18. Lamb

Chapter Eighteen

LAMB

“ I am going to smash it,” Ash growled, lunging for the round disk on the wall.

My actions were reflective; leaping between the clock and its assailant, I wrapped my hands around her waist, her furious fists darting over my shoulder as all ninety-five pounds of her slammed against my chest.

She wriggled and withered against me, unable to break free and only stirring me to hold her tighter. I liked the feel of her body rubbing against mine, even at the cost of a barrage of pinching and rapid cursing.

Seeing her pinching attack was futile, her furious limbs settled. Instead, a dark shadow crossed over her face, eyes zeroing in on the exposed section of my neck, her tongue darting out to wet her lips.

“Do it,” I purred, leaning close to her ear, feeling the shiver ripple down her spine. “ Bite me. ”

Ash stilled, her gasp snagged on those damp lips, eyes wide, pupils dilated. I could see the confusion in the bite of her lip, unsure whether to push the line or retreat from it.

I knew what I wanted her to do.

Instead, Ash relaxed in my grip, her body parting a penny’s worth from mine. Her eyes escaped my hold, flickering back to the clock ticking quietly.

“The noise is driving me insane,” she growled.

Ash wasn’t taking the start of her detox well. Even in my grip, she swayed, and in her attack, I felt her weakness and exhaustion. This was only the beginning, and a storm was brewing inside her, escaping in small bursts of anger and irritation.

Pride was Ash’s greatest foe, and now all her strength was crumbling around her. She would have no choice but to show her weakness to both me and Mint, and I knew that the mental strain would be harder for her than any physical fight.

Still, she didn’t fight me and allowed me to hold her still, even if neither of us would acknowledge it. A flicker of the fire in my chest warmed my cold soul, the subtle submission pulling an involuntary purr up my throat.

“You should sit down,” Mint interrupted, turning the page of his magazine. “This is going to be a long ride.”

Ash looked down at the plush carpet beneath her feet and the soft grooves already worn into the surface. It was the track Ash had been building just before she’d decided to brutalize the clock on the wall. For a second time.

“That is not as simple as it sounds,” Ash grumbled, tugging free from my grasp. I allowed her to slip away, her cool touch lingering on my fingertips.

I studied her; she rocked from one foot to the other as she shuffled back to the bed.

“I need to do something. Walking, talking, fighting.” Ash settled on the bed, wringing her hands in and out of each other, her nails raw around the edges. “I could take a distraction right about now.”

“Well, I don’t think you’d do well in a fight right now,” Mint chipped, still not looking up from his magazine. “And I don’t think the carpet can take any more of your pacing.”

“Talking, it is,” I finished for him, following Ash around the other side of the bed. I sunk onto the bed, the warm mattress welcoming me back into the spot I’d had to vacate the second Ash’s fists had begun to clench and her eyes locked onto the clock. My book was cast aside into the wrinkled mess of the bed, and I reached back for it; but instead of continuing where I’d left off, I folded it closed and set it aside on the bedside table.

“So, what shall we talk about?” I turned to Ash, my fingers folded over my lap, waiting.

Ash met my gaze and didn’t like what she saw there. A disgruntled groan dragged from her lips, a deep eye-roll pulling her gaze away from me and over to the window. She dropped her head in her palms and, with another groan, said, “I should have taken the drink.”

“Why didn’t you?”

Ash lifted her head again, her eyes cast softly over my reclined form; my feet propped up on the soft duvet with my ankles locked, leaning deep into the soft duck feather cushions.

“There was no point.” She sighed, shaking her head. “The sooner this starts, the sooner it will be over.”

“Why bother prolonging the inevitable?” Mint asked, the physical embodiment of an intrusive thought.

“If it even comes,” Ash scoffed, her eyes regaining that dangerous glint as she looked back up at the clock on the wall.

I kept my body lax but was ready to jump up and intercept should the need arise.

“It feels like it has been hours already.”

