Chapter 8 #2
“I can’t wait to see you in your dress.” He places his hand at the small of my back and tugs me against him. “I can’t wait to help my wife out of it when we’re finally alone.”
“I just need to sedate my sister first.”
“I’ll go in before you and restrain her,” he says.
I’ve seen what Dizzy is capable of. The way she took on Kurt alone last night and enjoyed every second.
How she drew a knife across Jackson’s throat as easily as cutting birthday cake.
But it didn’t seem like that was why West wanted Lily restrained.
It sounded more like she could hurt herself.
“It’s probably best if I do this alone.”
“Like hell you will.” He marches after me.
I shut the door in his face and twist the lock. Leaning against it, I wait for him to beat on it. My gaze skips to the empty bed. The mattress has been stripped. The sheets are on the floor. Something tattered and pink lies in a pile… her dress. There’s blood… “What have you done, Lily?”
“What’s wrong?” Rogue’s voice is muffled by the panel between us. “Baby, let me in.”
I’m not going to do that. “She won’t hurt me.”
“I’m right here…” he says. “If you need me.”
“Lily?” I call out for her as I follow the flecks of blood across the mattress. Where’s a pair of bunny ears when I need to be brave?
I find Lily with her knees curled to her chest on the other side of the bed. Her pink hair waterfalls over her bowed head.
I drop to my knees on the carpet. “Lily?”
She doesn’t respond.
“Lily?” I talk to her like I would a timid, wild animal, because this woman isn’t the bright and vibrant sister I’ve come to love.
My too peppy for it to be real sister. This version of my sister is broken in ways I don’t understand.
I should have realized she was hiding much more under that hyper psycho facade. “Your brother sent me.”
Lily lifts her head; her blue eyes are watery. “You know my brother?”
I nod. “I talked to him.”
“Are you Henry’s girlfriend?” Her pink brows draw together in a flat line. “My brother hasn’t mentioned you.”
“We’re friends. Only friends.” West was right. She doesn’t know me at all. She knows West as Henry Hawthorne. She talks like she believes he’s really her brother. “I talked to him and told him you weren’t feeling very good.”
“It hurts.” She clutches her knees tighter and starts to rock.
“What hurts, Lily?”
“My stomach.” She lets her knees drop to reveal a bloody line across her abdomen. “He told me not to scratch at them, but I couldn’t help it.”
No wonder West was adamant she shouldn’t be left alone. She’s torn at the skin around one of the scars, digging in her nails deep enough to draw blood. Thankfully the damage is surface level, and we have a first aid kit available onboard. “You poor thing, that looks painful.”
She nods, blinking back tears.
“I’m going to get something to clean that up with. A bandage too.” I stand. “Will you get on the bed for me so I can help you?”
I unlock the door and stick my head out. True to his word Rogue waits on the other side. “I need antiseptic and bandages. Can you get them?”
“On it, baby.” He hurries across the cabin and into the crew area.
I find a washcloth in the bathroom which I wet and wring out.
I take it back into the bedroom and use it to wipe the blood drying on her skin away.
Rogue brings supplies a few moments later.
His eyes widen when he sees the mess she’s made, but he stays outside the door when I hold out my hand for the supplies instead of letting him enter.
She cries out when I blot her broken skin with Dettol, but by the time I cover it with the bandage she’s quiet again.
“He asked me to give you some medicine.” I keep my voice warm and even. “It will help with the pain.”
“Will it help me sleep?” she asks, rising on one elbow.
“Would you like to sleep?”
“Very much so.” She sounds bone tired, the way I felt after our dad died. When I had no idea she existed and believed he was only mine. When I used to think I wanted to hurt myself.
But she’s here and so am I. Survivors, the both of us. I hand her bottled water and then count out the number of pills West said to give her before placing them in her palm. “You’ll sleep.”
She takes the pills and swallows them down with the water before curling up on her side on the mattress. “You’ll tell Henry I was obedient, won’t you? Tell him I took the pills like he wanted.”
“I will.” I pull the blanket up around her.
I retreat to a chair. Keeping some small distance from the girl who doesn’t know that we’re sisters while not letting her out of my sight.
“Henry strokes my hair,” she says. “He always looks after me.”
“Would you like me to do it?” I ask.
