Page 68 of What Doesn't Kill Us

I smile back at her and nod. “Come on now. You know I’m darkly eclectic.”

She rolls her eyes at me, pulling her hands free and smacking me on the chest playfully. “You’re fucking unhinged, and you know it.”

“I admit nothing.” I grab her hands again, pulling her until she’s lying on my chest. I kiss the top of her head and then chuckle when I hear her say, “I smell terrible.”

“I’ve smelled worse.”

“You’re disgusting. Sometimes, I forget men are disgusting.”

“You lived with Tony and Matt, and you forgot men are disgusting? How’s that even possible?”

“They must’ve been on their best behavior.”

I pull her closer so she’s lying on me almost awkwardly, and I have my face pressing into her neck again. She doesn’t struggle or anything; she lays there on top of me, allowing me to hold her close. And she says, “Anything else I need to know?”

“I don’t know. You’ll probably have to ask me questions as they come. I don’t know how things would’ve panned out if things had gone a little differently, but once Lilith showed up, things escalated quickly.”

She tenses against me, so I pull back to see her face. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

She grimaces, her eyes tearing up before she squeezes them shut and presses her face against my chest. “I can’t believe she’s gone.”

“I know, baby girl. I’m sorry.”

She takes a shuddering breath, and I feel her hot tears on my bare skin. I wrap my arms around her, pulling her into me until she’s sitting in my lap. She cries quietly, occasionally attempting to break free from me, but then she allows herself to lean into me. I didn’t have any serious attachment to Lilith, but that doesn’t mean I don’t feel the loss of her, that I don’t understand how a part of Antoinette went with her.

After a few minutes, her tears slow until finally, she’s lying there quietly. She shifts against me again, and I see her wince, so I pull back, my eyes scanning down her body until I come to the now-red bandage on her torso. She shrugs. “Looks like I overdid it.”

“That from the warehouse?”

“Yeah, I caught a bullet. Lilith ended up with the rest of them.”

Her eyes tear again, but this time, she blinks them away, giving her head a shake. “Luckily, it was just a flesh wound. I have some bandages in my kit, though I’m hoping they’re still dry.”

I move off the bed, pulling her with me and scooping her into my arms before heading to the bathroom. I set her down in the middle of the small room, making sure she’s steady on her feet before moving away and turning on the shower. I step inside, giving myself a quick clean-up before leaning out the shower door, indicating for her to join me.

She smirks as she walks toward me. “Gonna be kind of a tight fit, isn’t it?”

“We’ll make it work.”

She squeezes into the small shower stall with me, then allows me to help her wash up. I gently pull the bandages off her, making a mental note that her bullet wound appears to be fine. I help her rinse the wound, running warm, soapy water over the angry skin.

“I feel like it’s my fault.”

I frown, but I get it. “No one plays the blame game more often than I do, but there’s no one person to blame. And in this specific circumstance, it’s equal shares of blame to everyone involved, though condemning people changes nothing. All it does is make the pain fester, the questions of what if and if only setting you on a tortuous existence. The fact of the matter is, we can shoulda, coulda, woulda ourselves into oblivion, but we would still be right here, where we are now.”

“Well, Tony has no problem blaming someone.”

“Oh, really? And who is Tony blaming now?”

“Once he heard more of the story from me, his blame is being put directly on Carolina. Or, as he likes to call her, the deceitful whore bag.”

“Sounds like Tony. He often forgets that some people have legitimate motives for doing shitty things.”

“And did she?”

I nod as I massage the shampoo into her scalp. “I believe she did. But really, she’s the least of our problems right now.”

“Not according to Tony. He’s gonna make it his life’s mission to find her and make her pay.”

---