Page 48 of Study Games

White was everywhere around me. On the walls, in my bed. Behind me, machines bleeped and sighed with a life of their own. The living nightmare returned, and my room shrank back to the tunnel I crawled through all my sleeping eternity.

“You’re cute when you’re sleepy.” I forced a smile, or tried to, but the corners of my mouth refused to turn up.

My heart pounded for no reason, and the floor dropped out from under me, even though Jax was right there next to me and neither the bed nor the room swayed.

I grabbed for the mattress on the other side to check I hadn’t fallen off the side of the world, and fire shot up my arm. My fingers refused to flex but the movement gave me the empirical, first hand proof I needed: the swaying and lurching feeling was all me.

“Slow down, girl,” Jax murmured, untangling himself from my cords.

Not that I could focus, as I whimpered and grasped at my wrist when my hand didn’t work the way it should. “What happened?”

“My father happened,” Jax said grimly, curling his much larger hand loosely around mine and gently prying my fingers free. “Wavey, let go,” he muttered, a pained expression crossing his face and entering his voice.

I blinked at him and released my hold. “I’m sorry.”

He bared his teeth at me, and the expression was utterly terrifying. “You shouldn’t have to be.”

I backed off, tears springing to my eyes. “Why am I in the hospital?”

He swallowed and looked away, though he didn’t let go of my wrists, cradling them together. “You slashed your wrists with a knife at my father’s dinner party.”

“What?” I shook my head. “No. I don’t know your father. I don’t remember that.” But my stomach did, roiling queasily. And besides that, the evidence sat right in front of me.

Or rather, the bandages wrapped around my wrist did.

“I held on to you while I thought you were bleeding out in my fucking arms, Waverly. While he laughed the whole time and sat there eating his steak and hosting his party. It was so sick.” He released my hands and fisted his, until his nails dug into his palms.

Dark half moons bracketed his fingertips. I traced them with a shaking touch I couldn’t control, relieved when he didn’t pull away. “Is that why I feel like shit? Because I lost…blood?” I couldn’t say slit my wrists. It wouldn’t come out.

Everything I’d been proud of the day before and the day before that fell away, shattering on the facade of a girl who had never been real in the first place.

“You feel like crap because you’re coming down from the drugs my father fed you. He’s exceptionally good at selecting his targets.” He let out a hollow, self loathing laced laugh that held no humor whatsoever. “I should know. I used to be one.”

“I don’t remember anything of what you’re saying.” My mind jammed, and I refused to believe him. “This is a trick.” I shoved pathetically at Jax’s chest, unwilling to read the truth or the pity in his face.

Unwilling to believe what he said.

While I struggled, my mind played catch up in its complement of brain soup. “Why would your father want to have anything to do with me? I don’t even know him!” My voice rose to a shriek as Jax folded his arms around me, rocking us on the bed as much as the IV pin cushioned in my arm allowed.

“But he knows you.” Jax seemed to find that amusing, laughing softly as he clutched me to his chest like I was an errant child who suffered a minor fall.

“Don’t laugh at me.”

Jax stopped and loosened his hold long enough to look down, tracing the tear tracks on my cheeks. “The devil always knows those he’ll hurt most,” he murmured, running his fingers over my lips. “I’m so sorry he got to you. I’m sorry he hurt you before I could help.”

I found myself nodding along with him. “You promised to keep me safe.” I slapped his chest lightly. He flinched, and I frowned. “You’re supposed to be the tough boy who likes pain.”

That same, strange smile again that clenched my stomach graced his lips. I hated that smile on sight.

“I do love pain, Bee girl. But I’ve had enough of it for a lifetime. For you,” he added softly, closing my hand on the hem of his black faded t-shirt and pulling it upward.

Stitches and scars and bruises obliterated the ink that crept over his torso. I let out a muted scream, pressing my hands to his stomach and not caring if it ripped my IV out.

“What happened to you?”

The smile tightened. “The twins. I made a deal. For you, Waverly.” He touched my lips tenderly. “But it wasn’t enough. Someone else already sold your debt to my father.”

I shook my head. “I don’t understand. My debt– it was never that. The twins blackmailed me. That’s all.” I shrugged, but even that seemed a small thing now, realizing the power they held over me was never what I thought. I didn’t care now, not any more. “None of that matters now.”

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