“It’s been a few,” Mint answered, fingers soothing down the edge of a page before casting it over. “Three? Maybe four.”

“Four hours and twelve minutes,” I corrected.

“Is that all?” Ash groaned, reaching out and snaking her arms around her knees, her head buried between them, rocking slowly from side to side.

I sat up, reaching out for her. I touched her clammy skin, but it disappeared just as fast as Ash lurched from the bed in a blur of wild movements. She threw herself up, her balance unable to catch up, so she stumbled forward. She made a strangled noise, and all I could do was watch, half-jerked over the bed as she made impact against the wall.

The noise was loud , and my heart began to pound in my chest, struggling and strangling itself of oxygen as adrenaline threw me straight over the length of the bed and to her side.

Mint had gotten there first, his trained instincts having him moving the second she had jerked from the bed, but he hadn’t been quick enough to prevent the fall. He wrapped an arm over her chest and caught her as her head made contact.

Her knees went limp as she collapsed into Mint’s arm, his own body dropping to cradle her weight as she dropped.

“Ash,” I breathed, throwing myself down by her side, scooping my hand under her chin and turning her to face me.

“Ow,” Ash hissed through gritted teeth. “That fucking hurt.” She moaned, her eyes squinted tightly shut, as a deep frown wove into the pained grooves of her face.

Relief flooded my veins, and my grip relaxed against her skin.

She snatched her head back from my hand, but it only pulled a louder groan from her.

“You good?” Mint asked, pulling her back and helping her lean against the bed. No blood covered her skin, but a growing red mark was darkening over her temple. “You hit that pretty hard.” Mint had flicked into nurse mode and was already poking, prodding, and turning her face to get a good look at the damage.

“I will be fine once you stop touching me,” Ash hissed, never the easy patient.

Mint ignored her swatting words and finished his assessment just as Ash began to worm away from his medical maneuvering.

As he let out a relaxed, begrudging sigh, I knew we were clear.

I reached forward, spreading my hand across her cheek. I turned her gently to face me, my eyes digging deep into that constantly changing expression of hers.

Guilt surged forward as she returned the eye contact, and I knew then that the action before had been involuntary. At the start of the detox, I was aware that this was going to be hard on her, not just physically but emotionally. There were going to be psychological mountains to climb, revealing themselves from the dirt that Ash had spent years trying to bury them under. This was just the start of a long climb.

That didn’t mean I liked it.

In fact, I hated it.

“Don’t run from me, Ash,” I warned, the growl in my voice low and guttural. It came from somewhere deep inside, somewhere I didn’t understand and didn’t control. “Never. Do you understand?”

“I have just cracked my head open, and now you are spouting—”

I squeezed her cheeks, cutting off her words. Her eyes flashed with rebellion, but mine burned brighter. “ Do you understand?”

Ash rolled her eyes, but her defiance faded; she relaxed into my grip, even if her eyes said otherwise.

I slowly released my hand on her cheeks, my fingers soothing over the reddening spots. “Use your words,” I ordered.

Ash sighed. “Yes, fine, I understand, Mr. Hyde,” she grunted, shaking off my grip. “Do not run from you. Got it.”

“Good girl,” I purred. The satisfaction of her words, even if they were just surface level, resonated back into the endless darkness. I was no closer to getting a sense of its depths, nor the trigger of its appearance, but this new energy, this new black fire inside, was taking a hold on me that I wasn’t sure I liked.

It burned bright at Ash’s every move. The urge to control, to take, to dominate had every cell in my body electrified with the need to make that happen. I needed her to submit to me, to not fight me, to give in. I needed it more than I needed to breathe. An unstoppable obsession.

It was uncontrollable.

It was frightening.

I let her go, righting myself back onto my feet, before helping Ash back up and onto the bed. She grumbled but allowed my help before fussing over her head. I could already see a shining bruise that would cover the skin over the next few hours. It wouldn’t be long before that painful bruise would become a drop of water compared to the oncoming tsunami as the last of the alcohol trickled out of her body.

