Burn (Virtues & Lies 1)

I chuckle at her naïveté—so much like her daughter’s. “There’s no such thing, Penny. Only retribution.”

Chapter 37

Leo

I don’t know what to do with myself anymore. Cassie’s been lying here for over a week. Her bruises and cuts are beginning to disappear, she’s healing and all the while my wounds are getting deeper. Growing. Festering.

I’m pretty sure if you cut me open right now, that I’m rotting from the inside out.

“Here,” looking up from my MacBook, I find Penny standing in front of me with a coffee in her hand.

I take it, and although it scorches my mouth, I chug it down like it’s an elixir for life. Besides, the burning takes away from the pain that has swallowed me from the moment this nightmare begun.

“Anything new?” she asks me, her voice is gentle and soft, like she’s scared that the slightest vibration is going to set off the bomb ticking inside my chest.

Cassie looks so small and every day, I think she disappears a little more. I can’t let it happen though. I can’t let her go. Never.

Shaking my head in answer to her reply, I look back down at my screen where the video of our interview is playing again. Her smile, the sound of her voice…they’re my solace.

Penny sits on the bed and the way she crumples the sheets around Cassie makes me grit my teeth. I want to demand she gets up and sits on one of the chairs dotted around the room. I know it’s an unreasonable thought, I know she has every right to sit where she wants, but I just can’t stand the way the sheet and blanket pull off Cassie’s chest. The way they rumple and crease.

Mr. Neat Freak.

The sound of her chuckles fills my head and my eyes burn with angry tears. My insides are roiling in a sick torturous ache that intensifies the longer I let the sound of her voice echo around my thoughts.

“You should go home, get some rest. Your mother is worried.”

“I want to be here when she wakes up.” Twirling the ends of Cassie’s hair around my index finger, I can’t understand why she’s not waking up.

She’s okay. Her organs are okay. The wound on her chest is healing nicely. Apart from the blood loss, and the nick to her artery she was okay. Her surgeon said she was fine. There is absolutely no medical reason for her not to wake up.

Francis walks in with my mother in tow, she looks at Cassie with so much pity that I want to scream at her. I know what she’s seeing, and I won’t let her write my beautiful girl off like I know she’s doing to Kit.

“I fed Toby and I’ve got a dog walker to take him out twice a day.” Murmuring she kisses my cheek before handing me the leather duffel she’s been running back and forth with changes of clothes. “He misses you though. He’s whining and I don’t think he moves from the door when I leave him.”

I miss him too. But just thinking of him, has me thinking of the way he loves Cassie. Sticking to her like superglue, like she promised she would stick to me. I miss the way he muzzles his way between us when she pats the bed, even though he knows that it’s against my rules.

Honestly, I don’t think he’s whining for me at all. I think it’s for her. He’s waiting for her, like I am.

Silly, silly beast.

“I can’t leave Cassie.”

Nodding solemnly, she breathes in deeply as she takes a step back. She’s anxious. Penny adjusts herself so she’s facing my mother and Francis is right in front of me.

Fuck, I know what’s coming. I know it, but I am not prepared for it when my mother says, “You need to say goodbye.”

It’s stupidly quiet, I have to look around and check the monitors are working, that Cassie’s chest is still rising and falling. I have to check and check and check every fucking detail in the room because I just can’t let it sink in. I’m not ready.

I can’t do this. Not alone.

She would hold my hand. She wouldn’t tell me it’s okay. She wouldn’t pretend that this was for the best.

Reaching for her hand, I wish so hard that she would squeeze back. That she would let me know she’s here with me. But she doesn’t.

Please, don’t make me do this on my own. I beg, loosening my grip on her hand as I slip my middle finger between our palms, scratching hers, she likes that. She likes scratches and bites and licks and sucks. She likes all those things and I’ve tried them all. Scratching her palm. Biting her fingertips. Sucking the heel of her thumb. I’ve licked my tears off the back of her hands.

Nothing’s bringing my girl back to me, and now they want to take my brother away too.