42. Ellie
Ellie
The roof is the only place in this house without a camera, which is exactly why I'm up here.
I figured that out my second week here. I've climbed up here a handful of times ever since, always at night, usually when my brain won't stop chewing on itself.
Tonight is one of those nights.
The trees around the property form a single black mass in the shadows, making it hard to count them, but I can't focus anyway.
My mother forged that letter.
My mother ruined my life.
And it's not even like it was a split-second decision she regretted. That took time and planning. She had to sit down day after day and practice my handwriting until she got every detail perfect, because she knew they'd notice otherwise.
I think that's the part that hurts the most.
She fucking knew how much they mean to me, how much they've always meant. She saw the bond between us form and grow over the years, and she knew they weren't just some assholes who'd give up and move on that easily.
Which is why she took the time to make her forgery so perfect, and more than that, she knew each one of them well enough to deliver the exact blow in that letter that would cut the deepest. One they'd each believe because it was a version of me that already haunted their worst fears.
But why?
That's the part I can't figure out, even now, after ruminating endlessly on it ever since I found that lipstick in her drawer. To wall me off from the only four people who ever made me feel like a person? Because if I had them, I might have left her behind in that house with him?
I never would have. I never could. My dad already abandoned her, and I promised myself that no matter where I went to school, no matter what happened, I would never abandon her like he did to us both. That I would never be like my father.
And she did this to me anyway.
And the worst part, the part that's keeping me up here counting trees at midnight, is that I might never even get to tell her I know.
She's in a coma in the ICU with a machine breathing for her, and there's a real, ugly chance she never comes back up out of the darkness.
If that happens, the last conversation we'll ever have had was a lie.
Everything since that letter has been a fucking lie.
"Thought you might be up here."
I knew it was Kade before he spoke, somehow. I know all the subtle differences in their footsteps, their breathing patterns. Some things don't change no matter how much the person does, like a fingerprint.
He eases himself through the window with more carefulness than I've ever seen Kade show, but not enough for the fact that he was recently wired together and should technically still be in the hospital.
He doesn't even have the sling on anymore, because he's a stubborn prick.
My stubborn prick. He lowers himself beside me on the shingles with a hiss he tries and fails to swallow.
"You shouldn't be climbing out windows," I say.
"Neither should you."
"I'm not the one who had surgery yesterday."
"Forty hours ago." He corrects it like the extra hours prove anything. "I'm basically healed."
"Kade, you're more thread than skin at this point. I don't even know how you're walking, especially since you never picked up that script for the pain meds."
The corner of his mouth that isn't split tugs upward. "Can't risk you relapsing on me."
I do a double-take. "You think I'd steal your fucking pain meds?"
His expression softens. "Of course not," he mutters, shifting until he finds a comfortable position. "But you just got clean. I don't want you getting triggered back into that headspace by having those things around. Besides, I need to keep a clear head as long as Todd's alive."
"You can't just not take your meds because I'm a fucking addict," I insist, panic rising at the thought that he's in pain because of me, however indirectly. "I can go somewhere else. Tank can stay with me at a hotel or something."
"No way in hell am I letting you out of my sight while that asshole's still out there, Princess." He drapes an arm around my shoulders, pulling me against his side with less care for his broken ribs than I'd like. "I'm fine. I handle pain well. But it's cute you're fussing over me."
"I'm not fussing."
He kisses the top of my head. "Sure."
"Did you see me come up here?" I ask, trying to be annoyed when all I can really feel is grateful that he's still with us. "On the cameras?"
"No." He pauses. "Just a feeling."
I huff. "You and Tank and your sixth senses."
"Runs in the family." He shifts, wincing, and settles with me still tucked against him.
Whenever I try to pull away, afraid I'm hurting him, he gives me a tug back into place.
"I'm here if you want to talk about it. Whatever it is.
" He flicks his lighter open and closed with his other hand and the old rhythm is comforting.
"Or if you don't, we can sit here and not talk just as easily. "
I purse my lips, trying to figure out if letting the words out takes more energy than keeping them in.
"I keep thinking I might never get to tell her," I say finally, because stamping everything down is how I got into half this mess.
I've been alone for four years and I'm not anymore, and that has to count for something.
Especially after my mom and Todd tried to take it away from me.
"About the letter. I'm so angry at her I can't see straight, and I'm so scared she's going to die before I can be angry at her to her face.
I'm hurt and I'm furious and I'm so fucking scared, Kade. "
Kade is quiet for a moment. The lighter stills.
"My aunt died while I was inside," he says softly.
"Second stint in juvie, not long after you moved.
I hated her. Genuinely, all the way down to her rotten marrow.
She only kept Tank because she knew I'd make her life a living hell if she didn't, and she never let either of us forget it.
" He turns the lighter over in his fingers.
"And I still cried when they told me. Pissed me off for years.
You can hate someone and still have a hole where they used to be.
Can't really be hurt by someone you never loved in the first place, you know? "
I look at him. The bruising is already starting to change color as it heals, but the one eye is still puffed shut.
He looks like he's been through hell, but I think whatever he and Tank went through in that trailer was probably worse than anything Todd's guards did to him. Same with Jinx and his brother.
Same with me and Todd.
I hid my bruises because I knew they'd kill anyone who touched me and end up in juvie again, or worse.
But my boys hid theirs for different reasons.
The fact that Kade is willing to talk about his family at all is a shock.
I don't even think he and Tank talk about it, and they lived through most of it together.
"When did you get wise?" I ask softly.
He snorts. "Compounded concussions. Must've knocked something loose."
I laugh for real this time, and it lets a little of the pressure out. Before I've decided to, I lean in and kiss him.
