Chapter 25
Poison
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I want to bring that motherfucker back from hell and kill him all over again. Fucking prick. I’m livid; I never wanted to break someone bone from bone, tearing skin from the flesh, than I did him. He hurt her.
Something felt strange when two minutes had passed, and she didn’t come out. Her stubbornness is the reason I agreed for her to go, and I know she can handle herself, but that doesn’t mean shit to me anymore.
The cold air swarms over my cheeks as I watch her blow a kiss to Mal and walk up to the bus. That’s why I have to do what she’s going to hate me for.
A vibration goes off in my pants. I retrieve my phone, the light is dim, so it doesn’t blind me.
Him: He heard the gunshots. He’s on the verge of fleeing.
Mal makes her way over to me. “I guess the fun happens without me,” she says disappointingly.
Me: Heading up now. Five minutes.
I press on the lock button and slide my phone back into my pocket.
“Anita is leaving.” It feels like shit mixed with acid on my tongue. But I don’t want anything else happening to her, or whatever is going on in her body to worsen.
Take care of her.
It's racking my brain at how many times she's in danger, and I'm clearly the worst candidate for this promise.
Mal huffs, hooking her thumbs into the opening of her vest pocket. “Good luck. You know she isn’t going for that, right?” The incredulous mockery is obvious in her words. I look over her shoulder to see Anita making her way off the bus and then to us. She flinches the moment she puts her hands into her pockets.
My jaw tightens, the invisible knife stabbing into my chest digs deeper from the pain that I'm one hundred percent convinced she’s experiencing.
I glare back at Mal. “Doesn’t matter. She got fucked up in there because some fucker was hiding in a barrel somewhere. I’ll do the same for any of you,” I add in, hoping to make myself feel better about the situation, but it doesn’t. Mal was stabbed last night and she’s here. Does that make me a hypocrite? It’s what I have to do. Not just because of this promise to her brother, but from a leader’s standpoint, I can’t have her out here bruised, hurt, and still in battle.
Mal’s lips purse tight with her brows raised far enough to show the lines on her forehead. “Again. Good luck convincing her.”
I give her a dry look, but she’s right.
Anita finally makes her way to us by that time the trucks are ready to move out along with the bus.
“Don’t leave yet,” I speak into the earpiece looking directly at Anita.
Not wanting to be involved, Mal steps away with a gauche expression playing on her face. “I’m going to go grab Boone so we can head up.” Then, she speeds off toward where Boone sits in his truck.
Anita's brows furrow as she glances at Mal, who walks away, then back at me. I don’t have a poker face, so she can tell what I’m probably thinking from looking at me. I rub the back of my neck, the material of my gloves causing the skin to ache rather than bring some ease to the jitters in my bones and racing heart.
Her chin dips with a look through her thick lashes. “Ronan.”
My stomach clenches at the sound of my name, not in a way like when it’s being moaned.
I release an exasperated sigh. “I need you to leave with Red and his team.”
Her head cocks with disbelief. “What?”
“I don’t think you should come.” I stuff my hands into my pants pocket, my face in a steel state.
Her brows only deepen as she searches my face. “Don’t think, or don’t want me to?”
“I don’t want you to. You’re hurt.”
She scoffs, her head shaking slightly. “Barely. I’ll be fine. I can take a little bruise. I’ve had far worse injuries.”
I point at the injury. “A little? Your ribs can be broken, it’s not a little. You’re fucked up; I can see the wince when you walk.”
She stays quiet, crossing her arms slowly, the look in her dark eyes is viscous.
“Hitch the ride with them, and I’ll be there to make sure Dr. Rio checks you thoroughly.”
“He can check me after . I don’t need you to treat me like a wounded person who can’t walk. I can stand on my own two feet,” she argues, her face twisted in anger.
“Not when you stand and your back gives out before you can draw your gun. You’re leaving.” I go to raise my hand to wave for Red, but she steps closer, pushing it back down before it rises too high. I narrow in on her, and she does the same.
“I would rather not do this in front of your team. I respect you too much to cause a scene. But I’m not going with them. I’m staying with you; I'm finishing this once and for all. I’ve been waiting for this moment for years. You’re not going to take this from me,” she says furiously with requital as she moves away from me with her head held high. “You can force me on that bus or tie me down to that fucking truck, but I will find a way back.” She points to the truck, her head motioning with it.
