Chapter Fifty-Two
Liv
“Iknow you’re awake, dove.”
A soft whimper escapes me, and my shoulders heave as I let out the cry I’ve been trying to keep hidden. Hearing his voice for the first time sent waves of relief over me, and I’m too raw to hold it back.
“Come here, baby. I can’t move,” he groans as if he were attempting to anyway.
I roll to the edge of the couch and sit up, letting the blanket fall. He looks so broken and fragile… But he’s alive.
Another burst of sadness escapes me, and I can’t contain the tears streaming down my cheeks as I jump up and bury my face in his neck. “I was so scared,” I cry, hiccuping against the valley of his collarbone.
“I’m sorry, baby. I’m so sorry,” he murmurs against my head. His lips brush my forehead, and I lean into his kiss, needing to feel him.
His bandaged arms come around me, and he holds me gently, but the weight of it is heavy after almost losing him.
“Are you okay?” He asks, and for the first time in days, I smile.
“You’re the one in a hospital bed. I should be asking you that.”
“Olive. Are you okay? Did he hurt you?” He asks again, ignoring my remark as his eyes search my neck.
“He didn’t hurt me. Seeing what he did to you nearly killed me… But he didn’t hurt me.” A regular large bandage is all the evidence I have of what happened. On the outside at least.
Jensen’s entire body relaxes as he takes a breath, wincing slightly as he does.
“Is he?”
“He’s dead,” I answer definitively.
“Good.”
A quick knock at the door is our only warning before Malec walks in, dressed in his uniform and with an exhausted expression on his face.
“Glad to see you’re awake,” he says, walking over to the bed and glancing at Jensen’s bandages. “Did Liv fill you in on the investigation?”
“Not yet,” I answer. “He just woke up.”
“What investigation?” Jensen says, trying to track our conversation. I can tell he’s still not up for all of this.
“I have to do a death investigation for Noah. It’s required–”
“I did it,” he says suddenly. “I killed him.”
“Jensen…” I start, but he keeps going.
“I stabbed him to get him off of Olive.”
I rest my hand over his heart to get his attention as Malec smirks. “Jackson already knows what happened, Jensen. We’re not in trouble. I’m not in trouble. I don’t need you to take the fall for me.”
“It was self-defense. I know that. I was only telling you that an investigation is required, not because I’m assigning guilt.”
“Oh,” he sighs, letting his head fall back to his pillow again.
“I need your side of things for my report, but it can wait. I just wanted to come in and check on you. I’ll let everyone else know you’re awake and just as thick in the skull as before.”
I conceal my laugh, but not well enough. Leave it to Jensen to take the fall for a crime just to protect me… Even when it’s totally unnecessary.
“Malec,” Jensen says suddenly as Jackson goes to leave. “Thanks for getting there, and being there with her when… When I could have…” He clears his throat. “Thank you for not letting her be alone.”
“That’s what family does, Hayes. I only wish I had gotten there sooner.” He tips his head and leaves us, letting silence fill the room.
I don’t have a chance to say anything, though, before a nurse and a doctor walk in to check on him. I stand back, watching them poke and prod at him, and I flinch every time he winces.
“The pain killers will need to be alternated every six hours, but you should be able to go home tomorrow,” the doctor says, and the room empties once more.
I can’t move. Jensen’s looking at me tenderly from across the room, but I can’t get my limbs to cooperate. I almost lost him…
“Come lay with me, dove.”
I shake my head. “You’re hurt.”
“I don’t give a fuck. Come here.”
His insistence has my feet moving, but I stop at the side of my bed, not going any further.
“I need to have you right here.” He pats the sliver of mattress beside him. “Nothing you can do will hurt me more than what already happened.”
My face tugs down in a frown, and he taps the bed again. This time, I take my time, gingerly crawling in beside him. If I hurt him, he doesn’t say. He doesn’t make a noise or flinch at all as I ease down on my side next to him.
“Head right here.” He uses his chin to point to his chest by the inside of his shoulder. “That’s perfect,” he says with more grit in his tone than I would like, but if he wants me beside him, then I’ll stay right here.
“Malec found Noah’s car. And his apartment. He wasn’t bluffing… He had photos of me all the way back from undergrad and beyond. He had photos of you. Mr. Arkett. Elliot. And some of my random dates in college.”
“I don’t even remember him from high school,” Hayes utters.
“He had journals filled with rants about Mr. Arkett preying on me. He wrote that he wished he had intervened when you had, so he could have been the hero… He was delusional, but I guess I blacked him out completely.”
“Did the doctors check you out? I remember him saying something about drugs…”
“They ran an extensive blood panel, and they think it was adderall and clozapine that he was slipping in my tea. A stimulant and an antipsychotic drug that was likely making me tachycardic. The doctor said I’ll be fine once it’s completely out of my system.
I won’t have any more dizziness or fainting. ”
“Thank God, you’re safe.” He kisses my forehead.
“If you hadn’t grabbed him, he would have taken me, I don’t know where…” I whisper into his chest. “He nearly had me.”
“If that was my last dying action, I’d do it a thousand times over. I wish I killed him… So you didn’t have to.”
“After I saw what he did to you, I was glad I was the one to do it,” I admit sincerely. “I would do it a thousand times over if it means saving you.”
“I don’t deserve you, Olive. Never have, never will.”
“Malec was right. Just as thick-skulled as ever.” I glance up at him, careful not to jostle us. “What did your mom mean about your dad?”
“Ah. So you were awake for that part?”
“I was ripped from sleep as soon as I heard your voice,” I whisper. I thought it was a dream at first.
“My dad was awful. Can we just leave it at that?”
“No.”
He sighs, but there is humor behind it until he starts to speak.
“My dad liked to use the law to his advantage. Before I met you, he blackmailed my karate teacher into financial ruin. He smeared his name until he couldn’t face his family, and he killed himself because he couldn’t escape my dad’s evilness. ”
“Why didn’t you ever tell me?”
“I couldn’t stand the thought of filling your mind with such dark thoughts. You were so full of light,” he says, tracing his thumb over my forehead. “You were good when nothing in my life was.”
“Jensen…” I start, but he cuts me off.
“Meeting you was the only thing that kept me alive back then. And, your friendship was the only reason I kept living. So, when my dad threatened to ruin your life, I kept my mouth shut.”
“What?”
“He knew I hurt Arkett because I was protecting you… He didn’t care. He wanted everyone to see me as a monster, and that didn’t bother me. I was way past caring about my father’s opinion. But then he brought you into it.
“He said if I told the judge I was defending you, he was going to claim that you were an accomplice. He was going to make your life a living hell while I was behind bars. I would have been helpless to stop it,” he admits softly, staring at the ceiling.
“You didn’t fight for lesser charges because you wanted to protect me? After you had already protected me so many times?”
He shrugs like it was a no-brainer for him.
“If I hadn’t stood up and said something to the judge, you would have gone to prison for 20 years!”
He nods against my head.
“You stupid, selfless man. I wouldn’t have wanted you to do that.”
“I know. But you were my whole world, and I couldn’t leave you at the mercy of my father.”
The choices he made changed the course of both of our lives… But I finally understand that it was never a choice at all.
He did all that he could to keep me safe, so I could keep living.
I lost him because he loved me. He sacrificed himself for me.
“I love you, Jensen. I’m going to prove to you how much for the rest of our lives.”
“I’ll never have enough time to prove how much I love you, Olive. But I’ll show you every damn day how grateful I am to have you.”