Chapter 36
Luca
“I already told you all I know,” I say for the fifth time. “He was choking me. He told me he was going to kill me. Austin came in. Shoved him off me, and then Damien hit Austin. Austin had no choice. Damien would have killed me.”
And honestly, Hunter—the deputy sitting beside my hospital bed and asking me questions—should already know that. He went to school with Austin and me, and he knows what kind of person Austin is. He knows he’s incapable of hurting someone without due cause.
“I know, Luca,” Hunter says gently. “I just need to make sure. I’ll leave you my card, and if you have questions or if you need anything, you can call me.”
I wave a hand toward the small table. “Just there is fine.”
He places the card on the table, then stands to leave without another word.
Thank God. I swallow hard, my throat raw and aching.
Jesus. Damien. That motherfucker. When I first came back home, I was terrified of living in a body without pain.
I didn’t know how to go about my days without bruises and agony, but now?
Now my two cracked ribs feel like I’m being stabbed in the side, and the pulsing, rhythmic pain in my head from yet another concussion is killing me.
Turns out, I don’t enjoy living in a body made of pain, but here I am again anyway.
There’s a soft knock on the hospital room door, and my heart lodges in my throat. Fuck, I hope it’s Austin. EMS wrapped his hands in bandages, then loaded me up before I could even say goodbye to him.
Flashes of Damien’s blood spraying across the floor of the diner dance behind my eyes, but I force them away.
“Come in.”
Disappointment settles in my gut when the door opens and Arlo and Jasper step through.
I sit up, carefully cradling my ribs. “Where’s Austin?”
Jasper and Arlo share a look. “Austin’s at the sheriff’s department,” Jasper says, folding his hands in front of him.
The world falls out from under my feet. “What do you mean, he’s at the sheriff’s department?”
Arlo walks across the room. “Can I sit?”
I nod, but I don’t look away from Jasper. “Why is he there?”
Jasper sighs. “He almost beat someone to death, Luc. They had to question him.”
In my defense. He did it in my defense. I’ve told these stupid fucks that. “But it was for me,” I say, my voice cracking around the words.
“I know. I know it was. And they will too, okay? He just needs to tell them what happened, and it’ll be alright.”
I shake my head, which sends a sharp pain through my temples.
Arlo settles a hand on my thigh. “Calm down, Luca.”
“Calm down? You want me to fucking calm down?” The pounding in my head ratchets up, making me nauseous. “No. I’m not gonna fuckin’ calm down! Damien was going to fucking kill me.”
Arlo rubs his hand up and down my leg in a soothing pattern, but it just pisses me off more. “I know,” he says softly.
“And you,” I snap, turning on Jasper. “What are you doing here?”
He blinks at me in surprise. “I’m here to check on you. That’s what friends do, right?”
I let out an incredulous laugh. “Yeah, that’s what friends do. Which is why I’m not sure why you’re here and not with fucking Austin!”
I gag, my stomach lurching as the ache in my head nearly takes me out.
Arlo picks up the emesis bag on the bed, holding it out to me. I put it to my mouth, drawing deep breaths in so I don’t make myself sick.
Jasper slowly makes his way across the room. “Austin wanted me to check on you, okay? Would you feel better if I was at the station with him?”
My mouth’s watering, so I nod instead of trying to speak.
“Okay. Arlo, are you gonna be okay here?”
“I’m fine. You go ahead.”
Swallowing hard a couple of times, I look up at Jasper. “You have to make sure he comes back to me,” I say, barely getting the words out without throwing up.
He gives me a curt nod before turning and leaving the room.
When he’s gone, Arlo shifts on the bed. “I’m gonna have the nurses get you something for your pain and nausea.”
“No. I want a clear head.”
Arlo levels me with an impressive glare. “You need something. It’s non-negotiable. I’ll be right back.”
When he leaves the room, I set the emesis bag down, trying to keep myself calm. Being alone sucks. If not Austin, I want Arlo back in here. Fuck. This is awful.
Before I really have time to freak out about it, the nurse who checked on me last time comes into the room with a little cup, Arlo trailing behind her.
She holds it out to me. “Here you are. Zofran for the nausea and Tylenol for your headache.”
“Are they going to make me woozy?”
She raises an eyebrow. “More than the concussion, you mean?”
She’s sassy. I like that. “Fair point.”
“No. They won’t.” She winks at me, which somehow draws a tired smile from me.
I take the pills from her, downing them in one swallow with the glass of water she hands me. She checks my vitals, then leaves the room after telling me if I need anything else to let her know.
When she’s gone, I close my eyes, but when all I see are flashes of Damien—fist drawn back to hit me, blue eyes burning with anger, hands tight around my throat—I open them again.
“You okay?” The bed dips with Arlo’s weight as he sits down beside me.
“As okay as I can be, I guess.”
He holds a hand out, and I take it, squeezing his fingers.
“I’m sorry.”
My eyes dart to his. “Why are you sorry? You didn’t beat the shit out of me.”
“I left. I shouldn’t have. If I had stayed, this wouldn’t have happened.”
I can’t help but laugh at that. “Maybe it wouldn’t have happened tonight, but it would have happened eventually. He was watching me. Or having me watched, rather.”
Arlo’s eyes widen. “Remember at Hobby Lobby when I got distracted? I think I saw him that day. I didn’t get a chance to ask him if it was him.” I let out a pained laugh. “No guarantee he would have told me the truth anyway.”
“Fuck,” Arlo breathes. “Why didn’t you say something?”
