Page 141 of Tempting Fate

My pulse pounds.

“This is my fuckin’ fault.”

“No!” My best friend snaps at me. He curls his fingers around my shoulders and pulls me into him. I fight his embrace when he tries to hold me. Slash lets me struggle, but he doesn’t release me. “You don’t get to make this about you right now. Any misplaced guilt you may feel comes second to Cherub’s needs… you get her through this, then you’re allowed to break.”

“I can’t do this.”

“You don’t have a choice.” He shakes me. “Like I didn’t. Like little Cherub doesn’t.”

A moment of dead silence falls on the heels of his proclamation. I slump against him. Slash holds me upright and allows me time to get myself under control. With my eyes screwed shut, I replay everything that happened tonight over in my head. The party. The stupid plan to ingratiate ourselves with a bunch of rats. The phone call from Cub. Hunter’s desperation. Lily’s injuries. Bebe’s face as she told me about a diagnosis I never wanted to hear.

“I failed her,” I tell him. My voice sounds empty to my own ears. My best friend must register it, too, because he digs his fingers into my biceps as he holds me away from him. The concern in his expression unravels me. The truth tumbles from my mouth, unbidden. “She’s never gonna forgive me.”

“Don’t do this,” he warns, seeing where I’m going before I can say it.

“I have to.”

As if cued to wreak maximum havoc on my shattered soul, Lily wails from the other side of the door. In her tone, the same sorrow that’s riding me rings clear. My legs shake as I suppress the urge to run into the bedroom and gather her into my arms. To soothe her. To promise her everything will be okay, even though we both know that’s impossible.

Instead of following my instincts, I force a mask of indifference over my face to conceal my emotions and knock Slash’s arms away from mine. “I love her, but I’m no good for her. She needs someone who can keep her safe.”

“If you walk out that fuckin’ door, it’s over.” Slash follows me into the foyer of his house. He pushes in front of me to block the exit. “Cherub’ll forgive you for anythin’, except leavin’. She won’t understand where you’re comin’ from… abandonin’ her like this.”

“Good.” I load up and swing when he refuses to budge after I take another step forward. Slash takes the punch to the mouth without flinching or trying to hit me back, simply licks the blood from his lip, and continues glaring at me like I’m a stranger. “I don’t deserve her understandin’ anyway.”

Although he continues to stand in my way, the disappointment in his tone when he speaks tells me he’s not going to stop me from leaving if I try again. “She’ll hate you.”

“Need her to—h-hate me.” My voice cracks. I pull in a lungful of air that feels like it’s full of rocks. It settles like a boulder in my chest. Heavy as fuck. Immovable. It hurts, but it has nothing on the vise grip that’s squeezing my heart or the emptiness in the pit of my gut. “Make her hate me, please.”

“I don’t needa make her do anythin’… you’re gonna do that all on your own.”

We stare at each other. His icy gaze is filled with censure. Mine is pleading.

It could be seconds, maybe minutes. However long it takes for him to concede to my will feels like an eternity to me as I stand, frozen to the spot, while Lily’s cries grind what’s left of my grip on sanity to dust.

Eventually, Slash sighs and steps aside.

“Thank you.”

He grunts. “Don’t fuckin’ thank me. Just get the hell outta my face. Outta the city. I see your cowardly arse anywhere near her, I’ll be at the head of the line to kill you.”

“Expect nothin’ less.”

“Yeah,” he spits after me as I pull open the front door and step outside. “Well, I expected better. More fool me, I suppose.”

He slams the front door shut behind me.

I don’t have a destination in mind as I squeal out of Slash’s street.

Intent on riding until I fall over or find a cliff to launch myself off, I’m shocked to find myself pulling to a stop outside Doc’s clinic half an hour later. With robotic movements, I kick down the stand, then abandon my Harley on the footpath. The side door is guarded by a prospect who lets me inside without question.

“Venom,” Doc greets me. He wipes his hands down the front of his blood-streaked coat. “Good to see you’re in one piece, at least.”

I don’t bother to tell him that I’m the most broken of us all.

“I wanna see Brutus.” I cock an eyebrow when he hesitates. “Where is he?”

Doc scrubs his hands down his thighs. A small tic erupts in his right eyelid. “Look, he told me he didn’t want to see anyone.”

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