40. Stevie
CHAPTER FORTY
STEVIE
The pounding inside my skull awakens me in a dark room.
An incessant beeping of what sounds like medical monitoring devices forces my eyes open.
Above me is a tufted roof, and as my eyes drag down the side of lace pillars, I realize I’m in a bed.
My back straightens, shooting me upright.
My head whips around the dimly lit space, illuminated by red and blue buttons on an event monitor.
“Sebastian,” I mutter, spotting him lying still in a hospital bed a few feet away from me.
The memory of Silas shooting him comes racing back.
My stomach clenches at everything that happened, and I thrust forward, vomiting into a tin bucket on the floor at the side of the bed.
The bile from an empty stomach burns the back of my throat as it surfaces.
After two dry heaves, I grab a cold bottle of water from the nightstand and chug it.
My eyes fly back to Sebastian.
I throw off the comforter and sprint to the side of his bed. He’s hooked up to machines monitoring his heartbeat, pulse, and oxygen levels. And from my very inexperienced assumption, I can tell he’s alive, but unconscious.
He looks peaceful, but a dreadful feeling forms in the pit of my stomach. I swipe the tears from my eyes and grab his hand. It’s cold and doesn’t return my touch.
“Oh, Sebastian.” My head falls, and I let my eyes leak with pain as my heart is shattered.
Suddenly, a door swings open.
“Hello, Stevie.” A man in a white coat walks in and approaches the bedside. “I’m Dr. Charles. River and Sebastian’s personal physician.”
I swallow hard, my mind is fuzzy, but I’m able to muster the strength to ask one question. “Is he going to be okay?”
Dr. Charles glances at the monitors, then to Sebastian. “A gunshot anywhere in the chest can be fatal. But in Sebastian’s case, the bullet went through the upper part of his shoulder, to the left of his heart, missing both the organ and a main artery that runs above it.”
My eyes blink rapidly, taking it all in. “So…he’s going to be okay?”
With his lips pursed, unsure how much he can confirm this early, he nods. “We need to wait and see how his body responds and heals, but if all goes well, he should make a full recovery.”
The doctor’s words open the floodgates and water streams from both my eyes. Dr. Charles pats my back while my body is racked with sobs.
“How are you feeling?” he asks.
I sniff, lifting my head to look at him. “I’m fine.”
“Drowsy?”
“Yeah, actually, and a little fuzzy,” I admit.
He nods pensively. “That’s to be expected. You took quite the hit to your head and shoulder less than twenty-four hours ago, and then Hayden had to sedate you to get you back here safely.”
Wait. What?
“What?” My blood heats. “Why would he do that?”
“You weren’t yourself, and the guys worried that they wouldn’t be able to get you out of Moore Mansion in time for the security cameras to come back up,” he explains.
A dizzy spell washes over me, and I grip the railing on the side of Sebastian’s bed.
Dr. Charles braces me with a quick grab of my forearm. “You should lie back down.”
He’s right, but I still have more questions to be answered. “Where are we?”
“At Thornfell Lodge,” he answers, as if I should already know. “On the Thompson property.”
Oh, thank god, we’re home. I let out a sigh of relief, gently freeing myself from his grasp. “Okay.”
“I’ll be back in the morning to check on Sebastian.”
He’s leaving? He can’t leave while Sebastian is in this state. “You can’t leave him! What if he—”
Dr. Charles smiles warmly. “Don’t worry. I’m staying on the third floor here at the lodge until he’s out of the woods.”
Another sigh of relief. “Okay. Thank you.”
“Get some sleep,” he instructs, then leaves the room and closes the door behind him.
I squeeze my eyelids together, wishing this was a horrible nightmare, but my body betrays me, swaying in place and reminding me I should be lying down. Dr. Charles is right—I need to rest, but refuse to be far from Sebastian. If he wakes, he needs to feel me there.
Lifting one leg, I swing it over the rail, climbing into the hospital bed next to him. After sliding some of the cords out of the way, I curl myself into his right side.
“I’m right here, Sebastian. I won’t leave you.” My throat muscles constrict, more sobs break, and my stomach clenches with each labored breath. “I’m so sorry.” I sniff and tuck my head into the crook of his arm, burying my nose into his skin. “Please don’t break your promise and leave me.”