“Yes, please.” She yawns.
I take a seat beside her on the bed, stroking my fingers through the fine strands.
“Sometimes I wish I had a sister.” Her eyes close. The plane moves onto the runway and takes off. She slowly drifts off to sleep.
Rogue is pacing when I open the door. He’s drinking from a glass of honey colored liquid, and it’s clear he has been running his fingers through his hair. The strands are dishevelled.
He’s devilishly sexy when he’s worked up, despite the dark shadows under his eyes and the scruff on his jaw line. He locks on me and some of the tension he’s carrying eases as he prowls toward me. “Thank fuck. Is she down for the count?”
“She’s asleep.” I post myself in the doorway, because West said not to take my eyes off her and after the marks she’s left with her own nails I don’t want to take the risk. But I also need Rogue to hold me while I deal with the emotions I’ve suppressed all morning.
I slip into his embrace when he joins me. Rest my head on his chest and breathe long and deep for what feels like the first time today. “Did you check in with Rebel again?”
“I did. He’ll call me once he’s been to the pit with Agent Lane.” His breath is warm on the top of my scalp. “There’s something else we need to talk about.”
“Dizzy confessed to killing Alec,” I blurt because even if he hasn’t figured it out yet, I can’t keep it from him any longer.
With Dizzy now Lily, the things Nicole said to her, and Alec’s body turning up it’s only a matter of time before he would have put it together.
My breath catches. I wait for a signal that he heard me while I keep an eye on the girl on the bed.
It finally comes in his own heavy exhale. “Go on.”
“She told me last night at the florist. Before we found Nicole’s flowers. And then it was background noise to your brother’s engagement. And the car rolling…”
“I suspected as much… with the way you’ve been shielding her. And then with what Nicole said to her.”
“I’m scared for her.” I tip my head back so that we’re eye to eye.
‘I’m scared for you.” The fine lines at the corners of his eyes deepen.
“I wouldn’t survive if I lost you. You know that, right?
It’s not just something I say. I watched you almost die on me before and I still see your blood on my hands…
” He takes a deep breath. “We’re talking about a truly brutal murder. ”
“Are you going to tell me he didn’t deserve it? Because if anyone did, it was him. What he put Ro through. And me. He deserved the worst death possible.”
“I’m not saying that. But she also killed Jackson.”
“That was self-defense.”
“We don’t know if she’s killed other people,” he says.
“Men,” I correct him. “Men who deserved it.”
There are people who deserve her wrath. People like Alec. Robert. And anyone else who has hurt her. Those scars on her thighs and belly… was it an accident or did someone do that to her? She said a few times she had a list. If someone caused those, they must be at the top of it.
“Is that wishful thinking on your part? Because you know at some point you’re going to run out of excuses for why she does what she does.”
“She won’t hurt me,” I say. I can’t factually say that I know she only kills men. It’s just a feeling. Maybe I want to believe so badly—
“She’s got mental health issues, baby.” His eyes urge me to see what he sees.
“So do I.” This conversation needs to end. It’s hurting my heart that we’re arguing about my sister, my family, when he knows how important it is to me.
“She’s obsessed with you. She’s dangerous. And you don’t want to see it because you share trauma.”
I look at the sleeping Lily. Who is so sad and weak that it seems she couldn’t hurt anyone but herself. She’s a far cry from who Dizzy is. Strong. Resilient. A little unhinged. But I need to protect them both. “I don’t care. She needs me.”
“What if she needs more than you can help her with?” He leans over me, caging me against the door frame. “What if she killed the goat?”
“Why? What reason could she possibly have for doing that?”
“Rebel said West found a knife in his cabin. Under the mattress.”
There’s no way… “Dizzy didn’t kill the goat.”
“She was the one who found it. Who suggested we take it to the pit. Who talked us into not telling you until we didn’t have a choice,” he says.
“You went along with it.” They’d been in cahoots when they told me the story last night. “You didn’t want it to get in the way either. You covered it up as much as she did.”
“Because I wanted to marry you.”
“And I want to marry you.” I touch his face. I love this man so much. He has always been my future. “So, you need to come to terms with the fact that I will never turn my back on my sister.”
“Even if she—”
“She didn’t kill the goat.” I can’t believe that she would hurt something defenseless. “You’ll see.”