37. Xavier
THIRTY-SEVEN
XAVIER
Let me fucking out, Xavier! This asshole thinks he's better than us? I'll show him how wrong he is. We're already at the hospital, so it'll be a quick trip to the morgue from here.
I try to ignore both X's loud demands thrashing in my brain, and the annoying man across the hall from me who's radiating fury and danger.
If he thinks the death stares he's been giving me for the last two hours will get me to commit violence, and get myself kicked out of the hospital while my Spitfire is in surgery, he's more insane than I am.
I have better self-restraint, or at least I would if X would shut the fuck up.
Don't tell me what to do, Xavier. We both know that never goes well.
"What the fuck was she doing at your house again, asshole?
" I glance up from the floor, breaking from my tumultuous thoughts, and meet his deadly glare with one of mine.
He doesn't scare me; no one does. I've lived through more pain, devastation, and abuse, than this cunt with the fairytale upbringing can ever imagine.
Mine and Scarlett's childhoods are the things of nightmares.
The only thing I fear is losing my Spitfire.
"You really want me to answer that question after finding us naked, with my cock deep inside her perfect pussy in the shower, when you broke into my house?
" He's on his feet so quickly, and charging towards me, that it makes me chuckle.
He's going to get himself kicked out of here, and then I won't have to put up with his annoying presence, and loud mouth breathing.
So easy to rattle. Here we go! Get em, Xavier!
"Unuh, hell no! I promised Ms. Lyssa that you would behave, boy-toys.
" Nurse Bree appears out of nowhere, hands on her dark blue scrub-covered hips, and a warning look on her stern face, like a mother at the end of her rope with her unruly children.
"Sit down, Agent Garnier, or I'll have security not politely remove you. "
Jasper freezes, like a naughty child caught stealing a cookie from the jar.
I try and fail to hide my glee at him being chastised, and feel her gaze instantly turn in my direction.
"I suggest you not continue to provoke him, Mr. Poine.
The hospital is not a wrestling ring. We have sick patients here that need our attention, and don't have time to be refereeing you two. Last warning, gentlemen."
The way she just said that makes me think that's not what she wanted to call you, Xavier. She turns away, after motioning with her fingers at her eyes and then at us, that she's watching us. I kinda like her. Maybe we should kidnap her, it would be handy to have a nurse around when we get hurt.
"Absolutely fucking not," I mumble, and receive a bewildered look from Jasper.
"You're an odd duck, you know that?" He groans as he returns to his seat, shifting in the uncomfortable plastic chair, and running his hand through his thick, dark hair.
I take inventory of him, trying to see what Scarlett does in him.
He's kind of good-looking in a pathetic, average, hairy, close-to-forty sort of way, I guess.
More boy-next-door turned cop, 'cause he always wanted to play hero rather than anything else.
"An odd duck? Who even says that? What are you, sixty?
" I get up and start pacing again, the nervous energy and anxiety making me feel like I'm about to climb the walls.
All my brain can focus on is the pain and fear on Scarlett's face, as they wheeled her toward the elevator.
All the what-ifs run through my mind with the worst-case scenarios.
An image of a cold, motionless Scarlett staring up at nothing keeps reappearing, and it's terrifying.
"If she doesn't come out of this..." I glare at him, my hands fisting at my sides.
I don't have to finish the threat; he knows exactly what I mean.
I can see the guilt written all over his whiskered face, and the haggard lines below his eyes.
"This is all your fucking fault! You attacked us like some jealous ape, and caused that door to shatter. You. Hurt. Her." I turn completely in his direction, and watch as my words land like bullets.
He breaks our connection, and looks down between his spread legs at the floor, the veins on his neck straining, and his hands fisted, as if he's trying his best not to throttle me.
I almost wish he would, and not just 'cause it would get him kicked out of here by Nurse Bree, but then maybe I would feel something, anything except the overwhelming terror that is drowning me every minute that we don't have news about Scarlett.
"I never intended to hurt her, just you, asshole. I didn't know the door would shatter like that or that she would be in the way. I didn't think at all. I was... all fucked up with rage."
His admittance makes me shake my head in understanding.
When I realized she had slept with him, I felt the same type of wrath and the need to murder him.
"Well, she was, and you did. You'll continue to hurt her with your shitty, unhinged behavior.
She didn't choose you, Jasper." Before he can argue, I raise my hand, stalling him.
"She didn't pick me either, but I didn't lose my shit and go after you like some psycho.
Don't get me wrong, I wanted to, but you're not worth losing Scarlett over. "
"What the fuck are you even trying to say? Speak plainly, you white-haired freak. What does you not coming after me, and how the fuck I wish you would then I could put you six feet under, have to do with losing Scarlett?"
Wow, this guy really is dense. Let me stab him, Xavier, and put all of us out of our misery. He's not even in the same league as us or your bitch.