I’m not sure how long I’m asleep for, but the sound of a familiar whisper wakes me. I peel my eyes open and lift my head up to see my sister and River lying together on the four-post bed across the room.
“Stevie?” she breathes out my name in desperation.
The sight of her is enough to bring me to tears. “Lux?”
My heart swells seeing my sister, even though our last conversation ended contentiously, mostly because of my own demons—she is still my best friend. And the only other person in this world besides Sebastian who sees the real me.
Lux hops off the bed and bolts over, wrapping her arms around my body and hugging me tightly. “I’m so glad you’re all right.”
I pull back. “You’re back early?”
“As soon as Christian told us what happened, we packed up and came home,” she replies.
I glance at River, who is now at her side. “So, you and Sebastian, huh? Didn’t see that coming,” he deadpans. “I thought you two hated each other.”
A blush heats my cheeks. “I guess not.”
Lux giggles. “I mean…they hated each other, but clearly it was sexual tension.”
The fleeting moment of erratic flutters fills my stomach, ending as quickly as it came, because the second my eyes land back on Sebastian, asleep and in rough condition, my heart aches again.
“He’s going to be all right, Stevie,” River reassures me with a friendly pat on my arm. “Dr. Charles is the best. He’s been with our family since we were kids.”
“Are you sure?”
He looks over at his cousin. “Yeah. And Sebastian’s a tough motherfucker anyway.”
River’s confident, level demeanor eases my nerves. But there are too many what-ifs in this scenario, plaguing my mind.
“Why don’t we get you in the shower?” Lux gently pushes my hair aside. “Get you feeling like yourself again, and River can stay here with Sebastian.”
The thought of leaving him cuts my insides. “I don’t want to leave him. What if he wakes up and I’m not there?”
“I know, but you’ll feel better after a good shower. It looks like you haven’t taken one in a while.” She grimaces. “And River’s here.”
“I can’t go all the way back to the manor,” I protest her good intentions. “It’s on the other side of the property, isn’t it? That’s too far from him.”
River smiles. “There are nine bedrooms and thirteen bathrooms in Thornfell Lodge. Have your pick of them.”
I glance at my sister—she gives me a reassuring nod.
“Okay,” I reluctantly agree. “Getting cleaned up does sound good.”
My eyes circle back to Sebastian. His face is calm, and he’s as handsome as always. I lean in to kiss his cheek and whisper in his ear. “Be back soon. I love you.”
Lux and River give me a hand as I climb out of the hospital bed on uneasy legs.
“Thanks.”
My sister wraps an arm around me, helping me walk out of the bedroom.
She leads me down a dark hall with wood paneling, similar to the ones at the manor.
We pass a study and a sitting room before we reach a grand staircase.
Ornate oak curved in a spiral leads us up to the next floor.
Then she guides me into a large bedroom with burgundy tapestries and a massive fireplace.
“Right through here is the bathroom,” she tells me. “Aunt Mae brought some of your clothes over from the manor earlier today.”
With my limbs aching, I lower to the floor.
Lux smooths my hair. “I’ll start the water for you.”
The water flow sprays the stone flooring, and something about the sound of it causes my throat to constrict. “I’m sorry for getting upset with you the last time we spoke on the phone,” I blurt out, my emotions bubbling over.
“Don’t worry about it.”
“But it was uncalled for. I shouldn’t be jealous of the closeness between you and Dad.”
Her forehead furrows. “No, you never should be. Just because Dad and I have similar interests, you’re his baby. You should hear the way he worries about you.”
A tear rolls down my cheek. “I guess I’ve always wanted to feel good enough. Being younger felt like I always had something to prove, you know?”
She nods, holding back a chuckle. “I understand. But you never have to prove anything. You’re a perfectly weird death-obsessed woman, and we love you for it.”
I laugh and sniff. “Do you remember when we were kids, and I used to hold funerals for our dolls?”
Lux rests her head on my shoulder. “Yeah, and I was too busy trying to figure out how the dolls died in the first place so I could rewrite their last moments?”
Another deep belly laugh rumbles from within me. “We’re both a little strange, aren’t we?”
“We’re who we are,” she replies. “And look at the men we’ve fallen in love with…”
“Serial killers.”
