My heart stuttered. The air left my lungs.
Shot.
In the chest.
“But he’s okay?” I croaked.
Lily nodded. “He’s okay.” She made to stand up. “In fact, he’s asleep on the sofa right now. It’s quite difficult to make him do such things like sleep, eat, leave your side. It’s a rare moment right now. I’ll get him.”
My hand tightened around hers like a vise. “No,” I hissed frantically. I used every ounce of my meager strength to keep her in place. Like my life depended on it. Not like it did—my life did depend on it.
She frowned at me but sat back down.
“I don’t want to see him. I don’t want him around, not anywhere near me,” I declared.
Lily gazed at me. “Bex—”
“No,” I interrupted. “Promise me. Promise me you’ll make him go away. Lily, I can’t—” I sucked in a breath. “I can’t have him anywhere near me. Around this. I don’t want you to have to be around this either, though I know you’ll stay, despite everything I’ve put you through. I love you more than words for that. I’m so sorry I have to put this on you, tarnish your life even more.”
Lily’s face turned hard. “No,” she ground out. “No. You do not say anything like that, not now, not ever,” she commanded. “You do not lay any blame at your own feet. This is not your fault. They took you. They—” Her voice broke and I knew she knew about what they did. “This is not your fault,” she said finally.
“But—” I argued.
“No buts. You don’t want to break my heart by trying to find some way to blame yourself for this. There is no one to blame but the animals that don’t deserve to exist in this world. The only thing you need to do is focus on getting better,” she instructed, as if that were possible. “On letting other people, people who love you, help you get better.”
I relented. I had to. Arguing with the woman who was the only family I had was pointless. She may be convinced she was weak, but I knew she was strong. Stronger than me by bounds. So I no longer verbalized my absolute certainty that all of this was because of me.
That she had almost died because of me.
That she was scarred for life because of me.
That he almost died because of me. That he was shot because of me.
That I had been further ingrained with dirt as a result of my own choices.
I didn’t verbalize it, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t always on my mind.
But I stayed there. For Lily’s sake. I wouldn’t harm her any more than I already had. Harming myself, that was fine. Inevitable, inescapable. Her? That was unacceptable.
She did try to fight me on something else I wouldn’t budge on. Not even for her.
“He loves you,” she said quietly after silence had descended, cloaked us for a long while.
I sucked in a painful breath.
“You can’t shut him out,” she continued. “I’ve never seen anyone like that. The way he was. I’ve never seen someone that destroyed. Never. Especially not someone as strong as that. Someone like Lucky,” she whispered. “He’s been here, every moment, as much as me, Bex. He won’t go anywhere. I don’t think a nuclear missile would move him from your side.”
Her words punctured me like a million little needles on my soul. It took great pains to hide that from Lily. “He doesn’t love me,” I stated in an empty voice. “He feels responsible. That’s what these bikers do, it seems. Take on every hit that poor defenseless women are suffering, take it as some personal affront. We were nothing,” I lied. “It was just fun for us both. Had this not happened, it would have fizzled out at some point. Now I’ve been… used. Sullied. That’s a hit on these alpha-male types. He thought since we were fucking that meant I was blanketed in an invisible testosterone blanket. They breached that.”
Lily looked at me for a long time. Long enough to know she didn’t buy my blasé attitude. “That’s not true. You forget you’re my sister. What you feel, I feel.” Her voice broke. “You went through hell, and I feel that, Bex. It hurts me. I also know what you feel for him. You can’t hide that, not from me. I know you care,” she said firmly.
I closed my eyes a moment, contemplating further protests. I opened them, making my decision. “I can’t,” I choked out. “I can’t have him near me, Lils. I can’t see myself through his eyes. I can’t. It’ll kill me,” I confessed. “It’ll destroy whatever’s left.”
Lily’s frame jolted and her face softened immediately. Her small bandaged hand came up to stroke a hair from my face. “Okay,” she whispered in a tortured voice. “Okay.”