Love so raw it’s still bleeding
Chapter twenty-six
Love so raw it’s still bleeding
Penny
Light presses against my eyelids before anything else does. Bright and sterile and wrong. There’s a sound somewhere nearby. A steady, rhythmic beep.
My throat feels like I swallowed ash, every breath dragging sharp and shallow, and when I try to move, there’s a tug at my hand, something taped to my skin.
I force my eyes open, and the ceiling swims for a second before it steadies. There’s something under my nose, and it’s feeding cool oxygen down the back of my throat, making my lungs sting.
Memories start flashing, but they’re broken and in pieces. I groan at the pain of thinking too hard, but the waves of images start swimming into view.
Stacey’s face. Remi. Elle.
Then heat and smoke and rope biting into my wrists. The sound of something cracking overhead.
Evan shouting my name.
My heart lurches so hard the monitor starts beeping quickly and urgently, and I try to sit up, reaching out for the tape on my arm. Pain tears through my ribs hard enough to force a broken sound out of me as the room tilts sideways, and hands are suddenly there, guiding me back against the bed.
“Whoa, hey—easy.” Evan’s voice swims into my ears. “Take it easy, Pen.”
I turn my head, and he’s right there, hair damp like he’s showered in a hurry, and a faint shadow along his jaw. Close enough that his knee is pressed against the bed rail.
His eyes are bloodshot, shadows bruised deep beneath them. His hands flex once on the edge of my bed rail, and I catch the split skin across his knuckles.
Relief hits me so hard my eyes sting unexpectedly.
The nurse says something softly beside us before slipping out of the room, but neither of us respond to her.
“Hey, baby,” he says roughly. He looks over me quickly, eyes catching on the oxygen tubing, the monitor beside the bed, my bandaged wrists. “You okay?”
The question would almost be funny if he didn’t look so fucking wrecked, but my throat tightens anyway at the sound of his voice. My vision blurs suddenly, and I don’t even realize I’m crying until Evan’s hand reaches out.
“Hey,” he says softly, thumb brushing beneath one eye.
I catch his wrist before he can pull his hand away again, holding onto him harder than I mean to. For a second, neither of us moves, and his eyes lock on mine, bloodshot and glassy. He exhales shakily, then leans forward like the distance between us has finally become too much.
The kiss lands soft and unsteady against my mouth, and his hand slides carefully against the side of my face. I can feel the slight tremor in his fingers as he kisses me again, forehead falling briefly against mine afterward to breathe me in.
“Fuck, Penny,” he breathes, pulling back.
“Elle?” I swallow against the burn in my throat. “Is she—Remi had her—”
“She’s okay.” His hand closes around mine carefully. “She’s safe. Remi had her the whole time. She’s with Herb and Leah now.”
Some of the panic eases then, just enough for everything else to start creeping back in around the edges. Getting tied up, the smoke. Evan carrying me.
“I thought they had her,” I whisper, which turns into a cough. “I wasn’t going to let them take her.”
He frowns, eyes moving over my face. “That’s why you were at the tower? You thought someone took Elle?”
I nod weakly. “Stacey told me she had her. And said if we wanted her back, I needed to come alone, with cash.”
Evan’s expression drains slowly of what little softness was left in it.
“She told you she had Elle?”
“I thought—” My breath catches painfully. “Remi wasn’t answering, and neither were you, and I just…” Tears sting unexpectedly. “I couldn’t risk being wrong.”
His hand tightens around the bed rail, the knuckles going pale around the split skin. He looks down and breathes through his nose, trying to keep something violent behind his teeth.
“She used you,” he says roughly. His eyes lift back to mine, the anger pushed back. “Who was with her?”
The question catches me off guard, and I blink at him. “What?”
“The bruises on your arms, baby—your wrists were tied.” His jaw flexes hard, then his voice drops low. “Who the fuck did this to you?”
A shiver crawls over me despite the warmth of the hospital room.
“There was a man there,” I whisper, and Evan goes completely still. “Something about money… Stacey owed him a lot.”
My breathing starts speeding up again as pieces force themselves back together, and the monitor starts climbing with my pulse.
“I gave her what I had, then tried to leave after I realized Elle wasn’t there, but he grabbed me.” My voice shakes harder now. “I fought him, and then—”
My eyes flick instinctively toward my bandaged wrists, and Evan follows the movement. Something cold moves across his face so fast it makes my stomach drop.
“Did he do anything else?” he asks.
The memory crashes back hard enough to make me flinch. Fingers twisting into my scalp and dragging me. Concrete digging into my knees and rope burning into skin.