“I don’t know, really. Thought I was crazy.”
Austin didn’t want me to get hurt. He worked so hard to make sure I didn’t. I’m not even sure if he knows I’m okay. Not in any real way. He was so out of it, I’d almost think he was the one with a concussion.
Tears burn my eyes. “Fuck,” I croak. This could have all been avoided if I had just fucking told Austin about my weird feelings instead of hiding them. It didn’t have to be this way. “I should have pressed charges against Damien. Got a protective order or something.”
“That’s just a piece of paper, Luca. Do you think it would have mattered?”
I nod, then shake my head because really? I have no fucking clue. Probably not, but it might have protected Austin more.
“Is Damien here?” I ask, suddenly curious where he is.
Arlo hesitates before finally nodding. “Yeah, he’s two doors down. They have him in a medically induced coma.”
“Did they tell you that?”
He shakes his head. “No. I overheard them talking about it.”
“I want to see him.”
I need to, I think. He didn’t win. He didn’t beat me.
I mean, sure, I’m lying in a hospital bed, but he didn’t hurt me.
Not where it matters. Not in my spirit or my heart.
I want to see his battered face. I want to tell him to fuck himself.
I don’t even know if he’d be able to hear me, but I bet it would still be good to say it.
“I can try to sneak you in there.”
Shock reverberates through me. “I thought you’d say it was a bad idea.”
Arlo shrugs. “I know a thing or two about needing to say goodbye to people who hurt you. If you think you need to see him to close that chapter, I’ll help in any way I can.”
My heart lurches, part sadness for whatever Arlo is carrying, part fear about Damien. “What if I fall apart? What if I can’t do it?”
Tightening his grip on my hand, he leans over, a lock of hair falling across his forehead. “Then you fall apart, and I’ll help you hold the pieces. But you can do it.”
“Fuck. Okay. Alright.” I try to sit up, and my head throbs. “Do you think you can help me up?”
Arlo stands, then carefully helps me get my legs over the edge of the bed and pulls me to my feet. With an arm wrapped around my waist, he helps me walk across the room to the door.
He opens it, carefully peeking out into the hallway. “The halls are empty. Can you stand here while I see if there’s anyone in his room?”
I brace myself with a hand on the wall. Fuck. I’m really not used to being in pain anymore. “Yeah, I should be fine.”
Nodding, Arlo slips out of the room and into the hall. He’s only gone for a minute, tops, before he’s opening the door and helping me walk out. Like Arlo said, he’s only two doors down from me, and when we push open the door to his room and walk in, my body tenses.
“We should be quick,” Arlo warns.
I nod, shrugging him off so I can walk toward Damien’s bed. I’m a nervous wreck the entire time, my heart hammering.
When I get close enough to see him, I can’t fight a gasp.
His hair is matted with blood, and there’s a line of stitches down his hairline that looks like it’s holding his face to the scalp. The beep, beep, beep of his monitor is loud. I glance up at it. I know nothing about what the numbers mean, but it seems like his blood pressure is low.
The swelling is so severe that I can barely make out any of his features under it.
The blue eyes I’d grown so afraid to look into are so swollen I can’t even see his eyelashes, and there are bruises and deep cuts on his cheekbones.
His once-straight nose is mangled and definitely broken.
There’s nothing of the face I once loved and feared in this man.
Good.
I don’t even care if that makes me a bad person. Not even a little bit.
Leaning against the side of his bed, I take a deep breath.
“I don’t know whether you can hear me or not.
I hope you can, but even if you can’t, I don’t care.
” This isn’t for him anyway. It’s for me.
“I fucking hate you. I hate you for what you did to me. And I hate you for making me believe what we shared was love.”
My voice goes wobbly, so I pause, trying to get it under control. I clear my throat.
“You tried to ruin me, Damien. You tried. And you fucking failed.”
Tears fill my eyes, and instead of fighting them back, I let them fall. The salt burns my wounds as it spills down my face.
“You don’t ever get to touch me again. I’m going to report you. I’m going to press charges. I’m going to ruin your life the way you tried to ruin mine.”
I wipe my face with the back of my hand.
“And unlike you, I’m going to fucking succeed.”
I take a step backward, then another, not taking my eyes off him until I bump into Arlo. When I turn around, he’s staring at me with glassy eyes. “Fucking proud of you. Now let’s get out of here.”
He wraps his arm around me again. The monitors start getting loud, the beeping getting quicker and quicker. That’s almost a surefire guarantee that nurses are gonna be on their way. Arlo and I share a panicked glance. “We gotta go,” I whisper.
Arlo nods, then peeks into the hall again, looking both ways before practically dragging me back to my room. No sooner are we through the door than three people rush past.
“Fuck,” I whisper, adrenaline coursing through me. “Holy fuck. What do you think’s happening?”
“I don’t know.” He glances at the door. “Let me see if I can hear anything.”
He slips into the hallway. I want to pace, and I probably would be if it weren’t for how badly my head hurts from being up and moving around. As it stands, I lean against the wall to wait. There’s no way I’m going to be able to sit in bed right now.
It feels like Arlo’s been gone for a lifetime. I can hear more people running past my door, their shoes frantic on the vinyl floors. And then everything goes silent. Not only that, but still. Like the entire world just stops. Something heavy presses down on me in that silence.
The door to my room opens, and when Arlo steps back inside, his face is ghost-white.
I don’t need him to say it. I already know before he even opens his mouth. I can tell just from the look on his face.
“He’s dead.”