Her anxiety was stirring, if the nervous ticks and panicked responses were any indication. Maybe I should pad the walls just in case? Acquire a straitjacket, perhaps?

“Stop it,” Ash growled, eyes narrow.

I crooked a brow at her. “Stop what?”

“Whatever you’re thinking about. I dislike it.”

I smirked. “Oh?” I leaned down, reaching to toy with her hair. She brushed it aside. “And how do you know that when you haven’t even tried it yet?”

“Because you looked a little too happy about it,” Ash rebutted, crossing her arms over her chest, wincing as the movement jostled her head. “Whatever makes you happy will not make me.”

“Want to bet on that?” I offered out a hand to shake, daring her to take it.

“No,” Ash sneered down at the extended palm before disregarding me completely and turning back to Mint. “Do we have to do this today? Can we not do it on a different day? Or not at all? We have already had a bad start.”

Mint had settled back into his armchair already, his magazine thrown back onto his lap like he hadn’t left. I worried his ass would have made a permanent indent on the chair by the time he left. I should throw it away. Or burn it for safe measure.

“At the rate you’re going?” Mint mused, twisting his lips with thought. “I’d give you five years max before you start experiencing severe liver damage.”

In the few years since I had met Mint, I realized he wasn’t the most patient person. He spoke his mind, damn the consequences, and whatever quiet atmosphere he alluded to at the beginning vanished when he decided you needed a lecture.

So, when Ash piped up, I buckled in for the ride, that lecture tone leaning in hard.

“So, I still have five years?” Ash clung to hopefully.

“For severe liver damage. Let’s not ignore what will come before that.” Mint flexed his hand and began popping his fingers down one by one. “Weakened immune system. Weakened bones. Poor appetite. Swelling. Infertility. A full cancer buffet. And my personal favorite—brain damage.”

Ash glared at my brother, looking far too amused for her liking, even if it was facetious. “Aren’t you a delight.”

Mint shrugged. “You asked.” With a sigh, he then began to rise from his chair, his magazine again abandoned as he walked back over to the bed. He scooped up a blood pressure cuff from the floor next to his bag, and for the fourth time since this started, he crouched beside Ash.

“Again?” Ash groaned, her lips rising into a half-frown, half-snarl.

“Yep. Every hour on the hour,” Mint popped, his tone far too peppy as he reached back for the clipboard tucked into the side compartment of his bag. He double-clicked the pen and began to ask Ash a series of questions while scribbling away.

After a few minutes, they moved onto the blood pressure cuff, and Mint recorded the reads with two fingers to the inside of her wrist, silently counting her pulse.

After writing down the results, Mint regarded the clipboard with bitter scrutiny. “If you have any immediate business you need to deal with, do it now, because you won’t be able to leave here for a while,” he said, rummaging around inside his medical bag.

I found Ash’s eyes catching mine, just for a moment; long enough for me to see the sudden vulnerability and longing before it disappeared far too fast to take a mental picture. Ash had, like always, been the first to break our locked gaze, and I mourned her vanishing expression.

“There’s nothing,” I said, refusing to look away from her, begging for her gaze to turn back and meet mine once more. Sincerity and honesty burned true in my gaze, boring a hole into the side of hers, her pale trembling hands tight on her lap. “I’ll be here.”

Ash didn’t turn to meet my gaze, but her hands relaxed, unwinding from their tight grip. They still shook with a cold quiver against her lap, but I knew it wasn’t because of me. Without thought, my palm smothered her cold fingers with my warmer one.

Ash didn’t fight me, her gaze weighing as heavy as a stone on our joined hands.

“Will this even fix me?” she breathed, the noise nearly lost between Mint’s rustling.

“No,” I said. It was too honest of me. Even cruel. But it was the truth. And it was all I had to offer. “But it is a start,” I added, squeezing her hand. Her small fingers softened and folded beneath mine, and just one palm alone was enough to hold them tight. I cataloged her face, watching every small micro expression flickering over the surface, wondering if I had said the correct thing enough to comfort her.

