56. Harper
FIFTY-SIX
HARPER
Everything after the boys stepped into the fray was a blur. A hot mess that made me sick to even think about. And yet, now that the man who’d tormented us our whole lives was dead, standing here in the hospital left me with nothing more to do than overthink.
Something in me had snapped when Angel took that bullet for me. When his lips curled into a smile from his prone position on the floor as I lifted him into my arms and sobbed like a little child. Nash and Angel in one day, both taken from me in the blink of an eye by the same man.
Both now at the brink of death.
All because of the hell the fucking Blackwood patriarch put us through.
Rowan wasn’t talking to me. He’d been refused entrance in the ambulances because there wasn’t enough room for them to work around him, and the race to the hospital we shared in the front seat of the Torino was a silent and heavy one.
I’d never felt so abandoned by him in my life.
He wouldn’t meet my eyes, wouldn’t breathe a lick of attention in my direction. And when the doctors came out to talk to him, he didn’t offer up any assurances.
I reached for his hand, but he pulled it away.
And so began the intentional icing-out of my fragile soul.
Did he blame me for their—for what happened to them? Was this all my fault?
The first doctor was a tall, slim male, unremarkable in appearance behind his surgical mask. There was so much blood on the front of his jacket, it scared the fuck out of me.
I wasn’t sure who he’d worked on, but it didn’t look good.
I fought the urge to vomit as I clenched my hands around air and wished the universe wasn’t so cruel as to cut me off from the only support I had. The only port in the storm had effectively shut his doors to me, and it only served to make this whole situation more tumultuous.
"The one with the, uh, facial scars," he began, turning his gaze to Rowan for confirmation.
"Nash."
The poor guy paled at the timbre in Rowan’s voice, but nodded calmly. "Yes, him. He’s fortunate the knife didn’t land a bit closer to his heart. We’ve stopped the bleeding, repaired most of the damage, and as long as he can be contained to a bed to recover, he’ll pull through."
"What about Angel?" I heard myself breathlessly rush out, unashamedly invested. Rowan’s dark glare had me on edge, though. It almost felt like . . .
Like he didn’t want me to care. Like I wasn’t allowed to care.
The doctor ignored Rowan’s surly attitude and focused on me, a soft smile on his face now. "My colleague is still working on him, unfortunately, so I can’t give you any updates. All I know is that it’ll be a while until we can speak to his condition." he bowed to us, a move I’d seen Angel do once or twice in his younger years. "I do apologize that I couldn’t give you more reassuring information on his status."
Rowan watched his back as he walked down the hall away from us, silent in the waiting lounge, like a fucking statue.
I wanted him to do something. Yell at me, scold me, break down, I didn’t care. I just couldn’t take another minute of this silent treatment from him.
Instead, I watched as he turned away and sat with his head hung in his hands, sequestered away in a corner where he could hide from this whole thing. He didn’t cry. Didn’t shake with uncontrollable emotion. He just looked . . . empty. Like there was nothing there behind that steely mask he wore.
That wasn’t the Rowan I knew.
"Ro," I tried again, slowly walking in his direction. I wanted to reach out to him, wanted him to know I was there with him, but the way his shoulders tensed when I touched them told me any overture would be unwelcome .
So I stepped away, wincing at the pain that lanced my heart.
The hospital waiting room chairs were cold against my skin as I curled up in one, wrapping my arms around my knees as I struggled to hold myself together.
I fully expected a panic attack to set in at any moment. It was a miracle it hadn’t already happened. I likely wouldn’t be prepared for it when it did rear its ugly head. Life had a funny way of fucking me like that.
Hours later, I woke from a daze, back stiff and legs numb, when the second doctor made their way into the waiting area.
She was covered in far less blood than her male counterpart. Perhaps she’d changed before coming to see us.
Her eyes found me first, a fact which didn’t go unnoticed by Rowan in the corner. When she approached me first, he cleared his throat and motioned for her to head his way instead, driving the wedge between us deeper as he refused to move closer to me. No, if anyone was going to make a move, it appeared he intended for it to be me.