“I think he was trying to scare me,” I say shakily. “He said he’d come back for me later, but—”
“They left you there.”
I look at him and realize he’s seeing it now. Me tied up on that chair while the tower filled with smoke around me.
“You came back for me.”
My voice comes out small, and something shifts in him. Relief and exhaustion and something deeper, cracking through the tight control he’s been holding onto since I opened my eyes.
His hand slides over mine on the blanket before he can stop himself, fingers closing tightly enough that I feel the slight tremor in them.
“Yeah,” he says. “I did.”
His thumb drags against my knuckles once, rough and careful at the same time, and when he looks at me again, there’s something wrecked in his expression.
“You scared the fucking shit out of me.”
His words crack slightly on the way out, quieter than everything else he’s said since I woke up.
“Sorry,” I whisper.
Evan’s expression crumbles, as though he hates hearing that word from me, and his hand moves up to delicately grip my chin.
“No, baby. Don’t.” His voice roughens. “Never apologize for protecting Elle.”
The air leaves me in a shaky rush that hurts more than breathing in.
“She’s definitely okay?” I need to hear him say it again.
“She’s okay.” His thumb moves against my knuckles. “She didn’t see anything. She’s just… she’s shaken.”
“And Remi?” I whisper.
Something in his face shifts. It’s small, but I see it. A tightening at the edge of his mouth, and his fingers press a little firmer around mine before he answers.
“She’s with her family.”
Family.
My brain moves slower than it should, and I swallow against the burn in my throat.
“You mean with Colt and the kids?”
The room suddenly feels very quiet, and Evan’s gaze drops to our joined hands. He inhales once, steadying himself, and when he looks back at me, I realize his eyes are more red-rimmed than what I remember.
“He didn’t make it.”
He says it gently, like he’s trying to avoid any distress for me, but the monitor spikes again anyway, a sharp staccato that sounds wrong in the stillness. My lungs forget what they’re meant to do, and for a second, I can’t pull air in at all.
He didn’t make it.
I see Colt leaning back in a chair at the station, bantering with Evan while Beck pretends to ignore them. I see him on the ice. At Flora’s. With his kids. So in love every time he looked at Remi. I hear him teasing Mason, his laugh bright and alive.
Alive.
That word isn’t supposed to sit beside dead, not for Colt Lawson.
Evan shifts closer when my breath stutters, and his other hand comes up, brushing lightly along my hairline, careful of the tape and the lines and whatever else they’ve attached to me.
“I’m here,” he says.
My eyes burn, but the tears don’t come the way I expect them to. It’s quieter than that, a hollowing out somewhere deep inside that has nothing to do with smoke.
“What happened?”
“The roof collapsed,” he says, not looking away. “Colt was venting when it went.”
“And you were outside,” I say.
“Just,” he whispers .
I remember his arms around me, the way the world narrowed to his chest, and the sound of his breathing in my ear. I remember the heat licking at my back and the way his hands wouldn’t let me go.
My eyes drift back to his hand now, where it’s still wrapped around mine. The split across his knuckles looks worse now that I’m fully awake. Red and swollen across the skin like whatever he hit fought back.
“What happened to your hand?”
Evan glances down briefly, like he forgot it was there at all. “Nothing.”
I study him for another second. “You hit something.”
For a moment, I think he’s not going to answer me at all, but then he exhales sharply through his nose and looks away toward the darkened hospital window.
“The wall outside the waiting room.”
My whole body aches painfully.
“Evan—”
“I needed five fucking minutes,” he says roughly, cutting me off before dragging a hand back through his hair. “Just five minutes where nobody was asking me questions or telling me to sit down or talking about r-reports.” His voice cracks slightly on the last word.
Reports.
Because even after everything, there were still reports. Statements and procedures to follow. Radios and investigators and paperwork while Colt’s body was still inside that tower.
The thought makes nausea roll through me. Evan must see it on my face because he moves closer immediately, his hand tightening around mine again.
“Hey.” His thumb brushes across my knuckles. “Breathe for me.”
I try, and the oxygen burns cold in my nose as I pull in a shaky breath.
“You should hate me,” I whisper before I can stop myself, and he freezes.
“What?”
“If I hadn’t gone there—”
“Don’t.”
Tears sting my eyes again. “Colt would still—”
“No.” He leans forward so fast the bed rail rattles softly beneath his arm. “You don’t get to do that to yourself.”
“But—”
“No, Penny.” His voice breaks harder now. “You thought somebody had my little girl. You went there because you thought Elle was in danger,” he says, staring directly at me. “That’s it. End of fucking story.”