It had never been a forte of mine, opting more for honest truths than white lies. It was more practical, and though lying and bluffs had their purpose, within my close circles, it was often truths that came easy and lies that proved more difficult. Deception was an art in small doses; too much and your own truth would become blurred by the same lines you tried to bend.

While in the depths of my mind, I had missed Ash moving on from the comment, her assumptions and thoughts now sheltered under many layers kept close to her chest. Instead, those milky eyes had moved onto me. They returned the favor by scouring along the plains of my face, and I let her, basking in the warmth left behind by her traveling gaze. I kept an unbreakable gaze on her eyes, recognizing the way the white, translucent scarring wasn’t an even layer, but a fragmented one with big masses, much like the way the world was drawn onto a map. In some places, the jade green of her eyes was more vivid, much deeper, and silvery than the rest of her eyes alluded. It was like a forest in winter, the evergreens tinged with frost and light snow. I wanted to see more, to pull off the white scarring and see her eyes in their pure, true form, even knowing it was impossible.

“I cannot figure it out,” Ash interrupted my dream. Her gaze had stopped traveling, and now I could see how still and transfixed they had become back at mine, and how still they had been as I stared deep through the gaps into those wintery green irises beneath.

“Figure out what?” I pushed.

Ash’s eyes dropped like anchors into her lap. “Nothing,” she mumbled, shaking her head. Her braid slipped from her shoulder, down over her chest.

I reached forward, looping my finger around the braid and pulling it over her back, my fingers grazing the cool touch of her neck, my eyes burying into the exposed face turned down and away. Ash’s gaze stayed far away, looking at everything that wasn’t me.

I didn’t like the unsettled feeling in my chest, the strong desire to grab and turn her to look at me, to face me when she spoke. But I knew that it wasn’t the right time. Not by instinct or intuition—I possessed neither. No, over the last few weeks, I’d begun to understand the unspoken language Ash sometimes screamed and shouted, and other times whispered. Her eyes spoke volumes, and when she turned away, I knew it was like a closed door. Different from the times she burned with attitude and rebellion, different from when she pushed and begged for me to retaliate, to push back.

“If you have a question,” I said instead, my fingers occupied with pulling back the soft strands of hair escaping from her braid, tucking them behind her ear, my touches sparse and soft, barely grazing her skin, “just ask.”

“I cannot …” she whispered with a long breath.

“Why?” I pried, searching for a hint in the small frown of her lips.

“Because you will answer.”

“And that’s a problem?” I frowned. Confusion was exceedingly rare for me. Curiosity, sure, but I wasn’t often left bewildered. Though, with Ash around, I found that it was becoming more and more common. She baffled me in ways other people never had, and perhaps that was a strong part of her allure. The novel emotions she brought out in me that I had thought were otherwise extinct.

“Yes,” Ash answered, interrupting my reflection and pulling forward that large question mark spinning around in my mind. The conversation wasn’t satisfying my curiosity, and from my confusion, frustration began to grow; an impatience and persistence that I knew better taking over.

“I don’t understand …”

“You do not need to.” Ash sighed, slapping her hands against her thighs and shaking whatever melancholy had washed over her. “It does not matter.” She shuffled forward to the edge of the bed and pushed off to stand.

I felt her skin beneath my palm before I realized what I was doing. My fingers wrapped like a cage around her thin and fragile wrists, her arm flinching in my grasp as I stopped her dead in her tracks.

She looked down at it with surprise before turning to me, and I saw her eyes grow even further.

“It does matter,” I shot, unsure what it was she was seeing in my face, but knowing a bubbling mix of emotion was swirling inside of me. Something about the way she spoke, or the way the vulnerable space inside of her had snapped shut had impatience pounding in my chest. My heartbeat rose, and the thrum running through my fingers into hers told me her pulse began to quicken, as well. “Tell me.”

