17. Waverly
17
WAVERLY
B right white light assaulted me through dreams drenched in blood and shrouded in muted screams. I couldn't escape no matter how far I ran. When my legs gave out, I crawled endless, pale halls that glowed from the floor up. When those finally receded to give me a slice of peace I couldn't quite grasp, they were replaced by a deep, harsh sound that emanated right beside my ear, like the breathing of a rhythmic beast.
Or an exhausted artist.
I combed my fingers through Jax’s dark, mussed hair, frowning when I realized the black flakes that flecked my fingers were dried blood, and that it came from him. But that wasn’t where my struggle ended as I tried to sit up and tangled my tubes and cords attached to the back of my hand around his head.
Jax jerked, his reddened eyes slitted and crusted with sleep. “Bee girl?” His voice came out raspy, like he’d been at a Xoan Kennedy concert, screaming all night.
That reminded me of my endless running dream, and I pushed the memory away. But unlike my usual nightmares, this one refused to fade.
White was everywhere around me. On the walls, in my bed. Behind me, machines bleeped and sighed with a life of their own. The living nightmare returned, and my room shrank back to the tunnel I crawled through all my sleeping eternity.
“You’re cute when you’re sleepy.” I forced a smile, or tried to, but the corners of my mouth refused to turn up.
My heart pounded for no reason, and the floor dropped out from under me, even though Jax was right there next to me and neither the bed nor the room swayed.
I grabbed for the mattress on the other side to check I hadn’t fallen off the side of the world, and fire shot up my arm. My fingers refused to flex but the movement gave me the empirical, first hand proof I needed: the swaying and lurching feeling was all me.
“Slow down, girl,” Jax murmured, untangling himself from my cords.
Not that I could focus, as I whimpered and grasped at my wrist when my hand didn’t work the way it should. “What happened?”
“My father happened,” Jax said grimly, curling his much larger hand loosely around mine and gently prying my fingers free. “Wavey, let go,” he muttered, a pained expression crossing his face and entering his voice.
I blinked at him and released my hold. “I’m sorry.”
He bared his teeth at me, and the expression was utterly terrifying. “You shouldn’t have to be.”
I backed off, tears springing to my eyes. “Why am I in the hospital?”
He swallowed and looked away, though he didn’t let go of my wrists, cradling them together. “You slashed your wrists with a knife at my father’s dinner party.”
“What?” I shook my head. “No. I don’t know your father. I don’t remember that.” But my stomach did, roiling queasily. And besides that, the evidence sat right in front of me.
Or rather, the bandages wrapped around my wrist did.
“I held on to you while I thought you were bleeding out in my fucking arms, Waverly. While he laughed the whole time and sat there eating his steak and hosting his party. It was so sick.” He released my hands and fisted his, until his nails dug into his palms.
Dark half moons bracketed his fingertips. I traced them with a shaking touch I couldn’t control, relieved when he didn’t pull away. “Is that why I feel like shit? Because I lost…blood?” I couldn’t say slit my wrists. It wouldn’t come out.
Everything I’d been proud of the day before and the day before that fell away, shattering on the facade of a girl who had never been real in the first place.
“You feel like crap because you’re coming down from the drugs my father fed you. He’s exceptionally good at selecting his targets.” He let out a hollow, self loathing laced laugh that held no humor whatsoever. “I should know. I used to be one.”
“I don’t remember anything of what you’re saying.” My mind jammed, and I refused to believe him. “This is a trick.” I shoved pathetically at Jax’s chest, unwilling to read the truth or the pity in his face.
Unwilling to believe what he said.
While I struggled, my mind played catch up in its complement of brain soup. “Why would your father want to have anything to do with me? I don’t even know him!” My voice rose to a shriek as Jax folded his arms around me, rocking us on the bed as much as the IV pin cushioned in my arm allowed.
“But he knows you.” Jax seemed to find that amusing, laughing softly as he clutched me to his chest like I was an errant child who suffered a minor fall.
“Don’t laugh at me.”
Jax stopped and loosened his hold long enough to look down, tracing the tear tracks on my cheeks. “The devil always knows those he’ll hurt most,” he murmured, running his fingers over my lips. “I’m so sorry he got to you. I’m sorry he hurt you before I could help.”