The doctor stared back and forth between us but said nothing, clearly wishing she hadn’t stepped into this minefield. "It was a difficult fight, but he’s stable. Expect a long recovery, and possible re-admission if he doesn’t take care of himself while he heals. Thankfully, the bullet didn’t do too much internal damage. We did have to dig it out of his shoulder, though. He’s going to be in pain for some time."
"Will he regain full range of motion?" I heard Rowan ask quietly.
The doctor’s lips pursed in a moue of disapproval. "It’s too soon to tell. The damage wasn’t to any major muscle groups, so as long as he rehabilitates well, it’s possible. However, it’s also possible he doesn’t."
It wasn’t the worst news she could have given, but it wasn’t helpful. Rowan slammed his fist into the wall next to the doctor’s head, and the poor woman flinched back in fear as he growled in the back of his throat. It was clear he made her uncomfortable, and in an attempt to smooth things over, I thanked her for her help and grabbed Rowan by the bicep, dragging him somewhat difficultly into the corner again.
I forced him to sit down, and he scowled at me the whole time but said nothing in retaliation as I shoved him into a place where I wanted him.
"Sit the fuck down, Rowan. You’re going to get yourself kicked out of the hospital if you keep acting like this."
"Like what?" he echoed hollowly. "Like I’m worried for my brothers? Like I’m on edge about their chances of survival and recovery? Like I’m not upset? Please, enlighten me, oh great one, so I know what I’m doing wrong here."
I recoiled from his words like he’d shot me this time, and the bullet landed where it was meant to all along. Finally, when I’d just barely managed to get over my crippling fear of being burned, of being hurt, Rowan showed his true colors. When the chips were down and the going got rough, he abandoned me in his rage and emotional distress, refusing to let me in.
And then he locked the door and threw away the key.
"Rowan, I?—"
He grabbed me by the throat and dragged me around the corner, heading straight for an emergency escape to the roof. When we burst through the door, the muggy heat assailed me like a physical wall, and I had to gasp for air as I was slammed into the side of an HVAC unit, my back connecting with the stinging hot metal.
His hand slapped the side of the unit next to my head and effectively froze me in place.
"If you hadn’t gone off half-cocked on a mission of certain death, we wouldn’t be here right now. My brothers wouldn’t be hurt, lying in hospital beds, fighting back death as we speak." His eyes narrowed dangerously, and there it was—the Rowan Blackwood people on the street feared. The man who’d made a name for himself as a dangerous killer.
No trace of the man I’d fallen in love with all those years ago. Nothing left of his smile, his teasing gaze, or the easy way he would wrap an arm around me when I wasn’t paying attention. In his place was a cold, harsh man who steamrolled over me like I was nothing more than an ant beneath his boot.
It felt like the whole world was crashing down around me. And there was nothing I could do this time around to stop the sky from falling.
"I’m gonna say this once, so make sure you don’t forget it."
I couldn’t breathe, even though he’d removed his hand from my throat. "Ro . . . "
"Don’t you dare Ro me. If not for you, we wouldn’t be in this shitshow in the first place." He snarled in rage, fury written into every line on his handsome face. "If your mother had never crossed our father’s path, if you’d never come along, maybe?—"
"Nash and Angel wouldn’t have been any safer without me, Rowan Blackwood, and if you don’t want to admit that, it’s on you. But this isn’t my fault, and I refuse to sit here and let you make me feel like it was."
"But it was all your fault," he insisted, his hand balling into a fist to keep from hitting something—maybe me. "You with your pretty fucking stares and those stupid smiles that had us falling head over heels for you, that flirty wink you shot us when you thought nobody was looking—if you’d never stepped into our lives, maybe we’d never have ended up here."
"Is that what you’re dealing in these days, Rowan? Maybes? What ifs? What happened to the man who thought things through with logic and made plans based on fact and statistics?" I shoved him away from me, though it took a lot more effort, considering he was so damn tall and muscled. "You’re lashing out because you need someone else to be to blame for this, when the truth is, you could have ended this long ago, if you’d have let someone else carry some of that weight of the world you keep lashed to your shoulders like some kind of fucking martyr."
