Page 104 of The Hate We Breathe
Ripping myself up from the ground, I stalk to the towel counter a few feet away and grab an armful. When I reach Juliet once again, I open up one and drop it around her shoulders, wrapping the coarse fabric over her upper body before I drop another to her lap.
Seconds pass and then minutes. Finally, Juliet speaks. “She’s dead, Viks,” she murmurs. “There’s no point in trying to save her.”
Viks sits up, the dark ink of his tattoos flexing as he shifts. He’s panting and staring down at the girl laid out before him. I’m not sure why he even bothered to try and save her, but I can’t deny that I’m happy she’s no longer a problem. All of the shit she’d spewed at Lex and Juliet on the camera recording made it clear that she has been the villain all along.
“She’s dead,” Viks agrees. That seems to break the unusual spell cast over Juliet.
“L-Lex?” Juliet’s voice shakes and it’s not from cold. Fear etches into her features, stealing across the pale cheeks and erasing even the hints of pain she’s in. All for him. Lex.
“He’s alive,” I tell her. “Ambulance is on their way. Gio’s with him.”
“W-what about Mads?”
I glance over at Viks and he offers Juliet a small smile that I’m sure is supposed to be reassuring but on him looks more like a grimace. “She was alive,” he tells her. “Just unconscious. When the ambulance gets here they’ll take her too and make sure she’s all right. You can see her when you get to the hospital.”
Juliet’s shoulders sag and she doesn’t even comment on his answer as her big blue eyes bore into me. “Roquel… tried to kill me,” she murmurs. “She killed Morpheus.”
“I know,” I say. “But you’re okay, Princess.” I gently sit down at her side and bring her against my chest. “You’re okay and that’s all that matters.”
She shakes her head. “No… no, she’s fucking… dead, Nolan. She’s dead and she didn’t fucking pay for what she did.”
I turn a glare to the dead woman as Viks stands to his feet and scrubs a hand down his face, wiping off the water still clinging to him and dripping from his chin. “What now?” I ask him.
Viks blows out a breath. “Now, we take the hotel footage to the police and clear Juliet’s name,” he says.
“Do you think it’ll be good enough?” Juliet asks as she looks up at him.
“She admitted to everything,” Viks replies. “The embezzlement fraud, the murder victims, and… everything else.” He gestures lamely as if he’s unsure what else to say.
Despite the towels, Juliet’s body begins to shake and I know that it has nothing to do with the cold. It’s the adrenaline coursing through her system, still there even if the major danger has passed. I need to get her to the hospital, to my mom—the only person I can trust with the woman who carries my fucking soul.
“Don’t worry about that now,” I tell Juliet, pulling her closer even as I try to not jostle her broken and dislocated arm. I need her warmth, the pressure of her existence. The reminder she’s still here.
I cling to the physical sensations of her. The smell of chlorine in her hair burning my nostrils in the best way. Her heartbeat. Her skin as it pebbles with gooseflesh. All of it is the proof that she didn’t fucking die.
Losing her… it was never an option, but if it had happened, I think the guys and I would’ve lost ourselves too. Without her, there would have been nothing left to save.
I press another kiss to her temple and glare at the dead woman. She’s lucky, too, though she’ll never know it. Because had Roquel Lee survived this night, it would have been to be killed via a fate worse than death. Torture and pain so severe that it may have even fixed her deranged mind.
None of it is necessary now, but I still need to make sure that my people are taken care of. Slowly, I get to my feet and lift Juliet into my arms. She doesn’t protest like I suspect she normally would. She must really be hurting. “We need to go to the hospital,” I say coolly. “Lex and Juliet both need a doctor.”
Viks is quiet for a moment, but he nods his head and fishes a set of keys from his pocket. I walk towards him and he drops them in Juliet’s lap. “There’s an SUV parked in the back lot. There’s a special series of buttons in the dash—it’ll light up like an emergency vehicle. Use it and get them to a hospital. I’ll meet you there.”
“You’ll take care of this?” I clarify.
He nods and that’s all I need to know. Turning from him, I stalk toward the exit and try to erase the sight of Juliet’s fall from my memory.
Juliet slumps against me. Her breath catches, but her muscles are too lax for me to know that she’s anything otherthan unconscious. I look down, taking in her features and committing them to my mind, tracing each dip of her features from the slope of her nose to the curve of her cheek. I take each and every minute detail and burn it into my mind.
Because if I do anything else—if I let myself think of anything else—I’ll see her falling all over again.
39
GIO
Cold.Hospitals are always so fucking cold. I’ve been in and out of them enough to know this for a fact. Every time Darrio lost his shit and took his hits too far. The broken bones, the bruises, the backhanded apologies that always sounded like blame—they gave me the relationship I have today with hospitals and it’s not a good one.
Still, I sit in the waiting area in front of a reception desk with my leg steadily pumping up and down as the clock on the wall ticks each second by. My eyes are glued to the double doors through which both Juliet and Lex disappeared.
