Chapter 54
Raine
Waking from a coma is weird. I’m adding this to the list of shit I never want to experience again.
Imagine the worst hangover you’ve ever had.
Got it? Good. Now times it by a million.
Everything’s intense and heavy, and my limbs are disobedient.
Reality feels slow, like how I imagine floating in zero gravity would feel like.
And my brain, ugh, it feels ten times too big for my skull.
My lungs forget how to breathe properly, causing me to panic for a few seconds before I calm down. I’m okay.
I suck in a few more deep breaths (once I realize I can) and blink away the heavy lids.
I gasp as I realize I’m in a hospital bed.
The memories rush back, and boy, do they hit me hard and fast, removing any lingering confusion.
Cherry’s death in the alley, storming the MC clubhouse, killing Derek, the Raptors abducting and torturing me … Soren.
Oh my god, Soren.
I claw at the scratchy sheets, heart beating like a war drum, until my gaze lands on something beside the bed. A leather-bound notebook.
I recognize it instantly.
Soren’s.
It’s sitting there, like it’s been left for me. Beside it, a single folded note. My fingers tremble as I reach for it. The first movement in fuck knows how long. Time is meaningless.
I open the note and begin reading.
“Raine, I’m sorry. I’ve led a shitty life. I’ve done really shitty things. But I regret none of it. Because it all led me to you. I think I loved you from the second I laid eyes on you …”
I can hear him saying this in his deep, smooth-as-honey voice. My favorite voice in the world. My chin begins to wobble uncontrollably, my eyesight blurry. Christ, my eyes are fucking welling.
“I should have told you. That I loved you. But I’d never felt it, never experienced it, didn’t know what it was … I wasted precious time. But the time we did have? I’ll remember forever. Thank you for making all this worth it. I’ll see you in hell, baby. Soren x”
The paper trembles in my hands. I can’t see through the tears pooling and free-flowing down my cheeks.
I open the notebook and watch a tear splash on a page.
I flick through pages and pages of his handwriting.
I’ve been dying (quite literally) to read this, to see what he has been scrawling all this time.
I’m shocked to discover poem after poems about loss, revenge, lust, and love.
There’s a common theme in them all.
Me. They’re all about me.
I flick to the last entry.