Chapter 26
twenty-six
ISABELLE
I woke when the feeling of cold air hit my skin. I opened my eyes blearily. My top was down. When had that happened? It was freezing. Was I outside?
“Fuck, there’s no fucking room in here,” someone said, and the voice made me panic. Who was here with me? I didn’t know that voice.
Slowly, I became aware of my surroundings. I was lying back in a reclined car seat. Someone was kneeling over me.
Grant. Grant Elwick. He was pawing at my chest.
“No!” I pushed ineffectually at him. My head was flopping all over the place when I tried to turn it, and my hands had no strength in them. Then, he was gone.
I blinked, confused. He’d been right there, hadn’t he? I turned my head to the side and saw shadows outside, cast against a wall. We were parked on some small street, up against a wall. A tall shadow was kicking someone on the ground. Again and again.
Vomit rushed up my throat, and I only just turned my head to bring it up instead of choking, spewing it down the side of the seat.
Then, someone was leaning into the car. I flinched, putting my hands up to protect myself, even though I had no strength.
“It’s ok, Goldilocks. It’s ok now. I’m here,” a quiet, deep murmur sounded.
A sob escaped me. Relief hit me hard.
“Cole?” I managed to get out.
He was leaning over me, drawing the ripped bodice of my dress gently closed.
“Yes, Issy?”
“I feel sick,” I murmured, fighting waves of nausea.
“I’ve got you,” he muttered and reached in and lifted me.
I should have been heavy, right? It shouldn’t have seemed so easy.
He lifted me out of the car like I weighed nothing at all, and lowered us both to the ground outside.
I looked over and saw Grant, passed out, his face bloodied, right beside us.
“Be sick, baby, if you need to be,” Cole said as he gently urged me onto my knees. He’d put his leather jacket under my bare skin. He held my hand with one of his, and my hair back with the other.
I finally stopped battling the urge to vomit and let it come. It felt like three days of food came up, I was bent over the dirty gravel for so long. It was humiliating, humbling, and pure misery to be seen like this… and yet, I gripped his hand for dear life, and he gripped mine right back.
I hated for him to see me like this. But he was also the only person I would want to see me like this.
I collapsed against him when I finally finished. Cole wiped my mouth gently with his sleeve.
“All done?”
I nodded, exhausted now.
I looked down at Grant’s inert body. “Did you kill him?”
“Not yet. He’s on thin ice, though, I’ll tell you that. Let’s get you home.”
He shifted, and I clung to him as he stood.
“I should go,” I mumbled, stumbling about like a newborn foal. My head felt marginally clearer, but the drug was still obviously in my system.
“I don’t want to trouble you,” I muttered, and was rewarded with Cole’s dry chuckle.
“It’s too late for that, baby. You trouble me, and I don’t see that changing anytime soon.”
I blinked up at his face. “I’m sorry,” I whispered.
He pushed my hair off my sweating forehead. “Are you?”
I nodded. “I’m sorry for all of it.”
“I’m not,” he said after a moment. “Come on, let’s get you to campus.”
“How?” I wondered. Would I even be able to hold onto him on the bike?
“This asshole is lending us his ride,” Cole said shortly.
I didn’t know when I closed my eyes again. Sometime after telling Cole my room number. Next thing, I was in bed, and he was standing at my pinboard, staring at photos of himself.
I tried to push myself up in bed and failed, but the noise made him turn around.
I’d been right. He looked far too ridiculously hot and oversized in this tiny dorm room.
“I’ve had stalkers before,” Cole murmured, “but this kind of organization is next level. I’m impressed.”
“I wasn’t stalking you… or, if I was, I guess I was pretty successful at it.”
He moved closer and sank onto the edge of my bed, rolling me toward him.
“Successful how?” he wondered.
I breathed out, a long, content exhale. He was here, near me, and I felt better than I had in weeks, despite also feeling like complete shit.
“I had you, didn’t I?” I managed to get out. God, nothing was coming out right.
Cole gave a bark of laughter at my phrasing.
He reached out and wiped something from the corner of my mouth without flinching. Good god, if it was vomit, I’d die.
“I suppose you did, Goldilocks, and I had you. The real question is what we’re going to do about that now.”
I swallowed a burst of emotion. “You told me to stay away from you. You ended it.”
“Ended it,” he repeated. “You told me there was nothing to end, remember? At the diner? You weren’t into it, or me…”
I snorted. “God, you’re gullible. A guy like you really shouldn’t be so gullible.”
He studied my face, nodding to himself. “I really shouldn’t, should I?”
I shook my head, the dark abyss of sleep calling my name. I needed to close my eyes again, just for a second. I was home, and safe. Cole was here. My nervous system was ready to shut down and rest.
“Kiki told me what a ladies’ man you are, and how she was finally getting her chance with you…” I trailed off. It felt good to get that little poisoned thorn out of my throat, where it had been caught since the night at the diner.
“Hmm, is that right? Maybe I’m not the only one who’s gullible around here. There is no me and Kiki. There is no me and anyone.”
I smiled through my delirium. “Except me.”
I let my eyes drift closed, promising myself it would only be for a moment. Cole was here and I wanted to talk to him. I needed to explain myself properly. I needed him to hear it.
His voice rumbled near my ear, words so quiet I wasn’t sure they were real.
“Except you.”
I needed to hold onto those words, and the fact that I wasn’t alone in the way I was feeling. He’d felt it too. He’d felt it. I lost track of how much time had passed as I rolled that whisper around in my head, but when I opened my eyes again, I was alone.
He was gone.