Chapter 8 Creed #2
“I hate that he’s dead,” I grit out, my voice low and barely controlled.
I look up to where Asher sits as he gives me a barely perceptible nod, telling me we’re thinking the same thing.
Punishment. Torture. Those opportunities are now gone.
Guy is dead and now we have no choice but to move on and move forward.
“I wish he were alive and lucid enough to feel every ounce of pain that I wish I could inflict upon him. I wanted him to fucking hurt. I’d want his eyes wide open so he could see the horns and forked tongue of the devil greeting him, forced to watch as his worthless heart is carved from his fucking chest.”
I don’t have a lot of control over the words that are tumbling from my mouth, but they don’t feel wrong.
Running my hands over Riley and Collins’ matted hair, my conviction solidifies.
I don’t regret killing him. Never fucking will.
I will relish every damn day that I do get to wake up to my two great loves safely in my arms, knowing that he will be the one rotting in a hole in the ground in some unmarked location.
We will grow stronger while he turns to dust.
“I know that feeling too well, St. James,” Lachlan says after a pause, his accent thick and definitive, rough due to lack of sleep. “I’ll brief Callan; we’ll cover any trail Guy may have left behind, tying up any loose ends where he is concerned.”
“He’s some kind of higher-up in his community. A goddamned wolf in sheep’s clothing. How the fuck did he even manage to hide this from everyone?” I grumble more to myself. Looking to Asher I ask, “How are we going to cover this up?!”
“We’ll take care of it, Creed.”
“How?”
At the same time, Asher and Lachlan answer, “Money talks.”
It’s the same thing they told me weeks ago, only this time, Asher tacks on under his breath, “And so do nine-millimeter bullets.”
Jesus fucking Christ.
But I kind of like that plan better, actually.
“We’ll take care of it,” Lachlan reiterates. “Just focus on the healing of Collins and Riley. We will ensure that not even his worst demons can touch her,” he says, ignoring Asher’s comment.
He hangs up and the silence that fills the cab feels too heavy. The medic gives me a weird look that has my brows furrowing.
“What?” I ask when he opens and closes his mouth for the third time without so much a word.
“Apart from her soiled clothing, she’s…clean,” he says with an odd edge to his voice while changing out her saline bag.
He checks both of their vitals again, before pulling a bag of what I’m certain is blood from a cooler.
It’s confirmed when I spot ‘O Negative’ highlighted in large, bold text on the front of the bag.
“She’s clean?” I ask, confused. I watch as he suspends the bag over Riley’s head and starts to sanitize and prep the tubes and lines.
“Yes,” he confirms, as he begins to check them over again, gloved hands probing Riley’s arm to find a vein. Riley doesn’t react when the needle pierces his skin, and I know this guy is just doing his job, but I’m about to snap both of his wrists when my dad barks my name.
I turn my eyes to him, and he gives me a warning glare in the rearview mirror. I want to argue, but this incessant little voice in the back of my mind is telling me that it’s not justified and to just let him finish his fucking job.
The medic clears his throat, looking more nervous than before and Jett fucking chuckles over the fact that I’m getting in trouble with my father. Asshole.
“I just find it odd that these two were kept in the same room, but her wounds were kept relatively clean. Everything about them. There are no agitated, jagged cuts, no signs of struggle, and the…cuts themselves were kept relatively clean. Apart from her most recent injuries, that is.” He says, his eyes darting to her shoulder that’s now wrapped in gauze.
I glance at Riley, knowing exactly how filthy he was when I found him. I have a feeling that I know exactly why Collins was kept cleaner, but I won't voice it. I refuse to clarify because I can’t think about what they went through right now.
The rest of the car ride is silent. Jett watches Collins, holding the blood bags while I take my time slowly cleaning Riley’s exposed skin with disposable cleansing cloths in between the medic taking his vitals.
Asher announces that we’re almost there, so I take a moment to lean over towards Collins and brush a soft kiss to her temple.
Bringing my lips close to her ear, I whisper, “I’m here, and I am so, so sorry, Stardust.”
Pushing myself in the opposite direction, I press a matching kiss to Riley’s much cooler, clammy forehead.
I speak to him soft enough that only he can hear it, but the words are meant for both him and Collins.
