Chapter 23
North
The only time I leave the hospital is to beat Myka to a pulp.
I don’t remember the ride back to the clubhouse.
Prospects bring Myka to the back room of the clubhouse bound, bleeding, and barely standing.
Good. I don’t want him comfortable. I want him scared enough to understand that whatever happened after I went down, whatever he took from her while I couldn’t move, he’s going to pay for it with pieces of himself. They hung him the way he did with me.
He lifts his head when I step in. My fist hits his mouth hard enough to split it open, and the sound of it cracks through the room like a shot. His head snaps back, blood spraying over his chin, but it isn’t enough. Nothing about him bleeding feels like enough.
So I hit him again.
And again.
Until my knuckles tear and the concrete beneath us is spotted red.
Until his breathing turns wet. Until his knees buckle and the chains are the only reason he stays upright.
I take him apart with my fists because there are no answers in him that will make the hospital disappear, no excuse that will put color back in Nyxa’s face, no amount of begging that will undo the sight of her lying there while machines counted the seconds for her.
When he starts to sag, I grab him by the throat and force his head up. “No,” I laugh. “You don’t get to leave before I’m done.”
His eyes roll, glassy and unfocused, but fear still finds its way into them. That’s the first thing that feels right.
I want him afraid.
I want him trapped inside his own body the way I was trapped inside mine, unconscious while the woman I love was hurt. I want every breath to cost him. I want him to understand that death would be the kindest thing I could give him, and I’m not feeling kind.
By the time Cutter steps in, Myka is a broken shape hanging from the chains, blood dripping from his mouth, his nose, the split skin over his brow. My hands are ruined. My shirt is stained. My chest is still full of the kind of rage that doesn’t burn out.
Cutter checks him and exhales through his nose. “He’s close.”
I stare at what’s left of Myka. “Then bring him back.”
Cutter stitches him up just enough to keep him alive. He knows I’m not done with him yet.
Every punch I land on him is a release valve. Every groan he chokes out is fuel. I want him breathing when Nyxa wakes up. I want her to know he suffered.
Bullet calls every damn day. “How’s she doing, brother?”
“Still out,” I say, staring at her through the glass.
“You hang in there, North.”
Rock’s the same. “You need anything?”
“Yeah. I need her awake.”
Even Di calls twice. Her voice is sharper than I remember. “If she wakes up and you’re not there, I’ll find you and end you myself.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” I tell her. “Not without her.”
They all see it, the wreck I’ve become. I see it too. And for the first time, I get it. What my father felt. Why he was willing to risk everything for my mother.
Love doesn’t make you weak. It gives you something to die for.
I sit by her bed every day.
Some days I talk. Some days I just watch, counting the slow rise and fall of her chest.
At first, I’m pissed. “You’re a goddamn menace, Nyxa,” I mutter on the first night, my elbows on my knees, eyes burning from exhaustion. “Charging into shit you had no business being in. You could’ve been killed. You almost were.”
But her words from the warehouse keep slicing through me.
My life has no meaning without him.
It wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t wrapped up like some romance line. It was the raw, reckless truth. And it’s mine now. Whether I wanted it or not.
Fifth night.
I come back from the cage with Myka’s blood under my nails and my knuckles swollen like rocks. Cutter told me to ice them. I didn’t. I just sit down next to her, staring at the bruises blooming along her neck and the bandage on her hand.
Something in me cracks open.
I reach for her hand, careful, so careful. My thumb brushes over the rough edge of the bandage. The words feel heavier than any promise I’ve made in my life.
“I was a coward,” I admit, my throat tightening. “Thought keeping my distance meant control. That I could protect you without…” I exhale hard. “Without letting you be the thing I can’t lose.”
I drop my head, pressing my forehead to the mattress by her hip. “Come back to me, Firefly. I don’t care how. Don’t leave me here without you.” My voice breaks.
And for the first time since my parents died, I cry.
Hot, humiliating tears. No one’s here to see them but her.
And I don’t care. Not with her.