Chapter 21

Chapter 21

RILEY

It’s beenthree days since I woke from my withdrawal-induced “semi-coma.” Cree told me to take time off and heal from the stress of it all, not that I really wanted time to sit around and ponder the shit-show that is my life. I know he means well, but letting someone who escaped reality with pills and alcohol sit around alone to think is a really bad idea.

After two days of my ups and downs, Axel tried to explain to me and the others the symptoms of withdrawal that I’m going through. To be honest, I sort of tuned him out after about five seconds. I couldn’t handle all the technical stuff and really wanted to sleep. I believe that’s the depression stage he was starting to talk about.

Even though the worst of it is over, I’m still dealing with the mental backlash. All the things I never wanted to deal with, I now have to. All the fucking hell of every loss, every bad choice I ever made, every heartbreak and betrayal. I just want it to stop, but without my crutch to lean on, I can’t. And it’s been making me more distant than ever. The guys don’t make that easier on me, either, which only serves to make me more irrational and vindictive.

They never leave me here alone, always making sure one of them is around to babysit at all times. It’s as if they don’t trust me to be left to my own devices; they think I’ll slip up. I know they’re probably right and am grateful for the safeguard they’re providing. However, my irrational mind and emotions are pissed the fuck off.

These guys are supposed to be my fucking mates, right? Shouldn’t that come with a level of trust? They want me to open up to them, to share the scars of my past. To put my fragile, broken trust in them, yet they don’t show me any in return. That’s not how it works. This is all just fucking bullshit. How can they be my mates if they can’t trust me in return? Simple, they’re not my mates. Now I just have to keep telling myself that, and maybe I’ll believe it.

Mates. Yes, my mates.My wolf has been on this kick the last three days. Reminding me they’re my mates, and they’re the reason I made it through the worst of the withdrawal. When I asked what she meant by that, she told me about how they stayed with me, and as my mates, they were able to lend me their strength and take some of my pain to lessen the stress on my body and her.

No. They don’t trust us. Not mates. I protest this time. I really can’t see how they could be my mates if there’s no trust.

There’s a knock at my bedroom door, they never knock at the front door since Reed gave them all keys. Not having to look; I know it’s Enzo by the harshness of the knock. Oh, and not to mention the yelling on the other side. Seriously, what the fuck?

“Riley, open this fucking door before I take it off its hinges.” Right, did I not mention that I haven’t left this bedroom in three days, either? With their need to be near their ‘mate,’ it’s driving them and their beasts to insanity. They try to bring me meals three times a day, but I won’t answer, so they leave the plates outside my door. I don’t even let them see me. Irrational and vindictive, that’s me.

Another bang at the door has it rattling on its hinges. “Fucking hell, Enzo. Chill the fuck out. I’m coming.” The last thing I need is no way of locking them out. In more ways than one. The door has become not only a physical barrier, but an emotional one as well, and I cannot let him break it down. I’ve come to rely on the comfort that being close to them brings me, which is dangerous, and I need to put an end to it before we all get hurt.

I unlock the door, turn, and walk over to the bed and climb back under the covers. Enzo busts through the large wooden barrier. “What do you want, Enzo?” My face remains uninterested in his reason for barging into my room, but inside, I’m a basket case. My palms are sweaty and vibrating with wild, nervous energy. Enzo hasn’t allowed himself to be alone with me since that moment we shared almost two weeks ago. A moment I recall in vivid color.

“You need to get the fuck out of this room, Riley,” Enzo barks before taking a deep breath and releasing it in one aggressive exhale. I open my mouth to retort but am cut off by his next words. “I’m worried about you, Riley. You’ve been sitting alone in the dark for three days.”

I can see the vulnerability in his eyes as emotions I can’t label flit across his face. It took a lot for him to say he was worried about me, for that reason alone, I won’t bark back at him for barging in here like an asshole alpha douche.

I place a small smile on my face as I quip, “I have the light on.”

He rolls his eyes at me—fucking rolls his eyes. What a teenage girl move. “Not the fucking same as getting out, Riley, you know that. What you’re doing isn’t healthy for you or your wolf. You’re supposed to be healing, and part of that is rejoining society. You can start by eating dinner—with us. You know as well as the rest of us your wolf needs the companionship. Wolves are pack animals; they don’t do well on their own.”

Sitting up quickly, I flip the covers down. “I’m fine, Enzo. I just want to be alone. I’m not ready to be out there. Not yet.”

“No, you really aren’t, Riley. But ...”

I can’t hear what he’s about to say, so I cut him off. “Enzo, you don’t know a fucking thing about me. Let alone how I feel. You’ve stayed away for weeks. Weeks, Enzo. So, if I say I’m fucking fine and just want to be alone, take it at face value and leave. Me. The. Fuck. Alone.” I annunciate each of the last words slowly and loudly so he can absorb the seriousness of them and share it with the others. I mean them, every single word, I really do. I think.

“Not gonna fuckin’ happen, Riley.” Enzo stands unmoving in my doorway.

A snort echoes down the hall from the living room. One of the others, I assume Wild. He would find amusement in my suffering.

