleep in your arms.”
Despite not wanting her to see how weak I am, despite not wanting her to know how utterly destroyed I’ve been the past two weeks, I shake my head. “Neither have I.”
With a little annoyed huff, she holds out her hands. “What are we doing, Connor?”
“What do you mean?”
She finishes closing the distance between us and places a palm against my chest, directly over my heart.
“This. What are we doing? Are we going back to the way it was down here, where every time I see you, every time you come into town, we’re going to argue?
Or are we going back to the way it was up there? ”