Page 120 of Cruel Lies

"You know, you have to use your hand to open it, bro," I supplied helpfully, hoping he’d come out of this catatonic break himself. When he made no move to clear the way, I did it for him, rolling my eyes at this fuckingchildand the bullshit I was about to have to go through.

Thankfully, I wouldn’t have to go through it alone. Angel was here, which meant I’d have an extra pair of hands to wrestle him into the shower and babysit him while Harper slept in the next room. We could run shifts, if necessary.

As soon as the front door closed behind us, it was like something in Nash’s brain switched back on, and he zipped over to Angel’s door and was in the room before I could stop him.

He didn’t make it far, though. He’d stopped just inside, his eyes glued to the bed before him.

Harper was pale—too pale—and lying in the center of Angel’s big, comfy bed. Her hair splayed out around her like a fan, accentuating her slightly furrowed brow.

She looked like she was in pain. Which made sense.

Whatdidn’tmake sense was the man lying next to her, so close to touching her without actually touching her that it was damn near comical.

Angel was curled into a C shape, his forehead almost right against her shoulder, his hands curled around her arm on the same side. His torso arced away from her, and his knees were tucked up level with hers, giving him the illusion of an overgrown child.

His eyes were closed, and his chest rose and fell in short, even bursts. He might’ve gone on sleeping like that for who knows how long had I not coughed and ruined it.

Like a bullet had passed through him and not her, those jarring, violet eyes of his shot open, and he pinned first me, then Nash, with a death glare. When he caught sight of our eldest brother, however, the glare softened in confusion, and he pulled himself away from the sleeping woman in the center of his bed and slowly approached Nash like he might bite if spooked.

Which was . . . a reasonable assumption.

"What happened toyou,asshole?" he whispered, a hand reaching up to trail softly along the drying edge of Nash’s new wounds. "Who hurt you?"

"Hedid," I muttered, my eyes still on the center of my fucking universe. "He’s been catatonic ever since."

Angel was more than peeved, but he reserved his shouting match for later, thankfully. I was beginning to think that staying close to Harper was the best idea to avoid any sort of danger or discord for the foreseeable future.

But this wasn’t my room, and with the way Angel looked at her . . .

It was like she was his little broken doll and he was trying to superglue the pieces back together.

I’d never seen him look at another human being like that in his life.

"I’ll throw him in the shower; why don’t you check her vitals and see if anything’s out of order?"

My hair bounced around my face as I turned to face him. I’d almost forgotten there were two more people in the room. "Sure," I whispered, nodding absently as he led Nash from the room.

Or, rather, he tried to. The second Nash felt Angel’s hands on his shoulders, he turned feral, bucking him off with a quickness, almost snarling at him until his eyes alighted on Harper again.

Well, this isn’t good.

"Nash," I pleaded with him, hoping to placate the beast that had taken over him. "You can’t see her like this, buddy. You’ve gotta clean up some. You don’t want the first thing she sees is you looking like . . .this."

I meant his blood-soaked appearance. The stench of piss still clinging to his boots. But broken Nash was unreasonable and illogical, and the only thing he heard was‘you don’t want her to see you,’which in his head meant his scars.

"She might as well see what she’s done to me," he snarled, falling to his knees at the edge of the bed. His blood-stained hand reached for hers, dragging a trail of red across Angel’s pristine sheets.

The latter man cringed, then sighed, laying his hands on either side of Nash’s shoulders again, this time just holding on to him. Grounding him somehow.

"Nash. You’ll give her a heart attack with all that blood. At least find a clean shirt, yeah?"

Slowly, agonizingly slowly, he rose from the floor, still holding her hand in his. "Yeah," he agreed, finally. "Yeah, a shirt sounds nice. Maybe a shower. I smell like traitors."

"That’s right," Angel continued, letting Nash lead the way this time, only offering slight guidance. "Let’s get out of here and give Rowan a minute to check on her, okay?"

"Yeah."

The door closed quietly behind them, and finally, I was alone with our girl.

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