Page 52 of Speak

“I don’t know!” Jonas shakes his head, brown hair falling forward. He looks as unhinged as he did when I found him crying last Monday. “I don’t know because I have no fucking proof. I heard what I heard but I don’t think I heard the situation right. I don’t fucking know anything. I don’t know everything and it’s fucking killing me.” A tear leaves his eye and he quickly wipes it away.

I grab him by the nape of the neck in a comforting way, my hand sliding down to his shoulder so I give it a squeeze.

“She walks around like she’s dying from the inside out. Whatever happened broke her more than it broke me. She tried to talk, for Christ’s sake.”

I fucking knew it. “What?”

He shakes his head. “Shetriedto talk; one fucking syllable flew out of her mouth and then it sounded like her throat closed in and it looked like it fucking hurt her. I was so fucking angry I ended up… I shoved her against the wall, and I’m pretty sure I concussed her.” More tears fall and his voice breaks.

Pride surges through me at his admission. That’s my boy. I love it when he lets the darkness take over.

“I fucking hurt her and then I left her there when every fiber of my being told me to go back to her. You don’t know what this feels like. To find the other piece of your soul, to hold them and kiss them, and have them look at you like you’re their whole world and you canjust feel it. You know you are, there’s no second thought that they love you; they don’t even have to say it.”

He’s right. I have no fucking idea what that feels like.

“And shetriedto say her piece, Chase. Shetried. Whatever happened was probably not what it sounded like and if I’m honest, it soundedforced. But I was so fucking mad. Also- I fucking hate Cecilia. I’ve been having to shove my cock in her mouth because the bitch doesn’t shut the fuck up. If she actually had something interesting to say, it’d be a different story. But goddamn it, all she does is fucking yap. Even when we fuck all she does is talk. You’re a horrible friend for pushing me to fuck her. I can’t get her to take a fucking clue and leave me the fuck alone.”

I laugh at that. Yeah, Cece can talk for hours. I’ve had to gag her a few times.

“So you fucking owe me for that. I may have unclaimed her, but you’re going to find a way to fucking apologize or make her eat something because I don’t think I can continue watching her waste away. I haven’t seen her eat in over a week it’s fucking with me and if you don’t make it right, I’m going to end up talking to her again and I can’t handle that right now. One more look into her eyes and I’ll fucking flop. She’s mine. She’ll always be mine. I know it. I can’t explain it. But me and her? Our souls have met. Whether it’s today or tomorrow, or even a decade from now, we belong together.”

“Make her eat something.” I repeat. “That’s it?”

He blows out a long breath. “That’s it. Oh, and get Cecilia off my dick. I’m over it.”

Trying to feed Raven turns into a fucking fiasco. She faints beside a puddle of her own puke, and when I grab her, she weighs nothing. Jonas takes her from my arms and lightly taps her face.

We’re drawing a crowd and thankfully, Doctor Archer saw the whole thing happening. He gets another student to go get his medical kit from his office and gets us to take her to her room instead of the infirmary because he knows she’s prone to episodes and waking up in an unfamiliar place will set her off. Something about her prior trauma but he doesn’t give us more than that.

That makes the alarms blare in my head.

Does he know her?

Jonas, the creep, unlocks her room with her room key he copied the weekend they spent together. Doctor Archer doesn’t question it. He immediately sets her up with an IV from his kit.

“This is the girl you’re dating?” Doctor Archer asks.

Jonas shakes his head. “Not anymore.”

Doc nods his head. He’s a handsome fucker. All brawn and brains. Eyes the color of steel. Chiseled face, sharp jawline, tall as fuck. Yeah, the man probably gets pussy easy. I wonder if it’s too late to change majors. Doctors get so much snatch. Especially hot ones, I’m sure of it. He grabs his stethoscope and one of those arm things to check her blood pressure. “She’s severely dehydrated. Her heart rate and blood pressure are extremely low. Has she eaten?”

“She threw up what she ate.” I reply. Then, “Shouldn’t we take her to the ER?” I ask, “Since her heart rate is low or whatever?”

He shakes his head. “I’m going to see if her vitals go up. Could just be the lack of nourishment. If she doesn’t get better after this bag of fluids, then yes, I’ll take her to the ER myself.”

Jonas looks angry and grumbles something I don’t exactly hear.

Then we wait… Fortwo whole fucking hoursuntil she fully wakes up. I’ve missed two classes.

Doc flashes his flashlight pen in her eyes. And she goes rigid when she looks at him, it’s like she’s seen her long lost… something. She reaches out to touch him for a minute, there’s a tension between the two of them. Then her hand flies up to her mouth and the next minute, Riordan is getting her water and mouth wash and holding a waste basket so she can spew it out.

“Can you tell me who did that to you?” he asks, pointing to her injured hand. She tenses, looking behind Archer over at us, but then Spooks surprises me. She has every right to tattle on us to a person of authority that’s sitting right before her. Her sweet caramel eyes that are rimmed red and bloodshot, heavily bagged, and I’ll just say it. The girl looks and smells fucking awful and we did that to her. As a collective. And she could tattle… has every right to… but she doesn’t.

“Boys, I think I should like to be with my patient alone. She obviously doesn’t feel comfortable with you in the room and won’t be speaking-“

“She doesn’t talk. Like, at all. I should be here. I can decipher her looks sometimes.” Jonas says like a good fucking puppy but Raven shakes her head.

“Looks as though she’s communicating just fine without you, Mister Anderson.” I don’t miss the way Jonas flinches when he says that, like Raven has never wanted or needed him and Jonas turns to me, dread and sadness clouding his eyes.

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