Scarred Regrets (Bellandi Crime Syndicate 5)

40

SCAR

The circles under her eyes darkened every day. Every day she sank more and more into herself, until all that remained was a living corpse. She wilted right in front of us, but so far away no one could reach her.

“She needs to sleep,” Samara said, not bothering to whisper the words. If Irina heard them at all, she gave no reaction. She lay there, staring at the same spot on the wall that she always seemed to fixate on now, as if we weren’t even in the room, let alone discussing her health.

“Why aren’t the sleeping pills working anymore?” I asked, thinking about the way she stared at that wall even in the darkness. I watched her from my place in the chair every night, waiting for her eyes to slide shut so I could watch over her in her dreams.

But she never went to sleep, just lay there staring at that spot and forcing her eyes to open every single time it seemed like she might drift off.

“She refuses to take them,” Ivory said, crossing her arms over her chest as she stepped into the room. Despite the firm stance to her posture, her face was soft and worried. “She doesn’t sleep at all, Scar. It isn’t healthy. A person can only go so long before it starts to have serious consequences when they’re in peak health. For someone who isn’t eating and who still has an enormous amount of healing to do, it could be catastrophic.”

“Have Doctor Lawrence come see her, or the physician. They have to be able to do something,” I argued, leaning back in the chair. I wasn’t willing to accept that this was Irina’s new normal.

That she’d never move past the shell she’d become.

“She needs you,” Samara said. “She needs something to ground her against all the bad. When I was recovering from Connor, Lino was my rock, even if he didn’t know it. I loved him, and in his own way he loved me, and that was enough reason to live.”

“You’re her reason, Scar,” Ivory added, reaching out a hand to touch mine gently. “Or you could be, if you open yourself up to that, and to her.”

“She needs to know that what’s waiting on the other side of all this pain is going to be worth it. She’s disappearing while we watch, and I am begging you to help her. Please,” Samara said, tears pooling in her eyes as she reached out a hand to touch my arm.

I flinched away, panic blazing at the pressure of her hand on me.

“I’m sorry,” she said immediately, raising her hands and stepping back as she sniffled and ran her hands over her face. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

“That is exactly why I can’t help Irina the way you all think I should. I can’t give her hope for something and then rip it away when reality sets in,” I said, huffing a laugh as the back of my eyes burned. It killed me that I couldn’t be what she needed, that I couldn’t be there for her in any lasting way. “She can’t even touch me, and she’s supposed to believe there’s a future for us? One that will be worth getting through this?” I asked, gesturing a hand out to wave over her nearly comatose body.

She was already half gone, but to imply I could ever be anything good for her would be a deception of the worst kind.

Samara sighed, her lips trembling as she turned to look at Irina on the bed. “I’ll call the physician. She needs fluids. I guess they’ll just have to medicate her that way.” She turned, leaving the room so that only Ivory and I remained.

I moved to the bed, sitting down on the edge and compelling Irina to look over at me. She never bothered to take her eyes off the wall, her lips cracked and parched from lack of fluids. Ivory had been able to get her to sip water successfully, but it wasn’t enough.

“Butterfly, look at me,” I said, my voice coming out far more stern than I’d intended. All my frustration built, to the point of no return, until it felt like I might boil over. “Irina,” I snapped, touching her chin with my hand and turning her to face me. Blank eyes stared up at me, giving me absolutely nothing in the way of recognition.

I wanted her to look at me the way she used to. Like I was the center of her world and not just another deterrent to her plan to melt into the mattress and cease to exist. Even if I couldn’t be that for her, it would mean there was something alive inside her for even just a moment.

“A lot of people went to a great deal of trouble to find you,” I said, regretting the words immediately. They came out too harsh, too terrible.

I’d meant to tell her that people cared enough to save her, not make her sound like a burden.

I opened my mouth to correct myself, ignoring Ivory’s shocked gasp behind me as something returned to Irina’s eyes for a moment. Tears pooled, her cheeks flushing as she fought to restrain them.

She parted her dry lips, her voice a wheeze as she glared at me. “They shouldn’t have bothered,” she said, rolling onto her side despite the way her breath hitched with the pain of the movement on her broken limbs.

She turned her back on me, facing the wall completely as she sank into the mattress. “Irina, I didn’t mean—” I said, breaking off as I started to explain myself. The words wouldn’t come, not the ones I knew I needed to say.

I just wasn’t ready, and I didn’t think I ever would be.

“I meant that there are a lot of people here who care for you enough to save you. They want you to come back,” I said, ignoring the way Ivory pursed her lips when I glanced her way.

She shook her head, her face filled with all the disappointment in me that came in the words that followed. “I don’t think I have ever been disappointed in you. Not once in all the years I’ve known you,” she said, her nostrils flaring as she drew in a deep breath. “Until now.”

Ryker stepped up to the doorway, glancing at the stare down between Ivory and me. “Am I interrupting something?” he asked, clearing his throat.

“No,” Ivory said, shaking her head and going to sit at Irina’s bedside where I usually sat. “We’re done here.”

I sighed, running a hand over my face and turning my attention away from the other woman I never wanted to upset. “What’s up?”

“I got a lead on Darragh. He was spotted near his house about an hour ago. I’m going now,” Ryker said, jiggling his keys in his hand. “You coming?”

I glanced back at Irina, at the tightness of her body and the way she pointedly ignored me. “Yeah, I’m coming,” I said, sharing one last look with Ivory before I followed Ryker out of the room, to find the man who’d broken my butterfly.

I meant every word of my promise to her. When I was done with him, all that remained of the bastard would be the severed head I laid at her feet.