Page 24 of Dead Woman Walking

“No!” I snap, pulling back from his touch. “They don’t believe me! The cops. The nurses. They told me that I did this to myself! I did this. I shouldn’t have worn those…” my breath leaves my lungs as tears rush down my face.

“No, Artemis. This wasn’t your fault.”

My fingers run over my legs, trying to get the blood off my clothes.

“Mom will come here soon. She will be pissed if the blood isn’t out of my shorts and—”

A hard slap tingles across my face, and my whole body freezes.

“Jax!” Kyler and Evander scream.

Jax?With a stinging cheek, I look up at Jax with wide eyes. I almost think he looks like Gray, but he looksnothinglike him. I feel… calm on my knees before him, not small. Jax looks down at me with dark eyes and wet black hair that hangs over his eyes a bit.

“You are not there anymore,” Jax explains. “You are not their victim anymore.Get up.”

I blink, looking down at my shorts. They aren’t drenched in blood like I thought a minute ago.I’m not in that ditch anymore. I am with my three men, kneeling in the grass next to my vomit.

“Up, Mouse,” he orders.

Mouse.My bottom lip quivers, hands shaking.

“You’re pushing her too far,” Evander snaps, pushing him.

But Jax doesn’t budge. The slap wasn’t to hurt me. It was to bring me back to reality, like I have done so many times for him.

“Get up, Mouse. You aren’t there anymore. You’re here with your boyfriends.”

My lips close as I look around. The car is parked nearby, but I am on the side of the road. My eyes sting with hot tears. “I-I just… wanna go home, Jax.”

“Then let’s go home.” He holds out his hand.

My Jax…He is cold and hard and does the bare minimum of touching with people.Besides me.

I grab his hand, and Kyler helps me to my shaking knees.

“Come here,” Jax mutters, reaching down and picking me up. When we met, he couldn’t do this, and I think that gave him something to work toward until he started doing it as self-care. He carries me back to the car with ease as Evander opens the door for me.

Jax sets me down, grabbing my chin to look up at him. “Are you okay?”

I nod.

“I’m sorry I hit you.”

“I needed it. I was… somewhere else… in the past.”

“Well, now you’re here. We will go home, haveBrahmscook for us while you bathe and we eat together, watching one of the stupid movies you love so much.”

My bottom lip quivers again.

He rolls his eyes at me. “Oh my god. Stop crying.”

I try wiping the falling tears, but he beats me to it. My eyes look up at him through wet eyelashes. “I’m sorry.”

Jax sighs, grabbing me and pulling me into his chest. His hand wraps around my head, holding me against his beating heart. “It’s okay to cry…thisone time. No other times.”

I chuckle, though it was broken with a sob.

He holds me for another moment before letting me get into the back, smacking my ass in the process.

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