Page 19 of Torn In Two

“Get out, Hawk,” she said softly, but with an edge I’d only heard from her in the last twenty-four hours.

Chaos glanced at me in surprise, and damn if I didn’t want to punch his stupid face in. I knew it was unfair and Kara’s rejection now was my fault. Saving her life didn’t mean she owed me her forgiveness.

But I’d earn it.

“Hawk, leave. Please.” Kara’s eyes filled with tears, her voice a wobble.

Her fingers twitched, and I wanted to believe it was because she was fighting the urge to reach for me, and not the urge to curl them into fists.

Chaos cleared his throat. “Kara, he saved—”

“I don’t need you talking to my woman on my behalf,” I seethed at him. All the hurt and anger and fear that had been sitting like a rock in the pit of my stomach swirled to life. I logically knew it was misplaced, but I wouldn’t take it out on Kara, and laying the blame squarely on my own shoulders was asking too much when all I wanted to do was cross the room, pull her into my arms, and tell her that I fucking loved her.

The last thing I needed was Chaos being all fake nice to get brownie points with her. The very thought pissed me off so bad I could barely see straight.

Whatever truce we might have called for a few hours was over. He could go to Hell.

I stared at her, so broken and bruised, and I wanted to kill someone all over again. Thunder. Ratchet. It didn’t matter which. If I could have made them deader than dead for what they’d done to her, then I would have in a heartbeat.

I strode to Kara’s bedside, ignoring her demands for me to leave, and took her chin between my fingers.

She stubbornly jerked out of my grasp.

“Look at me, Little Mouse.”

She did. I’d expected fire in her gaze. Anger.

But when I saw the pain there, the hurt I’d caused, I realized I’d been hoping for the easy way out and she wasn’t going to give it to me.

Good for her.

I was fucking proud of her for letting me see how much I’d upset her. Her anger had never bothered me. But hurting her…that was fucking inexcusable.

“Just go, Hawk. I can’t do this with you right now.”

I swallowed down the lump in my throat. “Fine. I’m going. But only as far as the corridor. I’ll be here to take you home when they let you leave.”

She ripped my hands away from her face and then wrapped her arms around herself. “No.”

I squinted at her. “Fine. I’ll get Fang or War—”

“I’m not going back to the compound.”

I froze. “What the hell does that mean? Of course you are. It’s your home.”

She stared at me miserably. “It’s not my home. It’s my prison. I can’t go anywhere. Can’t go shopping. Can’t see my sister. Hayley Jade can’t go to school.”

We’d talked about this at dinner the night before…shit, had that seriously only been last night? It felt like a lifetime ago. Like we’d been different people who’d had that conversation across a little table in a shoddy Saint View diner. She’d told me the compound had become a new sort of prison.

And I’d become her jailer.

“We can fix that,” I promised her. “Whatever you want to do, you can.”

As long as someone went with her. But that wasn’t going to help my argument, so I zipped my lips to keep the words from spilling out. “Kara, that cabin is your home. Hayley Jade is happy there.” I’d thought they both were.

She shook her head.

Anger made its way through the regret. She was so fucking stubborn when she wanted to be. I threw up my hands in frustration. “Where then? Where the hell else are you going to go, Kara? You can’t go to Rebel’s place, all beaten and bruised the way you are. You’ll scare the shit out of the kids. You can’t go to Bliss’s place. She’s about to have a baby any day. They need time to be a family. The only other place is the compound.”

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