I gently shake my head. “I’m okay now,” I whisper as I slowly scan the room to meet Grayson’s stare, only to find it filled with demons. The things he’s had to do over the last few hours … fuck. I can’t even imagine what that would feel like. Having my blood flooding over his hands and not being able to help me would have seriously screwed with his head, but Grayson is stronger than I ever knew. Today will haunt him, but he’ll hold it together and not let it show.
Grayson’s stormy eyes bore into mine, and he holds my gaze for just a second longer than necessary, telling me so much with his silent stare.
I shift my gaze up to the shadow hovering in the doorway and instantly get hit with Carver’s shattered stare. There’s no other way to put it—he looks like shit. Carver’s chin that’s usually raised with power is down, his eyes that usually shine with strength are broken, and his heart that is usually locked so far away that not even he knows what it wants is sitting out on his sleeve for the world to see.
He blames himself for this. He was strong for me in the ambulance and gave me exactly what I needed to keep myself fighting, but now … now he’s nothing but a broken man completely overwhelmed by guilt.
I have to fix this, but how? Telling him that I don’t blame him is going to do nothing. He’ll listen to me, but he won’t hear me. Carver is just like me. He’s a stubborn asshole who listens only to himself, and right now, he’s determined to believe that he’s responsible for nearly killing me. He doesn’t give a shit that there was a crazy woman standing behind me with a knife to my throat, he doesn’t care that had he not made a move, she would have slit my throat with one quick flick of her wrist, and he doesn’t care that this is all on her. To him, all that matters is that it was his bullet that put me in this bed.
The urge to get up and go to him pulses through me and I try to sit up, only King and Cruz are there, shoving my shoulders back to the bed. “Whoa, baby, don’t fucking move,” Cruz orders. “You’re going to tear open your stitches.”
Stitches? Fuck me. How have I not even considered the hole in my abdomen right now? All that mattered was the boys, but Cruz is right. If I’m not careful, I could seriously fuck myself up again.
Not being able to handle the intensity of Carver’s stare, I look back to Cruz then flick my gaze between the three hovering around my bed. “Don’t get me wrong,” I murmur, my head pounding with every word, “any girl would be lucky to wake up with four guys fussing over her, but who … who are you?”
Cruz's eyes bug out of his head and snap to King, whose jaw drops, panic instantly spreading over his face. Grayson just narrows his eyes as Carver steps deeper into the room, watching me closer.
“What?” King breathes. “You … you don’t remember us?”
Cruz looks back at me, swallowing hard. “It’s me,” Cruz insists in a soft, encouraging tone, adding his other hand to our already held ones and squeezing it tighter, almost as though he hopes that just his touch will help to bring the memories back. “Please tell me you remember … I … I.”
A grin pulls at the side of my mouth as my eyes begin to sparkle with laughter. I don’t even get a word out before King tears his hand out of mine and flops back into his seat. “She’s fucking with us,” he announces, keeping his hard stare on mine as I hear Cruz let out a sigh of relief. “That’s a dangerous fucking game you’re playing.”
“Chill out,” I tell King, wishing I could manifest that bottle of water into my hands again. “The mood in here was going to kill me faster than any bullet could. Everyone needs to lighten up. I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine,” Grayson growls from the end of the bed. “You got shot, and you nearly bled out beneath me. You’re not about to sit there and shrug it off as though it doesn’t matter. We nearly fucking lost you today.”
“But you didn’t,” I insist, thankful as King reaches out and grabs the bottle of water, hearing the raspiness in my voice. “Do you really think I would have given up and left you all behind like that? We’ve been through so much, losing now isn’t an option. We have too much left to do, and besides, if someone is going to kill me, they’re going to have to try a shitload harder than that.”
The boys groan at the thought of our enemies attempting harder than what they already have. We’ve been through the impossible together, and honestly, I don’t know how much worse it can get. Fuck, I don’t know if we can physically survive any worse. We just suffered through a whole freaking ballroom blowing up. Though after the list of bullshit attacks we’ve made it through, surely my enemies can see that I’m not going down without a fight—none of us are.
Cruz groans and steals my attention from Grayson. “I hate how fucking blasé you’re being about this. You nearly fucking died. We almost lost you, and fuck babe, I know you like to pretend that you don’t fucking care, but we do. If you had died today … shit. I can’t even …”
“Stop,” I tell him, tugging on his hand to make him come closer. He does just that, and I pull him right in until my lips are brushing over his. “I’m not going anywhere,” I whisper, pulling back just a bit and staring into his gorgeous green eyes.
Cruz holds my stare for a second before finally nodding and dropping back into his seat.
I look around the room, scanning quickly past Carver’s intense stare. “Trust me,” I murmur into the room. “I do care. I care so much that it freaking hurts. You guys are quickly becoming my world that I can’t even bear the thought of being without you, but I can’t linger on it. I can’t linger on what happened today because I will crumble, and I can’t do that because we still have so much to worry about. I let her get away. We had my mother right there and I should have done something more to get to her, but I froze. She put that fucking knife to my throat and I just … froze.”
“Don’t do that,” King demands. “Had you made even the smallest move—she would have ended you. You did exactly what you were supposed to do.”
I shake my head. “I could have looked around when I got out of my hiding spot, or fuck, I should have just stayed hidden in the fucking pantry.”
“That’s on me,” Cruz says, his tone dropping as his gaze falls to our hands. “I was the one who told you it was clear. I gave you a false hope that you were safe and I have to live with that for the rest of my life. I should have stayed back to protect you while the guys swept the house.”
“Stop,” Grayson says, sitting forward in his chair. “Everyone blaming themselves for shit isn’t helping us get anywhere. None of us are at fault here, especially not you, Carver, but right now, Ellie is our main focus. We need her to get better. We can come up with a plan to get to London later.”
“I told you, I’m fine,” I snap at him, knowing damn well that the boys will sneak out of here and work out a plan without me, leaving me out of the loop and in the dark, all under the pretense of trying to keep me safe. “The longer we wait, the more time she has to devise her next plan of attack. We need to get her now. We can’t just sit here for God knows how long, turning a blind eye until I get better. We have to make a move. What if it’s you guys she goes for next? I couldn’t bear that.”