“That’s not what I want to do. I would never purposely take that away from you,” I say truthfully.
“Then why are you doing this?” Her voice cracks. “The years I have” she catches her breath;the condensation vapors surround her as she glowers at me with fury...and pain. “Years, Ronan. Years of anger and all for what? For me to not finally get the man who killed my brother? Why would you do this?”
I bite my jaw. “I don't want to, but I need to.”
She steps to me, becoming angrier. “Why? I have told you time and time again, I do not need you to protect me, so why do you continue to get in my way when I have done well on my own before you came back into the picture.”
I wince. Her words are like knives stabbing me in the chest. I’ll take her infliction. “I have to.”
Anita's dark eyes blaze. “No, you don’t. Was this your plan all along? To take away the one thing that means more to me than anything?”
More than me? Her words are fucking harsh it's cutting into my wounds. But again, I’ll take it. “That was never my plan, you know me enou—”
“Do I?” she questions with an accusatory gaze.
I blink, heat flaming my face even with the freezing cold. “If there is anything in this world that I would hand to you with my own fucking hands, it would be this. But you can't fight this one with me. Your well-being means so much more.”
That only fills her with more anger. “Why!?”
“I told you.”
“You didn’t. So why!?”
“Anita.” I drag out, running my hand down my face.
“Tell me.”
Then, I snap. “Because I promised your brother!”
Her fury dies fast, and she blinks at me with drawn in brows. I closed my eyes, releasing a scattered breath because I didn't want to bring up Carter, but it's true. I protect her because I care for her...deeply, far more than myself. My promise to Carter is the stamp, the piece that makes me possessive and my need to look out for her even when she doesn't see it.
“What are you talking about?” Her voice is a sharp, deadly croon.
I open my eyes and look back at her. Goosebumps lift on my skin when his words come back to me. “Before Carter died, he made me promise I would look after you.”
Her lips part then closes as if she's searching for the words. She shakes her head, blinking rapidly. “Why didn't you tell me?”
For that, I don't have a solid reason why. Only that maybe if I told her, she’d hate me more or have a bigger reason to blame me for his death. Then things changed between us.
Instead, I say, “I don’t know.”
She huffs, palming her face as her shoulders shake lightly, either from the cold or from what I told her. I reach to touch her hand, but she snaps at me, backing away with a mean glare. “Don't.”
No.
Her chin wobbles as she breathes harder. “Years,” she whispers.
A part of my heart breaks away, and I step toward her still, but she steps back. My chest caves in like a tire crushed it. My jaws tighten for several reasons, because dammit, I just want to touch her, I want to take back what I said about her leaving and hug her instead.
Fuck my life.
“Can you try to understand?” Now that the kids are safe, the shit with Victor becomes irrelevant. I just want her to look at me like before. Not like she hates me all over again.
Her eyes snap to me, but she doesn't say anything. Nothing.
Let me touch you, for fuck’s sake. Instead, I raise my hands to my hips to control myself to explain as best I can.
“Anything can happen, something can be ruptured or worse the abrasion causes internal bleeding. I don’t want that. I don’t.”
My thoughts and fears get the best of me. The image of her on the gurney, not breathing, sends an overwhelming shiver of hopelessness up my spine. The same way I felt when my mother was dead on the living room floor. When Carter was murdered before my eyes. I have to look after her.
I stare directly at her, even when she refuses to look at me. My throat tightens. “I’ll fucking die if anything happens to you.”
This time she catches my gaze, the sick desperation in my eyes, near pleading for her to acknowledge my concern in some way.
Her eyes lower.
“I hope you understand that.”
“I understand,” she clips.
She doesn’t.
Fuck this shit. I go toward her, but she withdraws, walking backwards slowly, disappointment settling in her hazy eyes. My chest clenches painfully.
She says nothing. Red comes around and opens his truck door for her. She gets into his vehicle, situating herself, then looks ahead. Never setting those eyes on me. I know she hates me all over again, and I'm not okay with it, but I have to be.
I stood there until Red drove off, and all I could think about was whether I did the right thing or not.
Time would only tell.