Craving Trix (The Aces' Sons 1)

My head snapped back at his coarse words.

“Fuck you.”

He looked down at his bare wrist then back to me. “Nah, couple more hours before that happens again.”

Tears burned the backs of my eyes.

He was right, but I’d never say that. I was having a hard time, such a hard fucking time. Every morning, I woke up desperate and sweating from nightmares that seemed never ending. They were a mix of memories I’d either blocked out or forgotten from when I was little, and scenes from the attack only a few days ago. They got so mixed up in my mind that at times, my stepdad’s face was multiplied on each of the shooters. I couldn’t cope.

I’d immediately reach for Cam, anxious for him to make me think of something else. He always complied, sometimes pulling me to him and sliding inside of me when he wasn’t even fully awake yet. It happened over and over again, sometimes more than once in the middle of the night.

We’d begun sleeping with a fan in our room to air-dry our sweaty bodies, and by the time I crawled out of the bed each morning, I was sticky and smelly from the night before.

“I need to go out to my parents’ place today,” Cam finally said quietly. “They can’t keep sleepin’ at a hotel now that they’re lettin’ Lily head home.”

“They’re discharging her?” I asked in surprise.

“Yeah.” He scratched at his face, then dropped his hands. “Can’t find nothin’ wrong with her. Can’t keep her there.”

“She can’t see. That’s what’s wrong with her!”

“Physically, she’s fine,” he snapped back. “It’s all in her fuckin’ head.”

He shot to his feet and twined his fingers together behind his neck as he began to pace.

“That can’t be right,” I murmured, shaking my head. “She can’t fucking see.”

“I gotta get goin’,” Cam said abruptly. “Gonna try and clean up out there.”

I wanted so badly to tell him I’d help him. I knew he wouldn’t ask anyone else because he wouldn’t want them to see his reactions to the destruction the attack had left behind. But I couldn’t make myself go back to Casper and Farrah’s.

I couldn’t go there ever again.

“I’ll be here when you get back,” I said finally as his eyes searched my face.

I wasn’t sure what he was looking for—what he was trying to find—but after a few seconds, he nodded and leaned down to kiss me. I was passive as his lips pulled at mine.

“Be back later,” he said gruffly, then strode out of the room.

I glanced down at the book on the floor a few feet away, but I couldn’t find the ambition to get off the couch and grab it. Instead, I stared at the side of the pool table and let my mind drift.

“Hi, I’m Bellatrix Colleen,” I announced, coming to a stop in front of the old lady sitting in my backyard.

“Nice to meet you, Bellatrix Colleen,” she said, reaching out to shake my hand, like I was a big person.

“You can call me Trix if you want.” I shook her hand as hard as I could.

“Alright, then.” She gave my hand a gentle squeeze before letting go. “My name is Rose, but you can call me Gram.”

“Gram?”

“Yep.”

I thought about that for a moment.

“Okay. I have a Gramps, but I don’t have a Gram.”

“You do now.” Her face lit up in a bright smile, the corners of her eyes crinkling in the best way, and I felt an answering smile pull at my cheeks. I liked her already.

I shuddered and snapped out of my memory as someone sat down next to me.

“Hey, sweetheart,” my nan said gently, reaching out to wrap her arm around my shoulders. “How you doing?”

“Fine.”

“Don’t bullshit me.”

I tensed for a second and then relaxed against her, dropping my head against her shoulder.

“Shitty,” I answered again.

“Yeah, you and me both,” Nan replied.

“How’s Gramps?”

“Pissy as hell and threatening to discharge himself from the hospital.”

“How long are they going to keep him?”

“Just a few more days, I think,” she said with a sigh, running her hand up and down my arm as she rested her head on top of mine. “They’ll send him back here and then I’ll have to fight to keep him off his leg.”

“Sounds like Gramps.”

“Could be worse,” Nan said, her voice hitching. “He’s still here, so I’ve got no room to complain.”

“I think there’s plenty of room,” I argued, staring across the room at a broken bottle that had rolled under one of the tables. “How’s Callie?”

“Why haven’t you been to see for yourself?”

I shrugged my shoulders. I didn’t want to explain myself. Not then.

“She’s getting better. In a lot of pain, though.”

I nodded.

“Nix has been working his way around the hospital, staying with Will mostly, since Callie’s needed Grease. Can’t imagine being Grease right now, one child gone, his wife and oldest in the hospital and his other children bein’ passed around to family. He must feel pulled in a thousand different directions.”