I’d told the Princes I hadn’t done it. And they had believed me.
And then…
I was driving. And the brakes went soft. The pedal was all the way to the floor and nothing happened, nothing changed.
“The brakes…” I slurred again, struggling to keep my eyes open. I felt tired, and the panic creeping in at the edges of my brain made me want to sleep again. To block it all out. To deny the reality that kept trying to intrude on the peaceful place my mind had settled in. “They wouldn’t… work.”
“Fuck!” Mason snarled as his grip on my hand tightened.
“Motherfucker.” Cole’s voice was a low rumble, rage simmering underneath it like scalding water about to boil over. His ice-blue eyes narrowed, and he shifted the hand that rested on my hip.
They were all touching me, I realized. I could finally feel it. Mason and Finn held my hands in theirs, Cole’s large hand was splayed across my hip, and Elijah’s palm was pressed to my thigh.
There was something grounding in those touches, in the contact between me and them. Something that kept me from flying apart, as if they were physically holding me together.
Even their anger was comforting, in a way. It meant they would look out for me, watch over me, protect me.
It meant I could sleep, and they would keep me safe.
So I did.
Noises woke me again.
They were quiet, just like they had been last time I’d woken. But these weren’t gentle or soothing.
The room was dark. No violent white light beat against my eyelids like it had before, and there was a stillness in the air, as if the whole world was asleep.
“It’s unacceptable.” Mason’s voice was a harsh whisper.
“I know,” Cole answered.
“She could’ve fucking died!”
“I know.”
“And you heard what she said. She tried to stop. She fucking tried to stop and couldn’t. This wasn’t an accident.”
There was a beat of silence, and Cole’s voice was heavy as a hammer falling when he finally said, “I know.”
“We did this, you know.” Some of the harshness had bled out of Mason’s tone, replaced with a dull blankness. “I did it.”
No response from Cole. No attempt to either support or deny that statement.
“We told people to go after her. We opened the fucking door.” Mason was still whispering, the sound so soft I had to strain my ears to hear it. But he might as well have been screaming, for all the emotion contained in his words. “We. Did. That. And I’ll never fucking forgive myself. Not even after we find whoever did this and burn them to the ground.”
“We know who though. Don’t we?”
&
nbsp; Now it was Mason’s turn to lapse into silence, and the heaviness of the quiet room settled over me like a weighted blanket.
I blinked, stirring slightly as my eyes opened, and I felt more than saw the two boys straighten in their seats next to my bed.
Across the room, my grandfather’s chin was dropped to his chest as he slumped in a large padded chair, snoring softly. Elijah and Finn were asleep on my other side, and ambient light from streetlamps outside drifted through the window, bathing the room in cool yellow light.
Chairs scraped across the tiled floor as they were dragged closer to my bed, and a second later, Mason’s hand slipped into mine. His fingers were warm… or maybe mine were just cold.
“You all right, Princess? Do you need anything?”