Chapter 18VoxRose

Chapter 18

Vox

I don't run. I fuckin’ sprint to my angel as the fuckin’ Amish dressed people around us stare at us in shock. Don't fuckin’ know if we're the one giving them wide eyes or if it’s the sight of my girl’s unmoving body.

No.

It can't be.

I rush to her while I notice Skarn running to a back door like a fuckin' coward.

“Get him!” I shout to Shadow, my voice unrecognizable, filled with urgency and pain.

Don't fuckin' know where Shadow shoots him but it fuckin’ pleases me to hear it, cause I'm already focused on pulling out my girl, her hair sticking to her face, her body unusually heavy and still.

“WHO DID THIS?! WHO?!” I yell instinctively, but I already know the answer, my eyes staying locked on my girl's face.

We gotta go before one of those fuckers takes out a gun. There’re kids everywhere here. Can't take too many risks.

I turn quickly toward Shadow, one arm still holding my girl, and without a fuckin’ second of hesitation, I shoot Skarn right in the head between the eyes. His body falls at the same time as dozens of gasps echo around the room.

Carrying my girl's wet body on my shoulder, holding her with one hand and carrying the gun in the other, I head off to the exit when somebody pushes me.

“Get your hands off my daughter! She's not yours to touch!” A gray hair man, I recognise as her father, tries to remove my hold from Rose and I fuckin’ lose it.

“BACK THE FUCK AWAY! Shadow! Take him with us, he’s her fuckin’ father!” And like my fuckin’ right hand man, Shadow shoots him twice in the knees, then drags him toward the exit. The old guy is crying and shouting at the pain Shadow gave him.

Can say a lot about his methods but they're damn efficient.

I'll deal with her father later. After all, he's the one who's put her in this situation, bringing her to this sick community and offering her to a maniac.

I expect other people to stop us, but nobody does. The crowd is moving toward the stage. To their fuckin’ joke of a leader, I think. But I don't give a fuck about it as I enter the van, my girl’s body now on my lap, my shaking hands under her knees and back.

Wake up, Angel.

Please.

Stay with me.

I'll die here with ya if you let go.

Rose

“Stay with me, Angel, hold on, I'm here… fuck… I arrived too late… fuck… please, Angel, wake up.”

Familiar arms and shaking hands are holding me, my eyes impossibly shut.

I can't breathe.

Everything comes back to me.

The water, his hold on my neck, my empty lungs, an explosion, and my body letting go with the last flashes of Vox’s handsome face and chocolate hair I'd never get to see again.

“Angel, please, anything, give me a sign. We're getting ya to a doctor fuckin’ soon, stay with me,” Vox pleads, breaking my heart in the process.

I’m here, I’m right here.

“Carter, SPEED THE FUCK UP!” his voice shouts, carrying so much pain and worry. My body doesn't respond to my brain. I try to talk but it doesn't work. I must be in shock. I cough, trying to free my throat from the full sensation I felt when the water entered it. It is so painful, I wince. Coughing again, I sense his whole body freezing.

“Angel?”

My eyes slightly open with difficulty. It’s so hard, like trying to get out of quicksand.

Vox.

He’s here. It wasn’t just my imagination.

I needed him to come and he did. My heart quickens and the noise around us disappears for a few seconds.

“Don’t fuckin’ try to leave me, Angel,” he says, his voice like a lifeline, keeping me from drifting away. I can’t see him; everything is blurred like a camera that can’t seem to focus. Black and white shapes dance around me.

His rough hands are holding me tight, one cupping my head while the other is under my back, pushing my body to nestle into his. The dress is sticking to my body, water dripping all over me, making me shiver. He must sense it because he grabs a blanket from the rear shelf and tucks it around me.

“Vox,” I try to say, pushing myself despite the burn in my throat, hoping he’ll hear me. I never thought I’d make it, and perhaps I won’t. Maybe these are our last moments together as I feel my mind drifting away, wondering what the damage of the minutes I’ve spent unconscious underwater will be.

