Chapter 27
U
Levi gasped awake and Asher was already on him. Asher’s weight landed across his chest before his eyes opened, his hands at Levi’s shoulders pushing him flat against the mattress.
“No.” Asher said firmly. “No more. Not this time.”
Levi bucked. He got his knee up hard and caught Asher in the stomach and Asher made a sound — a low wheeze— and for a half-second the pin loosened.
Levi ripped his right hand free and went for Asher’s face.
His fingernails caught Asher’s cheek and dragged and opened three red lines from cheekbone to jaw, and Asher grunted and turned his head into the scratch instead of away from it.
Then Asher hit him.
Not a slap. A closed fist, connecting with the side of his head above the ear. Levi’s vision whited out and when it came back Asher’s weight was still on his chest. “Get — off — me —”
“No.”
Levi swung again. The punch caught Asher in the mouth, splashing red as his lip split, and Levi kept swinging. His second punch caught him in the jaw. Asher’s hand came up, caught Levi’s fist, and twisted.
The twist went too far.
Levi screamed as the bones snapped and popped, pressing ugly up beneath his skin. He wanted to yell something, but the pain was too bright, too enormous for him to do anything other than scream as he tried to pull his arm away, but Asher just held it in place.
He looked at the wrist in his hand, looked at Levi’s face, and his expression didn’t change. “Sorry, baby,” he muttered, and twisted the wrist the rest of the way to the angle he wanted.
Levi’s vision went white and came back wrong. The pain was in his entire arm now, radiating up from the wrist into his elbow and his shoulder, and his body stopped fighting because his body was busy processing the fact that a piece of it was broken and the person who broke it was still holding it.
Levi lunged forward and bit him. His teeth found the meat of Asher’s forearm and sank in with everything his jaw had. Asher did not pull away. He just pressed his arm down harder into Levi’s face.
“Go ahead,” Asher said calmly. “Bite a piece out if you have to, but we need to talk.”
Levi let go. His head dropped back against the pillow, his mouth was full of Asher’s blood, his right wrist was screaming.
Asher shifted his weight, grinding one knee into Levi’s chest with all his weight behind it, crushing the air out, as his free hand pulled open the nightstand drawer and rifled through the contents.
Asher’s full weight came back onto his chest, pushing him further into the mattress, and Levi gasped, unable to breathe between the pressure and the pain.
“Hold still,” he said softly, a roll of duct tape in his hand as he pinned Levi’s good wrist and broken one together.
He planned this.
One of the loops before…he must have put it in there.
The tape came off the roll in a long strip across Levi’s wrists, one of them bent at an angle wrists were not supposed to be at.
Levi screamed louder, the bones grinding against each other, and Asher used more tape, wrapping it tighter and tighter.
“There. There. It’s okay. I’ve got you,” Asher whispered.
“Stop!” Levi choked out, his vision blurring. “Please!”
“I know, baby. I know. I’m going to fix it.” His hand came away from the tape, his brow furrowed. “It’ll heal wrong but we’ve got time.” He paused. “I should have started with the ankles anyway. You can’t run anywhere without your ankles…I’m going to do the ankles.”
He moved down the bed.
Levi kicked with both feet, hard, at Asher’s chest, at his head, at anything he could reach.
Asher caught one ankle in each hand and held them still and Levi’s kicking stopped because he knew what would happen next if he didn’t stop.
He could hear his own sobs in his ears finally, sweat pouring down his face, every small shift of weight shooting more pain through his arm.
Asher finished wrapping his ankles together, cross-bracing at the top, then he looked at his work — wrists above the head, ankles bound — nodded once, and climbed back up the bed.
“Okay. Now we can talk,” Asher whispered, brushing the tears from Levi’s cheeks and pressing a kiss to the top of his head.