A promise. “I vow I will spend the rest of my life earning both of your forgiveness…even if I don’t deserve it. ”
As if giving me an answer in a truly horrific fashion, Riley’s breaths shallow out and quicken, his body taking on a sickly ashen color, and the tiny monitor clipped to his stretcher starts to sound off some sort of warning.
“What’s wrong?” I snap. “What’s happening to him?”
I’m shoved out of the way by the medic, who immediately starts looking Riley over. “What is happening?” I repeat, getting pissed at this asshole for not answering me sooner.
“Possible septic shock, we’ll need a blood culture to know for sure, but with signs of wound infection, blood loss, and his temperature was all over the place, this seems to be the case.
We need to get an antibiotic running STAT.
” He pulls out his phone to message someone when the chaos just kicks itself up to eleven in the tiny shared space of this SUV.
Asher, Jett, and I share a look of mortification when Collins awakens from her comatose, dissociative state and starts to thrash against her restraints.
Her eyes are wild but unseeing, darting around frantically.
Her cracked, chapped lips are forming the words no, no, no, but the sound is no more than a broken whisper.
I’m fucking scared and I don’t know where to look as the medic does his best to stabilize Riley while Asher tries to calm his sister.
He must be failing spectacularly because I look over in time to see her crane her neck and sink her teeth into his wrist in blind self-defense.
He hisses but refrains from yelling out.
In her mind, it’s not her brother before her, he’s nothing more than an assailant, and she’s protecting herself the only way she can.
I sit, shocked and dumbfounded, watching it all unfold. For the first time today, I’m at a loss on what the fuck to do. What to say.
“You need to help Mr. Sutton, hold her down so I can sedate her,” the medic commands. I guess I spoke out loud. “We can’t risk her reopening any old wounds.”
“Hold her down? I’m not going to fucking hold her down.” Not after the way we found her.
“Creed,” Asher calls over the chaos, and my eyes find his.
“Like this.” He demonstrates by moving toward her shoulders and pressing his hands down gently, only using the heel of his palm, keeping his fingers open and pulled back.
“This way you’re not physically grabbing her, only assisting in keeping her steady so she doesn’t hurt herself.
” His voice wobbles with unchecked emotions as he tries to explain.
Nodding, I do as he says, but it guts me when Collins’ unseeing eyes lock onto my face, and she lets out a silent scream, the movement causing her battered lips to crack and split open again.
Blood trickles down her chin as she silently begs and pleads for mercy to whoever or whatever is haunting her.
She looks utterly horrified, and though I know it’s not directed at me, I feel something shatter inside of me. This is my fault.
“Collins, look at me, baby,” I say, just loud enough that I hope she hears me.
“It’s Creed. It’s me, Stardust.” She stills, and her eyes flash for just a moment before it’s gone again and she’s back to fighting our hold.
Something clicked for just that moment, so I keep going as we enter the tarmac.
“Come on, sweet girl. See me.” I nearly choke on the words as I move my hands to cup her tear-stained cheeks.
Asher tries to clean the blood from her chin, but Collins continues to thrash against me, her body now in fight mode.
It reminds me of the time she’d attacked Riley, not truly seeing him but feeling the need to protect herself from whatever horrors had manifested within her mind.
I hold her firmly yet gently and allow my thumbs to brush her bruised cheekbones in a whisper of a touch. “Feel me.”
At the sound of my voice, her eyes flutter closed, her body goes lax, and she slumps back into the stretcher.
I watch as she timidly turns her head and presses her cheek further into my palm.
All noise fades into the background when her beautiful green eyes open once more and look at me. Really look at me.
“Creed?” I don’t hear it, but I watch as her lips form around my name, and I swear it ignites a flame in my chest, a renewed inferno that’s ready to burn the world for her.
Asher says something in the background, but I can’t hear or see anything beyond the beautiful, strong girl in front of me, her eyes finally seeing me for the first time.
And I fucking hate myself that the first emotion shining in her eyes isn’t disdain or loathing.
There’s confusion at the forefront, but the relief I see is something I know that I am entirely undeserving of.
Her lips form another word. “Real?”
My heart clenches painfully in my chest.