I closed my eyes, listening to the terrain under us, hearing what she was hearing to know when it was finally safe.
The car rocked over the bumpy land, leaves kicked up under the tires, but I didn’t hear any other engines following, shouts, or alarms. So far, we’d gotten out undetected.
I didn’t know what Banks was doing or agreeing to in order to distract my father, but I wanted her out of there now.
And Winter should never have come, either. It was insane to think we were going to get out of this alive.
Why did she even come?
She was pissing me off. Screaming at me one minute, all over me the next, running away this morning, and now she was here. Was she going to decide she needed more space tomorrow?
We pulled onto a paved road, swinging around, and driving forward, and I started to breathe a little easier as the car grew quiet and the engine hummed.
“You left me,” I said, her chin tucked on my shoulder as she held me from behind. “Everyone is always doing that.”
“I needed to think.”
“Think,” I repeated, shaking my head. “Fuck you, baby. It was perfect last night. There were no problems.”
I reached behind, ruffling her hair.
“You’re going to do it again,” I said, dropping my hand. “You should’ve just left me there. Why didn’t you?”
She was quiet, nudging her cheek into mine as she found her words. “Because I was afraid of life without the hope of you to look forward to.”
I fell silent, understanding instantly what she meant. Looking back, I’d always felt the same way. Whether or not we were together, I wanted her, and I’d always want her.
“We can’t hide forever, though, Damon,” she said. “Not in our mazes, our fountains, our treehouses… We live in the world with other people, and I want to respect myself. I just…I needed to think.”
“You want them to respect you,” I retorted.
This was about what people were going to say about us. She thought they weren’t going to trust her now that she was in love with the same guy she sent to jail.
“People think because I’m blind that I’m dumb,” she told me. “They treat me like a child. I want to prove I’m capable. That I’m someone.”
“You should’ve been strong,” I replied, my fingers freezing now all of a sudden. “If anyone knew what a vile cunt this world could be, it was us. But all I needed was you, and all you should’ve needed was me, and fuck all the rest. We would’ve done it. We would’ve won.”
“I came back,” she said again. “I was barely gone fifteen minutes. I came right back.” She kissed my temple. “And we will win. We will.”
Sure. Maybe.
“Okay, there’s Banks and the guys,” I heard Rika say and noticed the headlights coming through the rear window. “We have about three more seconds before Gabriel figures it out.”
My eyes grew heavy again, and my heart was pounding in my ears. I didn’t feel so good.
I swallowed. “I sometimes wonder what I’d be like if I grew up in Michael’s house. Or Kai’s.”
She laughed a little. “You wouldn’t be like them.”
“Probably not,” I agreed. “People are a blend of external and internal influences, not all controlled variables. Sometimes, just sometimes, we are who we are. Even in the sea, a snake is a snake.”
“A lion, a lion,” she added with a smile in her voice.
Blood from the wound dripped from my skin under the shirt.
“I should’ve taken you to St. Killian’s,” I told her. “There’s a room down in the catacombs.”
I paused to make sure she was listening.
“You turn left at the bottom of the stairs and keep going,” I instructed, knowing she was mapping it out in her head. “When you feel a draft from your left, you’ve hit a hallway, and you turn right. Drag your hand along the right wall until you feel the fourth doorway, and then enter it. Water from the snowmelt on the hills above the church seeps through the ground and spills down the walls like a tiny waterfall.” My arms started to fall, unable to hold her anymore. “You can smell the wet rock, and there’s a little pool where the water sits before it drains into a well. In the pool, there’s something you can have. Something of yours I saved. Something you forgot about.”
She waited a moment, probably thinking.
“I’m not missing anything,” she informed me. “There’s nothing I’m forgetting, Damon.”
I closed my eyes. “There is so much you’re forgetting, baby.”
She moved her hand and then sucked in a short breath. “What is this?” She panted, fear filling her throat. “Damon, what happened? Are you injured?”
She lifted my shirt, touching my wound. I grunted. Jesus, it felt on fucking fire now.
She started gasping. “Will, go to the hospital! He’s been hurt!”
“What?” Will shouted.
He must be who was driving.
“Get the flashlight on your phone,” Rika told someone. “Look at it.”
I kept my eyes closed but winced when a bright light shined on me.
“Oh, my God,” Alex cursed. “He’s soaked. Damon, how long have you been bleeding?”
I just grunted, their voices fading.
“Will, just go,” I heard Rika bark. “Speed. Hurry up.”
“Fucking Miles Anderson,” I growled under my breath. “We gotta kill that motherfucker.”
This was really going to ruin my day.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Winter cried in my ear.
“It’s fine.” I relaxed into her, her arms still around me. “I could die happily right here.”
“You’re not dying,” Winter argued. “You haven’t even told me you love me yet.”
Oh, that.
“Someday,” I teased.
“Damon, wake up.” She jostled me. “Come on, we’re doing this, right? We’re in love. We’re doing this.”
Their voices trailed off as if I were listening and not really here, and for the first time in my life, my entire body was relaxed. So completely relaxed.
“Is he gonna be okay?” I heard Winter cry. “Please, Will, hurry! Please, just get there.”
“I’m calling the ER to let them know we’re almost there,” Rika said.
Winter’s body shook under me, but fuck if I didn’t ever want to move from this spot. I let my body give in—falling, falling, falling—and soaking it up as long as I could, because who knew how long it would last. If I didn’t die from Anderson’s embarrassing little finger knife wound, she was gonna run off on me again to get more space, no doubt.
I needed to think, she’d said.
My dick was inside you four times last night. Now you needed to think? Really?
Winter
Present
I stood there, the speakers at the nurses’ station going off with calls, shoes squeaking against the linoleum floors, and the T.V. broadcasting a news channel as I leaned into the wall, rubbing my hands together and feeling his dried blood now grainy on my skin.
There’s so much you’re forgetting.
What was I forgetting?
What did he want me to have?
He’d said it as if he were leaving me something. Like he wouldn’t be back for it.
Needles pricked my throat, but I swallowed them down.
He was just going to bleed out? Because he couldn’t choke down his pride and ask for help?
I couldn’t believe him. He was insane.
And—in the back of my mind where I would admit it to myself—he was going to leave me. He was just going to let go.
I steeled my jaw, refusing to cry another damn tear for him.
Banks and Rika wandered about, offering me coffee or to find some scrubs, so I could get out of my bloody clothes, but I was rooted to this spot, waiting for the doctor or a nurse to come and let us know what was going on with him.
Kai and Will had also shown up, and it occurred to me to call my sister to let her know he was in the ER, but that fleeting thought left as quickly as it came. He wouldn’t want her here, and all she’d be worried about was if she still got her settlement if he died.
I heard doors swing open and closed and felt people surround me suddenly.
“Well, he lost a lot of blood,” a woman told us. “Right now, the doctor is working to close the wound, but Mr. Torrance does need blood. We’ve gone through our supply of B-negative, but it’s one of the rarer blood types, and he can only have a transfusion from other B or O-negatives.”