CHAPTER THIRTEEN
HAWK
S unny’s still form pressed to my chest, illuminated by my headlights that bounced off the graffitied wall behind where I’d found her. I’d left them on as soon as I saw the old man’s frantic gestures outside the entrance to the alley, his mouth forming her name, and I knew.
Knew it was too good to be true that Benson hadn’t lost his shit in his traditional form and come after either of us. The police were on the line before I hit the end of the alley. I yelled the address to the operator as I leapt out of my car, eating the short distance between the large man bent over something at the end of the alley.
I didn’t need to take bets to know it was Benson and that the person he leaned over was Sunny. What I didn’t expect was the fist that slammed into the side of my head out of the darkness.
Instinct raged inside me as I wound my hand around the first thing I grabbed—a neck, perfect—and threw a body over the hood of my car. It made a satisfying crunching sound as I kept moving.
Benson proved harder to shift.
Sunny’s floppy form was clutched in his fist, his hand closed tight around her throat. Her eyes were glazed and open.
She couldn't see me. Couldn’t hear me when I screamed her name.
I saw red. And dark. All the things I trained out of myself. All the things I never let myself feel after that day with Benson.
The part of the story I didn’t tell Sunny about how Benson and I beat the shit out of each other that night when no one was watching.
Some scars ran deep. Others lay as open wounds.
Mine had healed over time, and with Sunny. Benson…his festered beneath his pretty boy facade, and tonight they boiled over in an excess of ruin and evil.
The energy I always held in reserve coiled tight within my body unspooled like a well oiled machine as I approached them. Despite Benson’s bulk, I threw him off her and turned on him, more than prepared to finally etch his penance on worthless flesh.
A pair of blue and red lights prevented that, for the time being.
So I turned my attention on Sunny, gathered her into my arms, held her tight to my chest. Tears dropped from my cheeks to hers, splashing on porcelain skin. I pressed my ear to her chest but—nothing.
A black void yawned inside me, sucking in every good memory in a moment.
The faintest sound tapped my ear once.
And again.
And again.
“Help me.” My faint whisper went unheard, unnoticed. Tears poured from my eyes, choking me as I turned to the officer behind me still securing cuffs on Benson’s wrists. “Help me!”
Panic of a different sort consumed me as Sunny gasped, a thin, reedy noise that rattled in my ears. I held her until hands pried my arms from her and whisked her away.
I fought that, too.
And finally, after hours of questions and answers, I got to follow her.
“Coffee is disgusting.” Sunny sat propped up in her hospital bed, clutching a takeaway cup filled with lukewarm liquid. Her voice was slightly more than a whisper. Dark purple bruises circled her eyes, though they had nothing on the necklace around her throat that Benson put there. Currently a thick brace held her chin up. She raised a hand, tugging at the scratchy material.
I batted her fingers away. “Only because you’re drinking it through a straw. And stop that.”
“It’s so uncomfortable.”
“Better being able to walk, though.”
“There is that.” She smiled. It faded, as they all did after a second.
The nurses and the unit psych had assured me she would regain her usual nature over time. There were no fractures or breaks, no spinal damage which was a relief in itself, but she’d sustained a lot of bruising that had to reduce before she could be released. Each physical step toward healing would help, though the thing she wanted most—the thing that swamped me with relief—was that she still wanted me beside her.
“How’s it feel?”
“Peachy.” Her lips twisted and she winced. I caught the takeaway cup as she dropped it, raising her hands to her cheeks. “Everything hurts,” she rasped.
“I know, Princess. But you’re gonna get better. And you get to come home, soon.”
“Mmhm.”
“You can do better than that,” I prompted with a smile.
She stared at me with pain-filled eyes, her new equivalent of shaking her head. “No, I can’t.”
And the tears that had refused to fall before came fast and hard now. I cradled her gently in my arms, careful not to bump her head or neck as she hicupped into my shoulders.
“It’s okay, Sunny. He’s gone. He’ll never hurt you again.”