Ash paused, her eyes cataloging something on my face, something that had her stiff posture softening in my grip and her gaze holding mine.

I gave Ash a tentative tug on her wrist, and she let me guide her closer. Her knees butted against mine, her hair framing around her face as she looked down at mine. I released my grip on her wrist, my hand gaining a mind of its own as it reached up to cup the gentle, worried expression tightening on her delicate features.

Her softened green eyes searched my face, looking for something to give her the green light, to let her tremoring lips open and speak. I wasn’t sure what it was, but when her voice fell on my ears, I knew I had opened the door for her once more.

“Are you … in love with me?” Ash asked, and for a moment, my mind tripped. It was just a moment because as I searched Ash’s face in return, I realized she wasn’t asking this for confirmation, or with hope or desire. It was curiosity and confusion that wove her brows.

Before I got a chance to process my answer, Ash continued, “From the beginning, there was no attraction for us, not in the emotional sense. Neither of us is foolish enough to believe in fate. And if this is just a means to an end for your club, then there are more efficient ways to do this. You do not have to find my missing pieces or fix what is broken. So that is the only thing I can think of that would explain your devotion to putting me back together. To going this far for me … is love.”

I thought about her words, the letters tumbling over my mind time after time. It happened in a moment, but years flew by in my mind. Years of watching my brothers fall in love, one after another; of seeing the different forms; family, romantic, platonic; of different versions of love I’d witnessed; of another world I’d never been able to touch.

“I would be,” I answered, the words slipping from my mouth before my brain had caught up, “if I was capable.”

I had taught her love in every way I knew how, with every method I had seen and every story I had witnessed. It was all I could do for someone who lacked the core necessary to act with emotion. I could only do what others had done before me and hoped it was enough. Enough to fulfill my end of the bargain.

“I see.” Ash nodded, her gaze breaking from mine yet again, to the floor. She wasn’t disappointed, nor upset, not that I could tell. She was simply thoughtful.

It was one of the rare comments I had ever made about my nature. It wasn’t something I had ever discussed and had never needed to. Not many had seen behind the facade I carried, and even if they had, it wouldn’t be a side of me that would warrant an explanation or understanding. My duality would be the least of their problems.

Ash and I had fallen into our thoughts for a long moment, and when a sharp noise shot through the room, Ash nearly leaped out of her skin.

Mint held his closed magazine in his hand, his face welded with a heavy frown and his lips pursed.

“Shit.” Ash gasped, her hand on her chest. “I forgot you were there.”

“Clearly,” Mint deadpanned, tossing his magazine onto the side table and standing. “I need a smoke.” He fished a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket, giving us both long, cold stares. “If we’re going to live in each other’s pockets for the next forty-eight hours, we need to pick a different conversation topic.”

“You could always leave,” Ash huffed, not taking any of Mint’s attitude. “I will be fine on my own.”

“I didn’t mean for you.” Mint scowled back, the two butting heads again. I had yet to decide whether they got along or not. Both had a habit of riling each other up, yet a mutual understanding ran deep between them, as well. “I mean for us.”

Mint gestured back and forth between himself and me.

I stared blankly at the gesture, unsure exactly what he was alluding to.

“Don’t get me wrong; you’re going to feel like you’re breaking from the inside out,” Mint said matter-of-factly, looking back to Ash, “but seeing someone suffering and being able to do absolutely jack shit about it … that shit will burn you.”

Ash frowned. “You have done this before?”

Mint hesitated, his eyes flickering between me and Ash. “I’ve done both.” Mint smirked, but it was bitter. “Being on the outside hurt way more.” With that final statement, Mint walked out of the room, the door closing softly behind him.

“I am not sure whether that was supposed to comfort me or not,” Ash mumbled aloud, that worried brow tightening once again. “I do not think it did …”

I thought about his words, my eyes scanning over the vacant doorway.

It didn’t comfort me either.