Page 95 of Intertwined Souls

Closing my eyes, I inhale and then exhale. I want to understand, I want to tell him that he is just trying to be a good dad, but why wouldn't he tell me this? Why did it have to be another secret? I know I can get defensive, but am I really that bad?

Not ready to get into it or say something I shouldn’t, I just huff, “I need a minute.”

And then I walk away. Heading upstairs, I go to our guestroom where I know they have Oakley and find Brielle sitting in a chair next to her.

She smiles softly at me. “You alright?”

I nod and take the seat beside her. “How is she?” I ask.

Avoiding thinking about Gabe and what he just said, I try to shift my thoughts to Oakley and the other victims. I understand. I really do, yet a small part of me wants to be annoyed with him that it still kind of feels like he doesn’t think I can handle things.

Or he just wants to protect you, Harley, I remind myself.

“Hasn’t woken up yet, but she was severely dehydrated and malnourished, so we gave her another sedative late last night just to let her rest longer. We don’t know how long she was in the room you found her in,” Bri murmurs with a shrug. “It could’ve been days. We don’t know what they had her on, which worries me.”

“Pills. Opioids,” Nerds’s voice sounds from the doorway. He enters along with Gabe and my guys. “Based on what Noah said about how she was acting, that's my best guess. It also means they probably just cut her off for whatever reason.”

“More than likely as some kind of punishment,” Gabe seethes.

Letting my eyes fall shut, I inhale, hold, and then exhale. I know the kinds of torture these kids went through, and it’s so fucking unfair to all of us. All I want to do right now is destroy every person who has ever harmed any of them. Who has harmed me.

“Yeah,” Nerds sighs. Before he can continue talking, Oakley groans and moves her head around before very slowly blinking her eyes open.

“Oakley?” Bri asks gently as she stands and runs a hand over her clammy forehead.

Oakley sucks in a sharp breath, and her hand shoots up to grip Bri’s wrist. “Please. I need them. You can’t take them away anymore. Please!” she screams at Bri.

Based on the way Bri gasps, Oakley is squeezing her wrist pretty hard. Ryker moves to Bri’s side before anyone else can and helps pry her fingers off. Once she’s free, Bri steps back and Oakley mumbles incoherently. Her pupils are so dilated you can hardly see the steel blue color of her irises.

Stepping up to the bed, I say, “Hi, Oakley—”

Her eyes grow wide when she finally looks at me, and she cuts me off as she shoots up in the bed. “I told you no more! I told you to stop. You have to stop. They are mad. I took the blame this time, but next time—”

She reaches out for me, but Cade quickly yanks me back.

“Stop it! Stop it!” She keeps screaming it over and over again and begins rocking back and forth while scratching at her arms.

“What do we do?” Ryker asks, his eyes wide with panic.

Gabe steps forward and tries to get her attention, but she seems delirious and trapped in her head.

“We need to give her something.” Nerds says over her yelling.

“I don’t want to give her more sedatives. We can’t just keep her knocked out forever. She needs to eat and move. We aren’t a hospital and can’t do long-term sedation,” Bri chides.

Nerds shakes his head and looks down at Oakley. His eyes soften in understanding and then with one big deep breath, everything in the room changes. “I have some pills we can give her. That way she can become coherent enough to speak with us, and we can get information from her and figure out next steps.”

Nerds kept his eyes focused on the ground the whole time he spoke, but now he raises them and hesitantly looks at Gabe.

My brows dip in confusion as I also look over at Gabe, who is standing about ten feet from Nerds, a murderous yet look of extreme disappointment on his face. “What did you just say?” Gabe asks slowly, his voice low in anger.

“Rage—just, just let me—” Nerds stammers, but he shuts up with just a simple hand raise from Gabe.

“Okay, hang on, whatever this is needs to be paused for a moment,” Bri commands, fully in nurse mode. “If you have something, go get it now. We have to get her calm before she makes her arms bleed.”

Nerds nods and quickly leaves the room.

Gabe stands frozen just staring at the door Nerds just walked out of. I want to say something, but I don’t know where we stand right now, and I have a feeling Gabe is very on edge, so I leave him be and watch as Ryker and Bri continue to try to calm Oakley down.

---