Page 82 of Diesel
The sun peeksthrough the curtains, casting a soft glow across Makenna’s face. It took her forever to get to sleep last night. Too long. She clung to me like I was the only thing stopping her from drowning and I held her while she cried herself into exhaustion.
Her tears felt like a fist lodged in my gut. I never want to see her break like that again.
I lie facing her, counting her breaths, watching every twitch she makes, wondering if she’s being chased by nightmares. Ones I could’ve protected her from.
In broken words she told me last night what she found in that room. She gave me vivid details, haunted by the cuts in her wrists, the way the blood collected under her, the smell. I hope in time it’ll fade, that she won’t feel it so intensely.
Her eyes flutter, her breathing changing as she comes awake. Even with the grief and pain drowning her, she manages a smile that almost unravels me.
“Hey.” Her voice is croaky, raw from crying last night,and worse. She told me she’d screamed until someone came to help her.
“Hey,” I murmur, brushing her tangles off her face. I wish I could carry this for her. I would shoulder any burden for her.
She sucks in a breath, then another as she’s trying to centre herself. “I’m sorry you had to take care of me yesterday.”
“Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Act like you’re a burden. You’re not.”
She snuggles against me, burying her head in my chest like she can hide from the world. From me. This is how she always is when her feelings are too big, when she can’t handle what life has thrown her way. She runs, or she hides.
I rest my chin on her head, wrapping her tighter in my hold. And for a moment neither of us speaks, lost in our heads, in our own thoughts.
“Have you… Have you heard anything about Chloe?” She doesn’t say but I hear the unspoken do you know if she’s alive still.
“I’ll find out for you.”
She does that sigh again, like filling her lungs is the only thing she can manage. “I don’t even know why I’m so upset,” she murmurs. “It’s not like I know her.”
I brush my nose through her hair, like I can inhale her into my body. “You don’t have to know someone well to be affected by seeing something like that, firefly.”
“It felt like I was back there… With him.”
I try not to stiffen, but I can’t help it. I don’t want her to ever think about that fucker again. Not when he changedher sense of safety. Not when he gave her nightmares that never faded. Not when he was the reason I wasn’t able to be in her life for five years.
“Not because it was the same situation,” she clarifies. “It was the blood on my hands. It was just like that night.”
She keeps her words level, like she’s trying to be calm for me. Measured, shallow breaths. Hands still, eyes downcast like she’s rationing her own emotions. I don’t need her to protect me from this. I don’t need her to guard my feelings in anything. That’s my job, not hers.
“I’m sorry,” she says, mistaking my silence for judgment. It’s not. But if I speak, I’m going to lose my grip on what little control I have left. She doesn’t need to see that.
I kiss her temple, my thumb swiping over her shoulder over and over, counting the swipes like it can ground me.
Eventually, I drag my thoughts into something that explains what I’m feeling. “I hate that you had to see that, baby. I would’ve crawled through broken glass to take that from you.”
I want to unleash on every brother who was in the clubhouse when she found Chloe. They were meant to protect her while I was gone. They were meant to shield her from anything bad. It sits like poison in my veins knowing they let her walk into that room alone. I bite down my anger. It doesn’t help her now. I’m not sure anything will.
“You don’t have to set yourself on fire to keep me warm, Zane. You’re my husband, not my blast wall. You stand beside me, not in front of every fucking grenade tossed my way.”
She says it like I can stop, but I’ll always be the bufferbetween her and the world. I don’t know how to be any other way.
When I don’t answer, she lifts her head out of my chest, and I hate the way she looks at me. Like she expects me to agree to terms that go against every instinct in my body. “Zane, I mean it. I might be yours, but you’re mine too. You don’t get to sacrifice yourself for me.”
I tap my tongue behind my teeth, trying to settle the roaring in my ears. It doesn’t help. “You want to talk about sacrifice? I’m not the one who stood between me and a bullet.”
She strokes her fingers down my cheek. “One time. I took a calculated risk that Riot wouldn’t shoot me, even if he’d shoot you.”
