Arlo #5
“What she used to fend Devon off me,” I said in realization.
“Fend him off? She quite literally cracked his skull. He’s still in intensive care and isn’t looking to get out anytime soon; they’re not even sure he’ll wake up. That’s hardly something as simple as fending someone off.”
“I now understand why you wouldn’t want my mother near you.”
“Indeed,” she said as she walked to the door.
“Call me when he’s awake and ready for my company.
We have a few things to discuss, it seems..
.and if you think for one moment I would ever cut him off, you clearly have no idea how much I treasure him even as I rue the day I gave birth to him at times. ”
I listened to her heels as they rounded the corner and took her out of sight. It was only when I could no longer hear them that I finally muttered, “I can’t tell if that was sentimental and sweet on her part or the most toxic thing I’ve ever heard.”
Ward’s eyes opened, and he smirked. “For her that was positively weeping at my bedside and proclaiming her love for me to the world.”
“I’m not going to say I don’t understand why you decided to hide from your mother, but couldn’t you have at least ‘woken up’ and asked for the doctor?
I didn’t need to go through that whole conversation with her,” I said with a weary sigh.
Of course, that didn’t stop me from reaching out, taking his hand, and smiling when I felt him return the grip.
“I might have...but you two were having such a...nice conversation,” he said with that same smirk.
“That is certainly one way to describe it, not an accurate one,” I said with a shake of my head. “And I see you’re choosing to use it.”
“Well, it sounded like a conversation that needed to happen,” he said with a shrug and winced. “Ow. No amount of pain medication is going to stop that.”
“You should have seen their faces when they looked at your tox screen.”
“I haven’t been on anything in ages!”
“Some of that stuff stays in your system for quite a long time, Ward. They asked me when the last time you took anything was, and I said that as far as I knew, it had been at least three weeks. So, you’re not on strong medication for fear of a reaction with something still in your system.”
“Lovely. My life of hedonism and fun is finally catching up with me.”
“Well, that’s what happens when you throw yourself into the path of a bullet,” I told him wryly.
His smile faded, and he stared at me. “What was I supposed to do? Let him shoot you? I took it in the chest, but he was going for your head.”
“As your mother said, and I can’t deny it, you saved my life,” I told him with a smile.
“And you saved mine, just as she said,” he said with a chuckle.
“I was conscious the whole time until partway through the ride here. I remember most of it, though there are some fuzzy parts. My favorite is the barbaric rage you went into. His two buddies just stood there in shock when you two disappeared. They weren’t ready for that level of resistance, at least not from you.
Your ‘I’m so laidback and cause no trouble’ demeanor worked. ”
“Apparently,” I said, because I knew full well I had no business surviving like I had. Maybe I could have made it as far as the hallway with Devon in tow, but everything after should have resulted in me either being dragged off him or shot on the spot.
“And...there’s a bonus to all this,” he said, his expression brightening again.
“What could be the upside?” I wondered.
“Well, I didn’t die, so that means your little ‘curse’ isn’t working like it was supposed to. And we know it wasn’t some mystical power of death trying to hunt me down, it was him.”
“You do realize that in each of those cases, I was the one who took the hit, right? So my ‘curse’ still works.”
“Nope.”
“No?”
“No, because this time you barely got hurt, I was the one left to bleed out on the floor, and you didn’t get much more than bumps and bruises. Has that ever happened before?”
“Can’t say it has,” I admitted slowly. “Are you trying to say the curse is broken?”
“I don’t know, maybe. I guess we’ll find out. Hopefully, that doesn’t mean I will need to go to the hospital every other week if the curse just got shifted around. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to spend that much time in a hospital.”
I snorted, brushing his hair out of his face. “I don’t think you have to worry too much about that.”
“You agree then?”
“I’m willing to see if you’re right without making a snap judgment.”
“That’s just...normal for you.”
I sat on the edge of the bed. Other than the gunshot wound, he had minimal injuries, so I didn’t have to treat him too carefully.
He was going to need a while to recover from being shot in the chest, but time was something we had.
