Page 75 of Burned in Stone
“Can’t help it. I need to move. Everything’s stiff.”
She lifts her head, green eyes soft and concerned as she catalogs the damage in daylight. She’s trying to play it cool, but I know all her tells now. The chewed lip, the flexing fingers, the way her jaw sets.
I reach for her face even though my arm feels like it’s packed with sandbags. “Hey.” My voice comes out weird, the kind of sound that makes you realize your vocal cords are somehow also swollen from the beating. “You OK?”
She snorts, a fragile smile tugging at her mouth. “You’re the one who looks like he survived a UFC match with a car compactor, and you’re asking about me?”
“One of us has to.” I try to wink, but only one eye cooperates. “Am I hideous?”
She leans in and kisses the corner of my battered mouth. “Objectively, yes. But it works for you. Gives you that edgy, tragic hero vibe. The girls are gonna eat it up.”
I try to laugh, but it hurts my ribs, so I settle for grinning. “So what you’re saying is, you find me even more irresistible.”
She rolls her eyes, which is exactly the reaction I want. If Mercy is rolling her eyes, she’s not panicking, which means I’m doing my job.
I pull her closer, ignoring the sharp protest from my side. “You slept for, like, ten hours,” she says, tracing my collarbone with her finger. “At least half of it was legitimate unconsciousness. I was petrified for a while there you weren’t going to wake up.”
“Who’s being creepy watching the other sleeping now?” I tease.
She smacks my chest super light, but even that hurts, so I play it up and groan dramatically.
“Cash.” Her voice turns serious. “Last night was really scary.” Her hand on my chest goes still but doesn’t pull away. “You could have died, you know. Maybe if Bones and the others hadn’t gotten there when they did…”
“What, and leave you to wrangle the whole club on your own? Never gonna happen.” I cover her hand with mine, even though my knuckles are a mess of scabs and swelling. My thumb drags slow over her skin.
She shakes her head, hair curtaining down. The edges of her eyes are puffy and red. “Don’t joke about it. I’m serious.”
I push myself up a little on the pillow, biting back another groan. “You think I’m going anywhere, angel? You couldn’t get rid of me if you tried.” I make my voice as light as I can manage. “Tough luck, but you’re stuck with me now. And I’m pretty sure that since you’re my old lady, you owe me several rounds of naked nurse.”
She slides off the bed and picks up the painkillers the club doc dropped off. With careful hands, she helps me sit up and hands over the pill and glass of water. “I’ll give you naked nurse all you want once the swelling goes down. In the meantime? You’re forbidden from moving unless it’s to pee, eat, or let someone take care of you.”
I toss back the pill then make a big deal of drinking every drop of water. “Want to know a secret?”
“What?” She sits on the bed beside me again, and I take her hand in mine.
“Last night, when they were driving me out there, all I could think about was you. Not what they were going to do, not how to fight them—just that I had to get back to you.” My throat gets tight. “I couldn’t let myself think about not making it back. Because you needed me. And I promised to protect you.”
“Cash—” She’s crying, but trying not to let me see. The way she turns her face, like I’m fooled by the hair. I set my hand under her chin and nudge it back toward me, slow and soft so she’ll have time to pull away if she wants. She doesn’t. Her eyes are dark and wet and raw, and there’s nothing hidden there, not from me.
“I love you, angel. So fucking much it scared me when I thought?—”
She cuts me off with a kiss, gentle on my busted lip but fierce in its intention. “I love you too.” She wipes her face with the heel of her hand, then burrows into my chest.
And I realize something. Last night, when Gabriel and his goons were working me over, I kept waiting for the old panic to hit. The kind that’s been waking me up in cold sweats for weeks. But it never came. Because I knew—even when they were beating the shit out of me, even when I thought I might not make it—I knew Mercy was waiting. Knew the MC would come.
That’s the difference between surviving alone and having a family. You stop fighting just to survive and start fighting because you have something worth coming home to.
My arms tighten around her. We stay like that for a long time, just breathing together. The steady thump of her heart slows mine, and the rest of the world disappears. For a second, maybe a whole minute, all the pain dulls and I don’t even care if I ever move again. But that’s when someone decides to pound on the door, so hard the whole frame shakes.
“Cash! Mercy! Get up now!” It’s Steel, and he sounds panicked.
I’m out of bed before I think about it, then nearly collapse when white-hot agony lances through my torso. Mercy quickly steadies me.
“What’s going on?” she calls out to Steel.
“Devil’s went up in flames. The whole building. Stone needs everyone in the great room. Now.”
It’s amazing how fast panic can erase pain. In less than thirty seconds, Mercy and I are out the door, and I’m limping down the hallway, my whole body running on pure adrenaline and the unnatural clarity that comes after a night spent thinking you might die.