He doesn't get it. He can't see the truth right in front of his face.
At some point between the many rounds of fucking Scarlett, I was holding her tightly in my arms while she dozed, and she sighed his name.
At first I wasn't even convinced I heard what I did, and that my mind or X wasn't playing games on me.
Then she did it again as she snuggled deeper into my embrace.
When I questioned her about it, she seemed shocked at first, but then she quickly tried to move away from me and shut down.
"Tell me what you're thinking right now. Don't run from me, Scarlett."
She turns her back on me, her shoulders now tense, and up near her ears, as she wraps my sheet around her nakedness, and everything in me wants to rip it off her and force her to admit she's mine.
Yet I get the sinking feeling that if I did that, it wouldn't have the outcome I desire.
He's in there too, deep in her heart and mind, taking up space that should only be mine to inhabit.
"I'll hurt you, Xavier. You should let me go."
Her words are a dagger straight to my heart.
How could she ever think that was possible?
All the years I've spent in the shadows protecting her, watching and making sure she's thriving.
Now that I finally have a chance at a life with her, she's asking me to walk away.
"Never. I will never let you go, Spitfire.
I couldn't even if I wanted to. I would wither and die.
You are the only reason I keep going. Life means nothing without you. "
I realize in that moment how deeply profound and truthful my words are.
There really is no point in continuing with the farce of a life without her.
It has always been her and would always be her.
There is no sacrifice I’m not willing to make to keep Scarlett.
I also concede at that moment that she will not let him go.
Jasper Garnier means something to her, much more than I understood before, and if push comes to shove, she might walk away from me.
My first reaction is that I’ll just kill him, remove him completely from the equation, but her next words cement where I am now, in front of an asshole I should have stabbed to death long ago, and unable to hurt him for fear of harming the woman I love too in the process.
"I... can't choose you, Xavier. I mean, I can't choose only you. You're a part of me, just knowing all that you've done for me, and our history. God, I wish you had let me know what was happening sooner. Things could have been different."
"Jasper Garnier. You're saying you can't choose between us, that you have feelings for both of us?
" Everything in me wants to take back my words, to reject even the possibility, but as tears fill her dark mocha eyes, and slip past her lashes to form tiny diamond rivers down her porcelain skin, I know the truth. She's in love with him too.
Fuck, how did this happen? All these years of waiting for the right time to make myself known to her.
All the time spent in the shadows as her protector, only for her to also fall in love with him.
A man that I despise, who is the opposite of everything I am, and believe in.
A man who might put her behind bars if he ever realizes that she's Ashmaker.
Does she even understand that possibility?
"I'm sorry, Xavier. I know it's not what you want to hear, and I don't know how to explain it to you.
Shit, I don't even know how to explain it to myself.
He's a part of me like you are, just in a different way.
Choosing between you would be like tearing out a piece of myself, and asking me to live without it. "
A look of shock crosses her face as if her words surprise her.
"I don't know when I became so attached to Jasper.
None of it makes sense anymore. I realize now that he's snuck his way into my heart, just like you have, despite the walls that I've put up to keep me protected.
The thought of losing him, of losing either of you, is almost unbearable. "
"Yet you're asking me to walk away, Scarlett.
Make it make fucking sense!" Anger rises quickly, heating my blood, and the monster that's always ready for violence simmers just underneath the surface.
I would never hurt Scarlett, but right now the desire to find Jasper, and end his life, is almost uncontrollable.
She steps toward me, her trembling hands rising to cradle my face, as she stares up at me with sorrow.
"I don't want to cause you any more pain, Xavier.
You've already lived with so much, and you deserve happiness.
I'm not going to lie, if you left me now, walked away from me, it would break something in me, but I can't force you to stay when I'm not willing to choose. "
I couldn't answer her in that moment, and decided to change her mind using my body.
I thought that if I could prove to her how I could make her feel, how much I wanted and needed her, she'd forget about him, even though I knew that was unlikely.
Even when she was bleeding back at my loft, and hurt, she tried to get between us to stop us.
She didn't choose one or the other, and that finally made me realize she never will, not even in death, if it were to come to that.
"She's in love with you, but she's also in love with me.
She won't choose between us, no matter how much you or I would want that.
" He shoots up to his feet and storms towards me, grabbing onto the front of my t-shirt, and pulling me closer, until I can see the golden flecks in his dark blue eyes.
He's breathing heavily, as if he's struggling not only with the truth bomb I just dropped on him, but with his own feelings of loss.
That's what it feels like for me too, to know she won't ever just be mine, so I understand him, probably better than he understands himself.
"Are you prepared to lose her for good, Jasper, 'cause I'm not.
I never will be. I've waited fucking years to be with her, and I won't give her up, even if that means I have to put up with you in the picture. "