“I know. But I still see him and— and—” The tears started again. She managed a shaky breath, whispered a word that sounded suspiciously like Randy.
“Fucking asshole.” I swore against the top of her head. “He’s gone too.” For good.
Benson’s little photographer shadow. I’d done enough damage to the backstabbing asshat when I threw him over my hood, and he had been more than forthcoming in backing my story over Benson’s pathetic attempt to twist my words.
The police had taken my version of the events. It was thanks to Bob Crawling’s statement however, the homeless man Sunny looked after for the last few nights and a little pull in the legal department I had walked away, and straight back to her.
Benson hadn’t held anything back and blamed both me and his little sidekick, but that hadn’t held up for a hot minute, especially when he let slip that Randy was responsible for the ongoing vandalism to my workshop as well as her car. The police seemed to be happy to assume it was on his command, and booked him for it.
“Thank you,” Sunny whispered for the thousandth time, no matter how often I shushed her.
Her fingers wound around mine tight as I pressed a tender kiss to her lips in a promise to never let my ego hurt her—or anyone else—ever again.
Sunny had been back home for a week when I got the call. I stood on her front porch, jiggling my keys in my pocket when she opened the door.
“You jagged a spot out front! I’m taking you shopping with me next time I need a parking fairy.” She gave me her usual smile and my heart ached at the still rare sight.
The brace was off, though a necklace of dull bruises circled her slim throat.
“You look beautiful.” I folded my arms around her, pulling her gently into me without stepping inside the house.
Sunny drew back, a flush brightening her cheeks. “What will the neighbors say?”
“No doubt the same thing they said after my last sleepover.” I nuzzled the shell of her ear. “You were loud.”
A raspy giggle erupted from her throat that ended in a bout of strained coughs. “Stop that,” she whispered against my shoulder as I closed the door behind us. “You’ll break me.” But when she raised her head her eyes were lit with humor and her lips curved in a sweet smile that nearly brought me to my knees.
“Not possible,” I said. “You’re too damn tough.”
Just the way I love you.
Her eyes glowed as though she’d heard the words I said in my head.
Sunny led me into the kitchen where Honey sat devouring an oversized bowl of cereal.
“Morning, Hawk,” she called around a mouthful of food. “Are you driving Sunny in today?”
I shrugged. “You know she’s cleared. I thought I might offer my car up to wreck if she wants a stab at city traffic.”
Honey choked on her cereal.
“That’s not nice,” Sunny rebuked me, rubbing her sister’s back. She shot me a dark look tinged with a side serve of laughter.
I extracted a sheaf of papers from inside my jacket and threw them on the table. “I might not be, but that is.”
Sunny eyed the papers, her brow dipping as she looked from them to me. “What is it?”
“Have a look.”
Sunny reached out and flipped them over.
Her gaze tracked over the title, and the rest of the top page. Then she read it again. The papers shook in her hands as she flicked through but kept coming back to the top page.
Her head raised and her eyes glittered with unshed tears. “Is this real?”
“As real as you and me.” I folded my hands behind my head, no longer able to conceal my grin.
“She can come back to the track?” Honey swallowed an enormous mouthful and let out a whoop. “You, sir, are a god.”
“Can’t deny it.”
A blur shot toward me and latched around my neck. “Iloveyousofuckingmuch.”
“Whoa, Princess. Gentle. I love you, too. But be careful with yourself, huh?”
“I thought you said I couldn’t break.” She gave me a good natured grin. But like so many others, it didn’t reach her eyes.
I brushed back a curl the color of her name and brushed my lips over hers. “You won’t, Sunny. You’re unbreakable. It’s the thing I love most about you.”
Her true grin lit up the room as she let out a whoop of her own, high and clear, not a rasp in it.
Then I had to chase the damn minx to my car before she really did wreck it. Not that I minded. She could ruin as many of my vehicles as she wanted as long as she gave me true smiles like that one.
And as long as she didn’t check the glove compartment until we made it into the city for our brunch date.
If I lasted that long.