Anger at the lot of them. At life. At fucking everything and everyone turns to rage boiling inside of me. “I don’t fucking care what you want, Enzo. I said fucking no,” I protest loudly, I’m sure our neighbors on the third floor can hear us from our penthouse on the twenty-fifth.

“Riley, get the fuck up, take a shower, then get your fine ass out here for dinner.” Gods, Enzo has no tact.

“Seriously, Enzo. If you don’t get the fuck out of here, I swear to the gods that you will regret your decision to be seen by me again.” Yeah, I’ve taken to threatening violence now, but to be fair, the man refuses to respect me or my space.

“What are you going to do, Riley? Knee me in the balls like you did to Cree? You wouldn’t be the first female to take a knee to me, and I doubt you’ll be the last,” Enzo proclaims with a sigh, coming to sit on the edge of my bed.

“I get it. I’ve been where you are.” A myriad of emotions play across his face—an internal debate warring through his mind. He has scars, ones he’s trying to hide, and for a second, I wonder if he’ll let me see them.

He stays quiet too long, and I snap. “How can you compare our stories when you don’t know shit about mine?”

His lids drift shut as he takes a steadying breath, seemingly steeling himself for a fight. His shoulders square and back straightens before he opens his eyes and meets my gaze. There’s so much guilt and pain darkening the gold of his brown eyes. Like a knife, it slices through me as if it’s my own.

“Because I see in you what I see every time I look in the mirror. Loss. Grief. Anger.” A tear trails down my cheek because only truths ring in his words. He catches my tear before it hits the sky-blue comforter draped over my legs. Staring at the lone tear in his hand, he continues, “Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me you haven’t been sitting here for three days reflecting on all that you’ve lost. On the guilt that you’re still here and they’re not. On the anger of what was taken from you. On the empty feeling in the center of your chest that feels like it’s just swallowing you whole.”

He lets the lone tear drip off the palm of his hand into my open one that rests unmoving in my lap. Reaching up, he brushes away the tears now rolling down my face. “Tell me you haven’t thought about how much easier it would be if you could just turn it all off and not feel it. That for just one moment of silence in your head, it would be worth it.” The tears flow freely down my cheeks. Cupping my face in both his hands, he whispers, “I told you before—I know you, Riley Wright.”

This wasn’t what I was expecting when Enzo came busting into my room. His words are penetrating the walls I’ve built up around my mind, heart, and soul. No—he isn’t just penetrating them; he’s taking a fucking bulldozer to them. The flood gates are erupting behind my eyes, and the tears come rushing forward as he speaks the truths no one else ever sees. He sees everything, though. I haven’t truly seen him, but somehow, he saw me. Not the mask I wear to keep them all at arm’s length but behind that, into me.

Fuck, fuck, fuckity fuck.

“No, Enzo,” I sob, shaking my head as though that will make the truths less real. “You don’t know me. You don’t know the story behind me.”

“Riley, I don’t need to know the specifics behind your story. I can see how lost, hurt, and angry you are. I can see that you don’t know where to put those feelings. More than that, I can see you need someone. Someone to understand, to help, to guide, to just be here. You can share your story when you’re ready, there’s no rush. But, Riley, you need an outlet for everything else. If you don’t find an out for all you are feeling, you’ll be swallowed. Coming back from that is a bitch.”

Enzo slides a little closer to me, leaning back to rest against the headboard. I nod my head in understanding and glance away. We sit in silence for a while. It’s not an awkward silence, more of a companionable silence, both of us contemplating the future or the past, probably both. It doesn’t take long before my wolf’s urge to be closer to him wins out, and I agree with her that we need some comfort, so I lean over, resting my head in his lap. The tears flow in slow streams, and Enzo’s hand comes to rest on my head, his fingers playing in my hair. When the silence starts to linger and my brain starts to turn wicked again, threatening to break the flood gates wide open once more, I ask, “Will you share your story, your darkness, with me?”

Enzo’s hand stills in my hair, and he takes a short breath, then answers, “When you’re ready to share, maybe I will be, too. Right now, though, we have dinner to prepare for.” At his words, I bury my face in his thigh with a groan, and he chuckles as he pats me on the head. Totally worth it for that glimpse of lighthearted playfulness. “Sorry, darling,” he says, still laughing as he lifts my head and stands from the bed, putting his hand out to help me up.

“Fucking hell, seriously?” I grumble, placing my hand in his. He hauls me up so fast I fly into him, knocking into his firm chest with my elbow. My free hand comes up to steady myself while his catches my hip. Gods, I remember the feel of his body against mine, the way his reacted to mine. The feel of his hands. His hot breath on my skin.

“Dinner, abso-fucking-lutely. You need to eat. We know you haven’t been.”

“Ugh.” I roll my eyes and push away from him, heading for the bathroom. Just that quickly, the heat that was building inside me is snuffed out by the overbearing, overprotective, insanely hot asshole. Secretly, I think I love the way they care for me, though. But I’ll never tell them that. Nope. That’s my little secret, and I’m not sharing.