17. Leona
LEONA
I was clean.
But still so dirty.
I stared at my hands while I sat on the edge of my bed. Willow cut my nails, then took the time to clean underneath them to get rid of the blood. Scratches and bruises peppered my arms and legs. My chest stung; my ribs twinged with every breath.
I felt like a stranger inside my body.
Like these weren’t my hands. I was just borrowing these arms. Maybe my legs would walk off without me if I wasn’t careful.
“You okay in there?” Willow called from the bathroom. I blinked, listening to the water running while she cleaned her supplies.
“Yeah,” I answered after a few breaths. “Fine.”
I’d answered most of her questions about what happened with each injury on my body, but only the facts. I wasn’t raped, so I didn’t need a pelvic exam. Those marks on my chest were from nails. My concussion was from slamming my head on the ground. My broken ribs were from fists and feet .
I didn’t want to talk about the cut on my face. She could see it just fine.
I only told her what she needed to know to treat me. She’d given me antibiotics and painkillers. She’d bandaged up the worst of my injuries, and covered my eye for now. I wanted Obi to stitch it. The rest of the healing would come with time.
She’d helped me get dressed in my comfiest pajamas after my shower.
I’d watched the water run red around me, finally rinsing off Buzz Cut’s blood.
I almost threw up. Willow had swooped me out of there as soon as she saw me wobble, and then she’d dried my hair.
When I started shivering, she stuffed me into these clothes and sat me on the edge of the bed.
I felt frozen. It wouldn’t go away. My toes curled under my feet.
The sink cut off, and Willow stepped out of the bathroom a few moments later. She sat down on the bed next to me.
“How are your pain levels?”
“Fine.” The painkillers were kicking in, but we both knew she wasn’t exactly asking about that.
“Do you want anything stronger?” she asked. “I could give you a sleeping pill like before, when you were at my clinic with Cas.”
I’d spent three days at Cas’s bedside after we were attacked at the airport in Philly. Nightmares about Max had kept me up, along with my original plans to seek the Shadows for help. The pill had helped me relax enough to catch some sleep. We’d come a long way since then.
“No, thank you,” I responded. “I’ll be okay.”
I knew I’d pass out as soon as I lay down with my men. Ryuji’s big bed waited in the living room.
I could sleep for days. Exhaustion pulled at my limbs, but I wasn’t ready to go out there.
I wasn’t ready to face the questions.
She eyed me. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“Not really. ”
She sighed, the sound carrying the weight of mutual understanding. Willow was no stranger to pain and suffering. “I don’t blame you.”
We were quiet for a few more moments. “Will you talk to them about it?”
I shrugged. “Probably.”
“When you’re ready?”
“Yeah,” I lied. “I just need some time.” I doubted I’d ever be ready to revisit those days, and that was fine with me. I didn’t need to. We were home now, and once we dealt with the Vokshi Clan, it would be like it never happened at all. The more time between me and that ship, the better.
She sighed like she could see right through me before she pulled her phone from her pocket. “I’ve been meaning to do this since our girls’ night, but I kept forgetting.” She tapped the screen a few times. “There.”
“What is it?” I leaned over to see an open message on the display, her cursor blinking in the text box. “I don’t even know where my phone is.”
“When you find it, we’re now in a group chat. You, me, Fallon, Zoya.”
She typed a message that said “girls group” and sent it.
I watched over her shoulder while Fallon texted back fifteen exclamation points, and I smirked. “Looks like Fallon is happy with that idea.”
She smiled. “Now she can bother you all day just like she bothers me.”
Despite myself, I chuckled. I’d have to ask Ciel if he knew where my phone was or if he could get me another. It would be fun to have a group chat.
“Now, if you need anything, you can talk to your girls,” she said while she nudged my shoulder.
My girls . I choked down emotion and nodded. “The only things I need are stupid jokes and memes. ”
Her mouth pulled up at one corner. “Watch this,” Willow said as she renamed the group chat to “The Queens” plus the crown emoji.
Fallon responded with “that’s fucking perfect” and five fire emojis.
Zoya then chimed in with a GIF of someone sighing dramatically, and I burst out laughing. She quickly followed it up with hearting all the other messages and sending a star-eyes emoji.
“What does Fallon even text about?”
Willow rolled her eyes. “She mostly sends me food pictures and GIFs.” She shuddered. “She also tells me far more about her sex life than I care to know, so be prepared for that.”
Just as she finished talking, a picture came through of Fallon laying in bed with a man’s arm slung strategically across her chest. The face was out of the frame, so we couldn’t tell who it was. She followed it with, “so what are you all doing?”
“See?” Willow asked, exasperated. She held up the phone. “Want to take a picture?”
I hesitated because, no, I absolutely did not want to take a picture. But I was learning how to trust these women, and I thought, for a moment, that they might understand what I went through more than anyone else.
“Sure.”
Willow snapped a quick selfie of the two of us, our heads leaning toward one another.
She was smiling, looking like an angel made real, but I looked like a monster from a storybook.
The bandage covered my eye. I was cut and bruised everywhere, and I looked like a skeleton with my pale skin and hollow cheeks.
“Wait,” I said, but she ignored me and sent it.
Her phone rang with a group video call invitation. Willow picked it up, and Fallon’s head filled the screen, conveniently blocking out the rest of her bed. Zoya joined moments after. My hands clenched in my lap, praying they weren’t about to ask about what had happened .
“Fucking badass eyepatch, Leona,” Fallon said before either of us could get a word in. Her Irish accent drew a small smile to my face. “Can’t wait to see the scars. You’re a badass bitch, and I hope ya know it.”
“Thanks, Fallon,” I replied.
“Glad you’re home,” she added. “Hope ya gave them hell.”
I snorted. “They are rotting at the bottom of the ocean, as close to hell as they can get.”
“Good on ya.”
Zoya greeted me with a wave. “Hey, Leona.”
“Hey.”
“Hanging in there?”
I nodded. “Just tired. I was about to get some sleep.”
“Eat some food first,” Zoya said sternly, in a perfect copy of Willow’s doctor voice. “If you haven’t already.”
It brought a small smile to my lips. “You sound like Willow already.”
Her cheeks flushed while Fallon burst out laughing.
Willow moved the camera to her face. “All right now, ladies. We were just checking in. Once Leona has her phone back, we can flood the chat. She has specifically asked for stupid jokes and memes.”
Fallon saluted. “My specialty.”
Zoya grinned. “Stupid jokes and memes we can do.”
“Okay, time for Leona to rest,” Willow said.
They signed off with well wishes and requests for scar update pictures, which felt a little ridiculous on Fallon’s end, but I was relieved that none of them pushed me to talk about it. I felt a little lighter than before, knowing that they acknowledged something happened, but didn’t push me.
Yeah, this girls group chat could be exactly what I needed.
Maybe one day I’d get to add Chiara, and the Queens would be complete.