I found myself nodding along with him. “You promised to keep me safe.” I slapped his chest lightly. He flinched, and I frowned. “You’re supposed to be the tough boy who likes pain.”
That same, strange smile again that clenched my stomach graced his lips. I hated that smile on sight.
“I do love pain, Bee girl. But I’ve had enough of it for a lifetime. For you,” he added softly, closing my hand on the hem of his black faded t-shirt and pulling it upward.
Stitches and scars and bruises obliterated the ink that crept over his torso. I let out a muted scream, pressing my hands to his stomach and not caring if it ripped my IV out.
“What happened to you?”
The smile tightened. “The twins. I made a deal. For you, Waverly.” He touched my lips tenderly. “But it wasn’t enough. Someone else already sold your debt to my father.”
I shook my head. “I don’t understand. My debt– it was never that. The twins blackmailed me. That’s all.” I shrugged, but even that seemed a small thing now, realizing the power they held over me was never what I thought. I didn’t care now, not any more. “None of that matters now.”
“No. It doesn't. But your brother’s debt, the one that was really worth something? That’s what caused this.” Jax tapped the edges of my bandages lightly, careful not to touch the slices that ached beneath.
I released a shuddering breath. “What?”
His face turned as expressionless as a glass pane, though far less transparent. “Crush and I visited with your brother.”
“Vincent?”
He glared at me, the facade shattering. “Is there another I should be aware of?”
“You shouldn’t be in contact with my family at all!” I snapped, slapping at him again.
That hurt like fuck too, but I refused to let out a groan even when my stomach swam and my vision blurred.
His glare softened, inked fingers rising to brush tears from my cheeks the moment they fell. “He– had a shit war,” Jax murmured, watching me carefully. “Have you spoken to him lately?”
“I–” I stopped. “No,” I whispered. My hand closed around his. “I’m a bad sister.”
“No. You’re a good girl, and he’s a shit person,” Jax said fiercely. He blew out a breath, glaring over his shoulder at a nurse who tried to come in. “Two minutes, ma’am. This goes towards why she–” He cleared his throat and grazed his thumb over my bandages again.
The nurse scuttled away under his glare, ostensibly to collect a higher echelon or doctor.
If it gave me the next moments with Jax alone before my peace with him was blown to hell, I'd take it. Because right now, nothing made sense in my addled brain.
“You said your father bought my debt. My brother– Jesus,” I said slowly, forcing my brain to churn the disgusting thought over. “How much, Jax?”
“Enough.” He kissed my temple as the doctor strode in and fixed his eyes on Jax, who ignored him.
“How much?” I insisted, holding up my free hand to the doctor, begging for one more second.
He relented, and took a weary step back.
Must be that sort of day for everyone, then. I was sorry to add to his payload of bullshittery.
Jax held me close for a second. “I paid my father off.” His soft words struck ice through my heart.
“At what cost?” I insisted.
“Miss Alloway, we need to discuss–” the poor, ignored doctor started.
“Just, could we have a minute, please?” I begged. My ego didn’t care. Jax was hurting, and that meant I hurt, too.
“Right now, your mental health is critical.” The doctor tapped his clipboard. “I’d like to know if I can send you home. I’ve heard some wild stories. Perhaps you can corroborate for me.”
“But, I–” I stared beseechingly between Jax and the doc.
Jax took the opportunity to slink away, leaving me alone as fresh tears fell.
The doctor talked, and I answered, but I didn’t remember any of the words. Not that he let me go home that night, or the next, or the next.
And I didn’t see Jax for any of those days, either.
But I knew he was doing the very much chivalrous, not at all a bad boy thing, paying that debt he talked about to the man that my phone, when I was allowed to have it back courtesy of Celia, told me the man who hurt me was the worst of the worst in our state.
Maybe the country.
So I didn’t need to ask what he was out there doing, because I knew.
I fucking knew, just as I knew he wasn’t the liar, the cheat, the bad boy ripping through a rich kid college like I always accused him of being. No, he was the damaged offspring of a family he didn’t choose but was laden with anyway, and now he bore the brunt of mine.
For me.
At what cost?