Page 79 of Lawless

“Bro, we’ve got this. We’re not fucking morons.”

My lips twitch to point out there is more than enough evidence to convince him and Ez might just be, but now isn’t the time for brotherly bickering.

“I know, Bro,” I concede.

With a nod, he disappears again, leaving me with nothing but the sound of JD’s steady breaths for company.

Slumping back in the chair, I keep my eyes on him, trying to remind myself that he’s still here and that he’s going to be okay.

I’ve no idea how long I stay exactly like that, but eventually, my eyes get too heavy to stay open and I drift off into an uncomfortable and fitful sleep.

I stir more than once, cracking my eye open to check on JD. But he never moves or does anything, and each time I eventually drift back off again.

When a door closing wakes me again, I fly out of the chair and pull my gun from my back.

I’m not even sure my eyes open, my body acting on instinct.

“Whoa, we’re all friends here, young man,” a familiar voice says as my vision begins to clear.

The sight of Doc standing before me with a deep V between his brows and his trusty case hanging from one arm relaxes me instantly.

“Sorry,” I mutter, tucking my piece away and dropping back into the chair as my adrenaline wanes.

“Expecting someone else?” he asks, stalking over to JD and studying him closely.

“No, not really,” I say honestly.

Victor won’t come here, of that I’m pretty fucking confident.

Clearly, he wants to play games, not just have it out like normal people.

And I know why.

He’s scared.

He raised me to be the person that I am now; he knows I’m better than him. Knows that if we went head-to-head, I’d beat him.

So the pussy is going to make me work for it. Hell, I do want to work for it. I want to prove to everyone that I’m the right man for this. I want them to look at me and know that I went to war for them and that I’m going to do everything to make their lives better.

Honestly, it would be pretty fucking boring if he didn’t. But still, there is a part of me that wishes it could all just be over and that we could get on with our lives, building a new future for this broken town.

“How’s he been?” Doc asks, taking JD’s vitals and tapping the results into a tablet.

“Fine. He’s been out of it.”

“As expected,” he mutters as he continues. “I know he isn’t going to like this, but he really needs to take his meds.”

“I know,” I mumble, my voice hollow with regret.

I should have been making him take them.

For a long time, I used to. We had a whole stupid morning routine where I used to make him take them in front of me. I used to fucking check he’d swallowed them too.

But as time’s gone on and he’s been more stable, I allowed him to convince me that he was coping, that he’d found other mechanisms to deal with the darkness that calls to him.

Everything was fine until her.

I want to be angry. Try and blame her for doing this to him.

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