"You think you can just walk into our lives and make us care and then do whatever you want without repercussions?" He gestured to my face, the grease paint barely dry from all the sweat. "You dress up like the big boys and play big boy games, but you’re still just a stubborn, selfish, spoiled girl who thinks the world owes her something. You don’t get to act like you care now, when you're the whole reason any of this happened."
He swiped at my face, and I flinched away, thinking he planned to hit me. When his hand didn’t connect, I opened my eyes, only to have his palm dragged across my face, ruining the skull paint and smearing it until it was unrecognizable.
"Why don’t you go back to where you came from, Harper?"
"Fuck you, you self-righteous prick. I didn’t ask for you all to care. I didn’t ask for you to save me. And I sure as fuck didn’t want any of this!" I threw my hands in the air and stormed away, hating the traitorous tears that spilled from my eyes the moment he could no longer see their existence.
Rowan didn’t follow me when I fled the rooftop. Obviously, if what we had was so easily shattered, perhaps it was better it ended this way. Maybe it was good that it had finally come to a head.
Happily ever after couldn’t last forever.
The walk home alone was a lonely one. If I stayed a second more in the hospital, I would have broken apart, and as much as I hated what Rowan said, a part of it felt like a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I broke every single one of my own rules, and here I was, sad about the consequences that were the whole reason I’d made the fucking guidelines for my life all those years ago .
Loving the Blackwood boys brought you nothing but trouble, pain, and sadness when it all came tumbling down.
I ended up back at the Blackwood estate somehow, though if pressed, I’d tell you I didn’t remember taking a single step in this direction. My feet simply carried me on autopilot, back to the place I’d been so scared to step foot in after my mother died. My hands fell to the pistols I’d tucked into my waistband after liberating them from the hospital security, patting them for reassurance. Each one had five more bullets loaded and ready to go, and though I knew it was dangerous, I hadn’t bothered to put the safety on.
I was prepared.
I came back here for something specific. One thing, and one thing only.
A blade with my name on it.
The house was encircled in police tape, and though in an ordinary town there would be cops crawling all over the place, in Port Wylde, it was just another night. Only two officers were on site, and one of them, I recognized from the rendezvous with Lilly when we were setting up the lojack software to unearth the Blackwood secrets.
"Detective McCoy," I called out, waving him over with a look of indifference on my face. I had to school my features, so as not to give away the death spiral my brain was currently gearing up for.
The cop wandered over alone, leaving his colleague to take notes on the crime scene outside. His relaxed demeanor did nothing to calm me.
"You’re Lilly’s little protege, aren’t you?" he asked slowly, staring at the smeared face paint and my still-bloody jacket. "Thought you’d be at the hospital."
"I came back for something I left behind in the chaos," I replied dryly, ducking under the yellow tape line.
"Lead the way," he said simply, not a trace of sarcasm in his voice as I strode with a purpose through a police crime scene, uncaring of the stares and confused looks thrown my way.
Keehn McCoy stopped at the door to the study, his eyes anywhere but on me. "You here to clean up the blood or something?" he joked, clearly uncomfortable. I didn’t respond, grimacing as I knelt next to the desk and lifted a matte black blade from a puddle of blood.
Nash’s blood.
Nash’s blood.
Fuck.
Don’t fall to pieces yet, bitch. Keep it together. You’re not done yet.
I wiped the blade on my pants and waved it in Detective McCoy’s direction, feigning a half-ass smile. "Forgot my blade. You won’t mind if I take this with me, will you?"
His eyes fell to where one of my hands rested over my now-throbbing wound, which I was sure I’d reopened. "You get that checked out at the hospital?"
"No need," I muttered, gently shoving past him. "I wasn’t the one who was hurt."
"Look pretty hurt to me."
Keep your nose on your face, pig, I wanted to say. I wanted to tell him I didn’t need his sympathy or his concern. Instead, I just shrugged, leaving him standing alone in the hallway as I made my way out of the house of fucking horrors of my past and down the parkway into the night, nothing more than one more shadow, one more ghost.