He goes still under it, then his good hand comes up to my jaw, and he kisses me back slowly at first. He's careful of his split lip, but then he gets a taste and his tongue enters my mouth and we're making out like college freshmen at a party.
I curl my fingers into the front of his shirt and pull, climbing halfway into his lap before my brain catches up to my body.
He inhales sharply through his teeth.
I freeze. "Shit, your ribs. I'm sorry."
"Ellie." His hand finds my hip and grips, holding me there. His good eye is dark and steady on mine. "It's gonna take a hell of a lot more than a few broken ribs to kill me. And a hell of a lot more than that to keep me from wanting to fuck you on this roof."
Heat pools between my thighs, sudden and stupid. "You're insane."
"You signed up for it. Twice." His thumb drags under the hem of my shirt. "But if it makes you feel better, we can pretend you're my nurse."
"You're going to milk that, aren't you?"
"Every chance I get."
So I'm careful.
I'm as careful as I have ever been with anything in my life, easing him back against the slope of the roof, straddling his hips without putting any weight on his chest or ribs, my hands braced on either side of his head instead.
He watches me the whole time like he can't believe this is happening, can't even believe it's real, and I watch the bruises so I don't hurt him.
Somehow, we figure out how to do this without making his injuries worse.
His shirt comes up but not off, since that would be too much movement, and I trace the unbruised parts of him with my mouth.
The alchemical fire symbol inked on his throat down to the black-and-white smoke on his shoulder and bicep.
His good hand slides under my skirt, finding me already wet when he pushes aside my panties, and he makes a low, obscene sound that's nearly a purr.
"Wet for me already, Princess?"
"Shut up," I breathe, and ride his fingers until my thighs shake. He has two inside me now, and presses his thumb up underneath my clit, knowing the exact right spot to make me groan. I don't even know how he's doing that. I guess all that lighter flicking has to pay off somehow.
I come with my nails digging into his shoulders, and I only realize how hard I'm gripping when he grunts.
"Oh shit!" I gasp, still shaking through my orgasm.
"Don't," he snarls, fucking me harder with his fingers. "Don't you dare stop digging those pretty little claws in, Princess. If I'm gonna be in pain, I at least want it to be from my girl losing her mind as she comes on my fingers."
His words set off a trail of little explosions on the route from my ears to my cunt, and I ride his hand until I can't breathe. He finally pulls his fingers out only to grab me by both hips and lift me up with far more force than a man who's just had surgery should be capable of.
When I sink down onto him it's rough, both of us hissing for completely different reasons, and I hold there a second, watching his face. "Kade, are you sure?"
"Move, Princess." His voice sounds strained, equal parts demand and plea. Typical Kade, really. "I'm fine."
That's one command I feel like obeying.
But I move carefully in spite of his insistence. Kade would absolutely be stubborn enough to fuck his way back into the hospital.
His hand finds the back of my neck and pulls me down until our foreheads touch, and every exhale from his mouth ghosts across my lips.
The angle changes when I lean forward, and we both feel it.
His hips buck up involuntarily and I clench around him, a sound escaping me that I'd be embarrassed about if I could think straight.
"There," I gasp. "Right fucking there, Kade."
He thrusts up into me and I roll my hips in a tight circle instead of lifting, grinding down on him so his pelvic bone hits my clit with every pass.
His fingers dig into the meat of my thigh nearly as hard as my nails dug into his shoulder, and I want them to dig in even harder so I can see the marks tomorrow.
The night air hits the sweat on my spine and I shiver, but his body underneath me is a furnace. Always has been. Kade runs hot in every sense of the word.
I brace one hand on his chest, careful of the left side where the ribs are worst, and use the leverage to ride him deeper. His head tips back against the shingles and his throat works, tendons standing out. I lean down and drag my tongue along one of them, tasting salt.
"Fuck, Ellie—"
"Does it hurt?"
"Yes." His eye finds mine and his hand wraps around my throat, holding there but not squeezing. "Don't stop."
I don't. I pick up the pace just enough that the feeling builds and builds, his cock hitting my spot on every upward thrust. My vision swims as his thumb finds my clit again, pressing and circling ruthlessly, just like he does everything else.
The second orgasm builds slower and hotter than the first.
"Come for me, Princess," he grits out. "I want to feel that pretty pussy gripping the life out of my cock like you know who it belongs to."
"You," I gasp, riding harder, my vision graying around the edges. "All of you."
"That's right," he purrs against my ear, taking my earlobe between his teeth and scraping. "Now come for me."
I shatter with my mouth against his neck, muffling the sound into his skin while my whole body locks up and pulses around him. He follows three strokes later, his grip on my hip going vice-tight as he spills inside me with a groan.
We stay like that, tangled and breathing hard, the roof tiles rough under my knees. His heartbeat hammers against my palm where it rests on his chest.
"You definitely popped a stitch," I whisper.
"Worth it."
"You're bleeding," I say, looking at one of the stitches on his arm that's not holding as well as it should be.
"It's my roof, I'll bleed on it if I want to."
"It's our roof," I correct, and feel him laugh, the smallest tremor he can manage without hurting himself.
My phone buzzes against the shingles where I dropped it and the magic bubble we're in pops.
I almost ignore it. Almost let it go to voicemail and stay in this one perfect pocket of dark with him. But the number on the screen is the hospital's, and my hands and lips go cold before I've even answered.
I sit up, still impaled on his cock, and fumble the phone to my ear. "This is Ellie."
Kade's hand goes still on my back and the blissed-out satisfaction drains from his face.
"Ms. Riggs." Whoever is on the other end of the line gives a pause that lasts a thousand years. "Your mother is awake."