“I hope you’re looking forward to how uncomfortable you’re going to be.
One of my fears came true, your heart was hit.
..barely, but enough to cause some damage. And your left lung was punctured.”
“I kind of figured that out when I couldn’t breathe as well as I used to while lying on the ground,” he said, smiling when I gently laid my free hand on his stomach.
“Things were kind of fuzzy near the end there, but my mother confirmed the one thing I couldn’t remember whether it was real. ..well, and—”
His eyes narrowed, and I blinked. “What?”
“Your neck.”
“Oh,” I felt myself flush. “Yes, Devon got his hands on me. They tell me I’m lucky there was no permanent damage. I have a sore throat that will linger for a while, but nothing to worry about.”
“And your mom really beat the shit out of him?”
“She struck him, apparently harder than I originally thought. I’m not sure if she knows about his status or if she’ll even care that much when she’s told.”
“I’d tell her,” he said with a smile. “She deserves to know what she’s willing to do to save one of her own.”
“You say that as if she doesn’t already know,” I said.
“Make sure to tell her in front of your siblings, that way the next time she threatens them, they’ll think twice.”
“Matilda has never threatened to use violence to keep any of us in line,” I said with a laugh.
“I distinctly remember the other day she was threatening to beat your brother so hard he would fit in a shoebox by the time she was done,” he said with a snort.
“Well, Mason has that effect on people,” I said with a shrug. “It’s no worse than what Moira or Jace has threatened him with in the past.”
“Speaking of...how is everyone?”
“Mmm, Matilda and Marcus got a few bruises, but they were sent on their way, nothing serious. Your parents were barely touched; apparently, they put up less of a fight than the rest of us. Although your mother did get the back of someone’s hand when they ambushed her and started making demands,” I said, keeping my voice neutral.
I didn’t remember seeing a mark on her face, so they hadn’t been too rough with her.
“Which explains why she was behaving,” he said with a roll of his eyes. “I couldn’t tell you the last time someone was willing to hit her...well, other than me. I never hit her, but I’ve been tempted.”
“The rest of the staff were more or less okay. One of the cooks broke his hand trying to get out of the cooler. Matilda said he was swearing up and down that he could come back to cook breakfast in the morning because he didn’t need both hands.”
“That would be Kevin. When my mother hired him, I thought she was having a midlife crisis.”
“Um...why?”
“Because he looks like he just came out of prison, ink, shaved head, the works. I thought she might be having some sort of crisis where she suddenly wanted a younger, hotter man around the place. Then I tasted something he made and realized it was probably because she liked watching him work, but also because he was good at it.”
“Very...efficient.”
“That’s my mother for you. By the way, I also wasn’t out of it so badly that I didn’t realize there was no reason for police and paramedics to show up when they did. Do we know what happened?”
“Devon might have been proud at how well he thought they executed his plan, but the reality is that they missed someone.”
“Who?”
“The woman who had originally been serving us? She had been out of sight when they invaded the house and started taking people hostage. She hid in a servant’s access that the house apparently has and waited until the coast was clear, then tripped the silent alarm.
According to Matilda, the poor woman was incredibly apologetic for going into hiding.
My mother apparently offered her a job if your mother was, and this is a direct quote, “enough of a meanspirited bitch” to fire her. ”
“Never has my mother been more correct than when she said it was best that she not be left alone with your mother,” he said with a laugh. “God, I would almost pay to see it, but I don’t want poor Matilda to end up in prison. Your family would never forgive me.”
“Probably not,” I said, unable to help the little smile at the thought of the two being left alone.
He peered up at me, dark circles under his eyes. His color hadn’t recovered yet, but his gaze was sharp, searching. “How are you?”
“I’m quite tired, I’ve been waiting for you to wake up forever,” I told him.
“No, I mean...how are you? Really.”
“Oh.”
I thought about it, then shrugged. “I wish the night hadn’t happened the way it did, but I know it could have been much worse. There were injuries, yours and Devon’s being the worst, but—”
He shook his head. “Only you would mention him among the injured. You do recall that he tried to kill all of us, right?”