Barton seems lost in his own thoughts for a long moment before he speaks up again, “It was you, wasn’t it? You attacked the compound?” His gaze flicks over the multitude of injuries I have on display. “Is that how you got hurt?”
“LAWRENCE TOOK HER,” Hawk yells, loud enough to make me jump. “Again. He’s had her for weeks. He’s the one that’s done that to her.”
“I don’t understand,” Barton murmurs in a quiet voice. “Why? Why would Lawrence take you at all? And hide you in the compound? It makes no sense.”
“I think it started out as some sort of payback for you stealing Maria from him, and grew into an obsession over time.”
If it’s possible, Barton just looks even more confused as he shakes his head. “What? The two of them had already broken up before we started dating.”
I don’t know what to tell him, so I just shrug, too tired to give a shit about why. I’m the innocent victim in whatever shit went down between the three of them before I was even fucking born. People do fucked up shit all the time without good reason. If I get caught up in why Lawrence chose me, or why not Hawk, or both of us, I’ll drive myself mad. There’s never going to be a good enough reason to justify what he did, and I just have to accept that.
Barton gets to his feet, stumbling before he rights himself. “I-I need to go talk to him.”
He steps toward the door, looking dazed.
“Yeah, no can do, I’m afraid.” I grimace. “He’s dead.”
Barton’s eyes widen comically as he spins to face me. “He’s what?” Hawk doesn’t react at all though, so I’m guessing Cam or Beck already filled him in.
“He’s dead. I killed him. And I’m coming for the rest of you next.”
Chapter 7
After Barton stumbles, wide eyed and panicked from my room, Hawk tugs me down beside him on the bed. I melt into his embrace, drained and exhausted. We lie there in silence for a while before he speaks up, “That girl, the one who died…”
“Her name was Meena. The guard last night, he was her brother.”
Hawk mulls over my words before speaking again, “If he was her brother, why was he a guard there?”
“He’s been searching for her all these years. They were put into separate foster homes when they were kids, before she was abducted and brought to the compound.” I can feel the tears once again welling up in my eyes, and my chest hurts for their lost relationship. I know how much it would have meant to Meena, knowing her brother never gave up on her; that he’d been looking for her all this time. Hawk’s arms tighten around me, and I bury into him. “It was because of her that I never lost myself in there. If it wasn’t for Meena, I would have ended up like all the others.”
We lapse into silence, although I can feel the anger emanating from him. Regardless, it’s not much longer before exhaustion pulls me under, and in the reassuring comfort of Hawk’s arms, I fall into a deep, dreamless sleep.
When I next wake, I’m pressed against a strangely comfortable brick. Squinting, I gaze up at a sleeping Mason. Huh, I wonder when the two of them switched out, and how I didn’t even notice. Lifting my head, I gaze around the otherwise empty room, before lying back down, and snuggling in tighter against him.
“You alright, Little Warrior?” Mason’s voice is low with the perfect amount of sleepy sex appeal, and his arms tighten around me, even though he hasn’t opened his eyes.
“Yeah. Where’s Hawk?”
“We finally convinced him to go home and get some rest. You’re being discharged in the morning, so he and the others will come pick us up when you’re ready to go.”
I nod against his hard chest and try to go back to sleep, but my mind whirrs with thoughts of going back to school. I feel like a completely different person to when I was last on campus. How can I just go back there and act as if nothing ever happened?
“Barton said Hawk told him I’ve had a stomach bug.”
Mason sighs, shifting in the bed so he’s lying on his back and I’m sprawled across him.
“Yeah. He phoned, wanting both of you to go over for a family dinner. We couldn’t tell him the truth, so Hawk lied. We’ve told the school the same excuse for why you haven’t been in class.”
I swallow roughly. “What about Emilia?”
Cupping my cheek in his large palm, he tilts my head up so I have no choice but to look him in the face.
“She has been driving all of us mad, wanting to know what’s going on, and demanding we bring you back.”
“Does she…”
“No, but she knows something’s up. We figured you’d wanna be the one to tell her the truth.” I glance away, worrying my bottom lip, but Mason forces my gaze back to his. “You’ve got a true friend in Emilia. She was ready to take all of us on, thinking we’d done something to you.” A fond smile tugs at one side of his lip. “Hawk had no idea what to do with her when she wouldn’t back off. He was in shock when she actually stood up to him.”
I chuckle. “Damn, I bet the look on his face was priceless.”
Kissing the top of my head, Mason fixes the covers around us. “Go back to sleep. We’ll deal with everything else in the morning.”
Sinking into his warm embrace, coaxed by the heady combination of his uniquely Mason scent, I drift back into a dreamless slumber. By the time I wake up again, I’m feeling a million times better, physically at least. If only sleep and a bag of fluids were enough to fix me mentally too.
***
Mason and I are sitting on a bench outside the hospital with a paper bag containing a bottle of painkillers they gave me upon discharge, waiting for the guys to pick us up. I can’t stop looking at the blue sky, breathing in the crisp, fresh air, and relishing the sound of birds chirping and cars driving past. Just soaking in the everyday mundane that people take for granted. It feels like a fucking lifetime since I had the luxury to just sit and drink in the world around me.
We’re not sitting there for long before Hawk’s SUV pulls up, stopping in front of us. Hawk jumps out from behind the wheel, and rounding the car, his gaze immediately falls on me, giving me a onceover as if he expected something to have happened in the few hours we were apart. Seeming satisfied, he nods at Mason and comes over, reaching out to help me up.
“Hawk,” I grumble, waving him off. “I can walk. I’m not a fucking invalid.”