His body freezes.

I try again, “Vox,” my voice breaking, tears filling my eyes. It’s too painful to talk.

His hold tightens. “I’m here, Angel, I hear ya, I got ya. We're getting you to a doctor, it's gonna be okay, it's gonna be okay.” His voice is like a prayer, as if he was trying to convince himself.

“Hold on tight, love.”

Love .

His strong arms are under my back and knees, holding me like I’m the most valuable thing he ever had. That’s how he always makes me feel, like I’m the only person he’s never tired of seeing, the only one he wants to be with. Noises are getting lost in the background, my mind only focusing on him.

My stranger, my savior, my man.

Because that’s who he is.

My man.

Even though our worlds and pasts couldn't be any more different. Even though I can’t speak a word. Even though he doesn’t want to talk about the dark tasks he does for the club.

Despite it all, he is my man.

And we were brought together by some strange sense of fate.

“Faster, Carter!” Vox’s deep voice urges, the vehicle roaring and suddenly moving at a faster pace.

“Vox, calm the fuck down. I’m fuckin’ racing already. We’ll get there in a minute!” the man behind the wheel answers.

“Shadow, call the doc, tell him we need him yesterday.” Vox’s voice isn’t carrying his usual calm; this one is rushed, worried, panicked.

“On it,” another man says.

The car turns roughly, making us sway, Vox’s arms protecting me from bouncing against the sides.

“Won’t let them get to you. Ever,” he mumbles, perhaps more to himself than to me.

Then a firm kiss melts on my forehead, making my belly churn from his protectiveness.

“Fuckin’ hate myself for arrivin’ too late, Angel, I thought, fuck, I thought…” His voice breaks, thick unshed tears echoing in his throat. One of his hands strokes my hair, making me feel safe and… loved . So loved I want to cry my heart out in the arms of the only man I’ve ever loved.

“When I saw you in there, when… when you were so fuckin’ still, I thought-” He stops, my body feeling his breath stop in his chest as if he was trying to suppress the memory, to shove it as far away as possible.

“I thought I had lost you.”

I lock my eyes with him, trying as hard as I can to see him. My vision gets clearer, letting me watch this breathtaking man, his gaze fixed on my face as if his world starts and ends with me. I have to blink to make sure that it is all happening for real.

“I had to stay away to protect you, I’ve fucked up… I… I should have never let them get to ya, Angel. Fuck.”

I wish I could tell him that I trust him, that I know he did what he did for a reason and whether it was the right decision or not, I know he tried his best to protect me. I know that because he's the only person in this world who would move mountains to make sure I'm okay. But instead, I reach his cheek, and let my hand stroke the back of his tense neck.

Feeling bold, I mouth to him the words that scare me the most.

The words that will change it all.

But perhaps everything has already changed, perhaps it all started the day I saw him in his garden.

I didn’t know it then, but I know now.

“I love you,” I say silently, his eyes widening while he stares at my lips. He stills, frozen at my words. My heart skips a bit, terrified of his answer, of him rejecting me.

“Say it again,” he says, clenching his jaw and taking my face in both of his hands.

“I love you,” I say again, and again, and again, tears falling from my eyes, biting my lips so hard it hurts.

He lowers his face until our noses touch, his thumbs stroking my jaw, shaking his head in disbelief. “Love ya like it's the only damn thing I know, Angel.” His thumb catches a tear falling on my cheek, “Love ya so fuckin’ much, Rose.”

We’re close enough that I feel his minty breath dancing over me. I bite my lips then wet them, my chest heaving in anticipation.

And because I've missed him more than air itself, I tug his shirt toward me and kiss him with the rest of the strength I have in me. My body is responding to him like it found its home again. He strokes my cheeks delicately with his large rough hands, touching me as if I could break like a China plate.

Kissing me once more, our foreheads connect as he whispers to me.

“We're it, Angel. No more running away.”

And I nod, tears running on my face while I bite a small grin.