Page 32 of Severed Rivalry
I tap my pockets to find a shattered phone screen and a device with zero charge.
If that’s not the perfect end to a shitastic day, I don’t know what is. I can’t even call a rideshare to get me home to Eleanor.Fuck. What time is it?
I’m wheeled to the front door but walk back to the waiting room, trying to find a phone. I bet there was one in my ER bay, but I wanted the fuck out of there and didn’t spend the time hanging around to ask.
I’m dead on my feet and can barely brace when I’m rushed bymy sister, surrounded in her hug, and sobbed on for the second time in two days. Or has it been three?
I peer over her head to my little brother and communicate my respect for the man. I need to be better about letting him know I care. He knows. I know he knows, but I don’t want him to ever wonder.
Same for my sister. I pull out of her tight arms far enough to boop her nose. I think I started that when she came home from the hospital as a baby. I can’t remember ever not doing it.
Mom pushes in, but I refuse to let go of Ayla. I hold her close to me. We’ve been through something that no one but the other can understand. There’s no way I’m letting her go.
The group hug is awkward and fucking painful, but I can’t say I would let go either if I were in their shoes. So I grin and bear it, minus the grin. Moving my mouth is painful as shit, also it’s impossible with the wires.
Hell, I’ve been referred to specialist after specialist, including one to get new teeth. New because the old ones didn’t get re-whatevered in time. I don’t know the words. I know they can’t be salvaged, due to the beating and the timing of it.
My fucking father. I need new fucking teeth because of the asshole. I clench my jaw only to instantly recognize the mistake. The agonizing sound that leaves my face sounds like a wounded animal.
I don’t hear the conversation around me. Mom’s going on and on. Ayla has made plans for me. I simply nod and agree.
How long can we sit around? Why are we still here?
I learn it all as I spin my day over and over in my head, committing every detail to memory.
Liam texting. Ayla calling. The beatings. Hours upon hours with a gun to my head, losing my will to live. Finally realizing, through the soup of my mind, how close I came to dying today. That Ayla could kill our sperm donor—he’s no father and he’s sure as fuck no dad—or they’d kill me.
Sick mother fuckers were going to have us self-destruct as a unit, with the guilt and legal issues that came with it.
I don’t know how they knew about her. Though, that takes me back to early thoughts of who’s at risk and how.
My thoughts are slow and sludgy. Too much pain, too many meds, too little food, way too long since non-injury-induced sleep.
It’s Mom’s question and the worry behind it that has me seeing red. “Your father was there?”
“Did you miss the part about all of this being his fault?” Liam’s thunderous voice matches the murderous look on his face.
“Where is he? How is he? Why haven’t we heard?”
I can’t take it for another moment. That sack of shit doesn’t deserve the concern of anyone in the room, maybe not in the whole fucking city, but I can’t control that. I can say my peace. Fighting the pain in every single word, and dealing with my jaw wired shut, I grit out, “No. One. Fucking. Cares.”
10
not new mexico south
Cian
I wake after far too little sleep. I know immediately I’m not in my own bed or in my own home. Ayla insisted, so I’m at her mansion in the poshest neighborhood in Denver. And I do mean mansion.
The pain in my face, my mouth, and behind my eyes is enough to bring everything rushing back.
I was woken up every hour on the hour last night. More accurately, this morning, and since that was only four times, I know that my body hasn’t gotten enough rest to function, much less heal from the brutality inflicted upon it.
My phone is charged on the nightstand by the bed and when I reach for it, I realize the alerts must be what woke me. They all come through at six each morning from when I was asleep. I must’ve slept right through those and the ones after.
Several texts from Ayla indicate that I was the recipient of her journaled thoughts last night.
Ayla: I can’t sleep.