We share another laugh. “With a conscience…”
“And with their own dark traumas,” I add playfully.
I never imagined where Lux and I would be, the deep secrets we now share, and stepping into the darkness together—it’s mind-blowing and feels like a dream.
The nightmare of what Sebastian is going through robs me of the moment of genuine appreciation for my sister, because in my soul, I don’t know how I’d walk this earth without him.
We sit together for a beat before I feel strong enough to get into the shower. Lux helps with washing my hair and braces me while I shave my legs. When I’m finished, she brings me a robe and helps me get some clothes on.
“Do you want to talk about what happened at Moore Mansion?” Lux lies on the bed, picking at the small bits of loose fabric on the comforter.
I kneel onto the mattress next to her, replaying the pieces of memory that’s coming back to me from that night. “I only remember certain things.”
“Like shooting the leader of the Society?” she whispers.
I sigh, squeezing my eyes shut. Quick flashes of movement mold together to form parts of the memory. Me grabbing the gun as Silas scrambled off the floor—his eyes red with fury—followed by a gut reaction, I can only explain as a feeling—and finally, the deafening sound of a shot going off.
My stomach clenches. “Yeah, there was so much going on at once. There wasn’t time to think—”
“You did something so brave, Stevie,” she says. “Like you accepted me. My choices and how I confided in you how I felt after killing Andrew.”
“That was different.”
“How?”
I run a hand down the front of my face. “He…they hurt you, Lux.”
“What you did was so much better. You got in front of the problems and stopped these monsters from hurting anyone else.” She rests a hand on my head and smooths my hair. “That man was a monster and deserved it. And the other one, River said you took out.”
“They both deserved it. Each one of those serial killers in the entire group deserved everything they got. I’m in shock, that’s all,” I admit, then push myself off the bed. “I’m going back to Sebastian’s room.”
Lux straightens slowly, then nods her head. “Okay.”
She follows me down the hall and back to the room Sebastian’s staying in. As I round the corner, I’m swept into an overpowering hug and the scent of delicious food. Both of which engulf me.
“Oh, honey. Everything is going to be all right,” Aunt Mae soothes me, tightening her arms around me.
I return her embrace, my muscles melting in her comfort. “I’m so worried about him.”
She pats my back. “Sebastian’s tough and will fight through this. Our doctor is phenomenal and is confident he will make a full recovery.”
A tear rolls down my cheek as I pull away to meet her eyes. “I know, but it’s hard for me to believe right now.”
“I understand.” Her wrinkles kiss at the corners of her eyes, with a confident smile. “Now that you’ve had a shower, how about some good food from Ben?”
My stomach growls. “That sounds amazing.”
Aunt Mae leads me over to a small settee table in the corner of the room by a large bay window. Wide-open curtains reveal the forest on the property at the center of a torrential downpour.
“He loves the rain.” Aunt Mae stares outside as lightning brightens the night sky.
I lower into the chair, smiling. “I know.”
Then I notice River, Hayden, and Christian sitting around a grand fireplace across the room in large leather chairs. They’re all leaning forward, huddled together as if they are in deep discussion.
“They huddle like that all the time.” Lux is suddenly at my side. “Usually Sebastian is with them, too. You’ll get used to it.”
My eyes dart back over to him. “He will be soon.”
Aunt Mae fixes his blankets, then shuffles over to Lux and me. “I’m going to head back to the manor for the night. Good night, ladies.”
Lux smiles at the old woman. “Good night, Aunt Mae.”
“Good night. And thank you,” I say.
She gives us one more loving glance before leaving the room.
I stare down at the metal lid covering the food on the table in front of me, but I don’t have an appetite.
Lux must sense it, because she gives my hand a gentle squeeze from across the table, then rises and walks over to the guys near the fireplace. She says something to River, and then he repeats whatever it is to the guys. They all glance in my direction, sympathy in their stares.
One by one, Lux, River, Hayden, and Christian all give me a subtle wave before leaving the room. The door closes behind them, and then finally I’m alone.
My eyes shoot over to Sebastian, and all I want to do is be next to him. I head back to his bed and climb in, tucking myself into his side. Sucking in a deep breath, I take in his scent before closing my eyes and drifting off to sleep once again.