Page 80 of The Jester and His Outlaw: Part One

The individual beats of his heart ramming against his chest vibrate my cheek. His words are on repeat in my brain.Broke bones, tortured, starved…I keep my mouth shut, wishing I could change the past.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.”

“Someone has to be. You were just a kid, Riggs. You didn’t deserve that. They were supposed to be the people you could count—”

He cuts me off, “I deserve it now.”

“What does that mean?”

He doesn’t respond and as much as I want to be upset by that; I try not to be. He’s talked much more than he ever has in the past.

Our conversation falls silent, and we’re just watching the movement in the park.

The mother I’ve been glancing at lets her little boy tag her again as they run around in the gravel area before us. He throws his arms up in victory and reaches out to tag his unsuspecting sister. She twists her face in anger and stomps her foot. They don’t know how to play tag, but I’m not going to be the one to burst their bubble.

The girl runs after her brother in a fit of mini-rage but doesn’t see the wooden beam outlining the edge of the rock pit. Her tiny ankle twists and she starts to tumble, her arms flailing. There in an instant, the mother reaches out to keep the girl from falling and snags her little arm. If one hadn’t witnessed the entire scene, the act would have appeared slightly violent in nature. I wince for them both because I know she is just trying to keep her from hurting herself.

A shriek of surprise bursts from the child as her mom yanks her back.

Beneath me, Riggs flinches, his entire body jolting. I lose my balance, teetering on the bench.

“Don’t fucking touch me!” Riggs screams and pushes me off of him with a force I would never expect from him. Without warning or a real chance to brace myself for impact, my side crashes into the same beam the little girl tripped over. Agony radiates from my hip as it fires off a stream of protests.

A metal stake driven into the weathered beam is raised a little and it catches my tricep, slicing my skin. My head bounces off of the broken down gravel, and stars dance through my vision. I grab my head and whip around to decipher what just happened.

Blinking against that movement, I groan.

Disoriented and woozy, I sit up, needing a minute to get my head straight and assess the damage. My head is spinning but it clears the steadier I am with my movements. The throbbing in my hip is certainly noticeable. What concerns me, though, is the warmth running a trail down my arm and dripping from my elbow. Crimson stains the gravel where my ass rests.

Shit.

I run the fingers of my other hand over my hair, wincing when I come in contact with the goose egg growing on the back of my head. I blink to clear my vision.

The mother has since collected her daughter and is checking to be sure she is okay. She carried her well away from us. I can tell she feels a little guilty for yanking her up like she did by the way she works to straighten her daughter’s clothes and rub her arm. Her eyes bounce our way, but she doesn’t make our ordeal her business.

Riggs is breathing heavily, his eyes laden with panic as he watches their interaction intently. When I step in front of him, he blinks but he doesn’t recognize me. Instead, his brows pinch together as a mask of confusion slips over his face. He pulls his arm in, cradling it close as if it’s hurting him. There is a slight back and forth motion his body makes but it isn’t quite rocking yet.

He’s shut down, curled in on himself, muttering something. He whimpers, ducking his head protectively, and I nearly split in two.

“Riggs.” I bend at the hips, a big mistake as a wince draws my breath in, and I place my hand on the bench to steady myself. At this point, my head aches but the dizziness has subsided. I wish I could say the same for the throbbing in my hip or the blood running down my arm. The thought to try and stop the bleeding hasn’t even occurred to me. I swear I can hear each drip of splattering onto the gravel but that could be my heartbeat thundering in my ears.

“No! I’m sorry. Please stop!” Riggs yells. Confusion, which could be from the blow I took to my head, washes over me. What the hell is going on? Something is very, very wrong. Riggs would never intentionally do anything to harm me and while he has hurt me, he hasn’t seemed to notice.

“Riggs,” I say a little louder this time and wave my good arm in front of his face.

“Is everything alright here?” a nosy guy asks, coming a little closer. I warn him off and nod my head. Riggs doesn’t even notice he is there when normally he would be sneering at someone butting into our conversation.

Yep, something isn’t right.

“Yes, we are fine. Thank you.”

“You should—”

“Sir,” I cut him off with a hard glare. “I’ve got this.”

He holds his hands out, palms at a forty-five degree angle and facing downward in surrender. “Alright. As long as you’re okay. I hope things get better.” Thankfully, he backs away.

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