Page 11 of The Pretty Psycho

"No," I mumbled, my eyes returning back to Vega's sleeping form. Every nerve ending in my body wanted to kick them out, to leave us here all alone in this little cocoon where I could pretend she didn't hate me and that the moment she opened those bright eyes she would look for me.

But I couldn't kick them out because they had every right to be here. Maybe even more than me.

Arseniy came into focus, stopping on the other side of Vega's bed, looking down at me as if he was seeing me for the first time in his life. Maybe he was, at least in this state.

As much as I hated admitting it, Vega was my one weakness. My Achilles’ heel, but I would choose her in every single one of my lives even if it meant dying for just an ounce of that fire she carried within her bones.

The sound of tapping on a phone pulled my attention back to best friend, my brother, and I frowned as he showed whatever he had typed to Dimitri.

"What is it?"

"He says you look like shit." Dimitri chuckled quietly, looking straight at me. "I gotta say, he's not wrong."

My back straightened, my eyes narrowing at the two of them just as I lifted my hand, flipping them both off. "You don't look like Miss America yourself, but here you are."

"Hey." Dimitri feigned being insulted as Arseniy tried to hide the smile behind his hand. "At least I am freshly showered. Vega is probably choosing to keep her eyes closed because she doesn't want to deal with your stench."

"Fucker," I grumbled, but I couldn't stop the smile playing at the corners of my lips, the first one in days. "I took a shower three hours ago."

"Hmm." He shrugged. "Could've fooled me."

"You know what?" I stood up, hating the clench in my chest as my hand left hers, but I knew it wasn't healthy just sitting and waiting. "Why don't you make yourself useful and bring me some coffee, huh? That way at least I won't have to look at your ugly faces this early in the morning."

Arseniy rolled his eyes, but I didn't miss the amused look in them when they landed on me. Dimitri looked between the two of us, slowly taking a step back toward the door as the man I'd known the longest looked at me with equal parts sadness and anger, and I understood why.

I fucked up.

"I'm sorry," I whispered, barely able to look at him. "You have no idea how sorry I am, Arseniy. You have no—" But instead of the grumble he so often used whenever he wasn't happy, or the scowl I expected to see, he pulled me into a hug, wrapping his arms around me, and until the dam inside of me broke, I had no idea how much I needed it. How much I craved the touch from another human being.

"I need her to wake up, man," I murmured, tightening my arms around him. "I can't… I don't want to live without her."

"We know," Dimitri answered from behind us. "We know, Adrian."

My throat clogged as I detangled myself from one of my best friends, looking at the face that reminded me so much of the girl sleeping not too far away from us. I had no idea how I'd missed it when I first met her, but the two of them had the same sharp features, the same nose, the same shaped eyebrows.

I guess I was too blinded to see it because I didn't want to.

"Are we good?" I asked, needing to hear it, or at least see it. I halfway expected Dimitri to tell me to go fuck myself, even after all the lighthearted banter that just happened, but when Arseniy nodded, smiling softly, it felt as if a weight finally fell off of my shoulders.

Before Dante, before Jax, Arseniy was the first person that understood why I behaved the way I did. He was the first person to pull me out of the dark pit of despair. He was the first person to shake me, to put me back together, and I guess it was destiny that his sister would be the one to finish the job.

His hand landed on my shoulder, squeezing lightly, and that one simple gesture was enough to tell me things between us weren't as irreparable as I first thought.

"Come on," Dimitri said, opening the door slowly. "We will get you some coffee and some breakfast. Let us know if anything changes. The doctors have mentioned she might be waking up today, so?—"

"I'll let you know. Don't worry."

Arseniy simply nodded and moved around me, following Dimitri outside and leaving me alone again with Vega.

The sun was shining brighter now, illuminating her face with the soft glow, and just like over the last couple of days, I took a seat on her left side, taking her hand in mine, looking at her as if I could wake her up by the sheer will of my being.

"You know," I chuckled, "I didn't want to like you. As a matter of fact, I hated you, Bambi. I hated what you represented. I hated the secrets you had, but most of all, I hated how you made me feel. I hated that I've managed to go through my life with my heart encased in stone, or whatever was left of it, and the moment I saw you on that train it was as if that organ finally woke up. There was nothing else, no one else. I only saw you." I took a deep breath, lowering my head down on the bed right next to her hip, looking up at her face. "I wanted to take you, to hideyou, to run away with you, but I knew I couldn't. I knew I had a job to do. I had a plan, and that plan didn't have you in it. But you've managed to do what no one else ever could," I murmured. "You snuck inside, burrowing yourself deep within my bones, creating a home behind my ribs, in my heart, and I know, I just fucking know, that we were meant to be."

My eyes slowly closed, the sweet pull of a dream calling my name, creating a lullaby in the cacophony of the pinging machines around us. I was falling, drowning in the darkness, when the sound I was desperately waiting for pulled me back into reality.

Vega whimpered just as her hand in mine twitched.

I shot up from my seat, looking down at her with wide eyes, both elated and worried when her eyes widened, filling with tears as she looked up at me.

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