Total pages in book: 154
Estimated words: 148220 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 741(@200wpm)___ 593(@250wpm)___ 494(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 148220 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 741(@200wpm)___ 593(@250wpm)___ 494(@300wpm)
“Hey, sis.” And I know that touch, his fingers squeezing mine. A sob shreds up my chest and then my big brother’s hushing me in the same way he always did. “Shh, don’t do that. I’m all right.”
He’s all right. Another sob tears through me. “How?”
I can’t manage more than that painful whisper.
“Victor wouldn’t have thought twice about executing one of the Eighty-Eight. But when I told him that I was an undercover agent…I guess cop-killing is were he drew his line in the sand. Took some fast talking to convince him that I was telling the truth, though. After I did, he pretended to put me down and then he didn’t know what to do with me. Couldn’t let me go. Couldn’t kill me. So we went glamping out in a cabin for a while.”
A cabin? He couldn’t have received the medical attention he needed there. My gaze moves to his arm.
“Noticed that cast, huh? Holing up in a cabin didn’t do it much good, but the doctors say it’ll be all right after a few more surgeries.”
More tears spill and a nurse clicks her tongue from the other side of my bed. “We’ve got to let her rest now.”
I can’t. But I don’t think I’ll have a choice. My gaze moves from Matt to Stone, who’s watching me with concern darkening his hazel eyes.
“Thank you,” I mouth to him.
“Best damn thing I ever did,” he says gruffly. “That and marrying you.”
As I drift away again, I think I’m smiling. Because although I was only awake for about ten minutes of it…that was the best Christmas ever.
41
Stone
For the next two weeks, I’m at Maxine’s side nearly every minute—and for the first week, a few minutes of wakefulness at a time is all we get. By the end of the next week, she can stay awake for a couple of hours at a stretch. She still tires quickly, but she sits up a little better now, and the doctors are saying that it won’t be too long before she’s able to head home…or in this case, to my parents’ place, because they’ll be able to look after her full time.
And me…I’m heading out tomorrow. Which means I can’t put off telling her about the deal I made with Creek any longer.
But it’s so fucking hard. Even harder when I’m in there while the nurses are showing my mom the best way to bathe her, and as they’re changing the bandages I get a look at the scars forming on her back.
Scars that are there because she threw herself in front of me. And yet I’ll be leaving before she’s completely healed.
So even after the nurse and my mother are gone, and it’s just Maxine and me, I’m having trouble getting the words out. No fucking surprise, she picks up on it. Though not the reason why.
She’s half-reclining in the bed, her face pale with strain and her emerald eyes dulled by exhaustion. “It’s true that neither of us got out prettier than we went in.”
Sitting on the chair next to her bed, I have to shake my own thoughts out of my head. “What’s that?”
“Your new scars from Crash.” She brushes her fingers over her eyebrows. “The scars on my back. You said once that no one gets out of a place like the Cage prettier than they went in.”
“You came out prettier,” I tell her hoarsely, realizing exactly when I said that to her—when I was accusing her of saving her own skin. “You’re more beautiful than you ever have been, Maxine. And that’s really fucking saying something, because my first look at you about knocked me on my ass. But that was never about how you looked on the outside, anyway…and inside, you’re still the most beautiful woman I know.”
That curves her lips into a smile but it doesn’t reach her tired eyes. “And you’re a good man. Which is maybe why you’ve been putting off what you need to tell me.”
Shit. “I was that obvious?”
She gives a little nod, her chin wobbling. “But it’s okay. We were in what Matt would call a really extreme situation…and those always produce extreme reactions. So I understand that you might have said something that you didn’t really mean, and now you need to take it back.”
“I’m not taking anything back.” I frown at her. “What exactly do you think I said that I didn’t mean?”
“That you love me,” she whispers, closing her eyes. “But it’s okay—”
“Bullshit if that’s okay.” I take her hand, lean in with my elbows braced on the bed. “Are you taking yours back? Because if you do, I’m telling you right now, Maxine, you’ll kill me. And you’ll just be okay if I take mine back?”
Tears glitter on her eyelashes, and she gives a tiny shake of her head.