Page 17 of Fear No Hell

Sam

Glass shards hit my back. For tiny pieces of compressed sand, they’re surprisingly forceful, especially given how far away the window is. My body flinches with each strike. Beneath me, Lila is shaking, her small gasps shredding my heart.

“Hey, hey, hey, it’s okay, sweetness,” I croon in her ear, stroking my hand up and down her arm, shocks bursting along my palm with each pass.

“You’re okay. It’s all good.” Once the sound of glass hitting the ground, not to mention every other surface in the room, seems to be done, I lift my head from where it’s bent over Lila’s to sneak a glance over my shoulder at the window.

Luckily, it’s behind several extremely poorly trimmed bushes at the front of the house, so it’s not like anyone can see in here.

Lucky turn of events number two is that, given how trashed the glass was when I moved in, I had already planned to take care of it when I got time, so the replacement pane is already in here… somewhere.

None of that matters, not right now when Lila is still panicking beneath me, her gasps turning into sobs.

“I’m so sorry,” she cries from beneath me.

“What? Why would you be sorry?” I ask, pulling away and turning her in my arms. Her face is tearstained, the scarlet of her eyes from earlier replaced by her normal blue. “You don’t have anything to be sorry about.”

She shakes her head with a small hiccup.

“Sweetness, there’s nothing for you to be sorry for.

” I reach for her, wrapping my arms around her shoulders and pulling her towards me.

She sinks willingly into my chest, her head coming to a rest under my chin as I hug her to me and try not to think about 15 minutes ago when we were holding each other under extremely different circumstances.

Don’t be a fucking creep, Eaton. At least the mindbogglingly intense erection I had before has gone away, so…

that’s something. Hooray. “Are you alright?”

Her head moves side to side.

“Then I need to check you over,” I tell her firmly.

Her hands clutch at the back of my shirt when I try to pull away, and she burrows further against my chest. It takes every ounce of strength I have to force my next words out.

“You’re gonna have to let me go, so I can examine you.

I need to make sure you didn’t get hit by any of the glass, and I can’t do that like this. ”

She cries out, and only then does she push away from me. A fresh wave of tears pours down her face.

“Let me—”

“No, I could hurt you,” she sobs, wobbling unsteadily as she shoves herself to her feet.

“What?” I press to a stand, reaching out to stabilize her, but my hand passes through empty air.

She’s already racing towards the steps. The sound of her crying, punctuated by uneven, panting breaths, resonates in the closed stairwell.

“Lila, don’t—”

The door at the top of the stairs slams shut, followed by hurried footsteps along the floorboards overhead. Then another door slams.

“Fuck,” I groan, scraping my hand down my face. How the fuck did we go from almost kissing—and I still don’t fully understand how we ended up in that position—to the window shattering to Lila thinking she could hurt me?

Does she think she made the window break?

Sighing, I turn to where Arthur is dangling, unconscious again, this time with slivers of glass peppering his face. “You couldn’t leave well the fuck enough alone, could you, you piece of shit?”

I want to run upstairs and make sure Lila is okay right now, but I still need to take care of the nasty ass gash circling his thigh, at minimum.

Not to mention, with the amount of fluids Arthur lost over the day from blood loss alone, I need to give him nutrients, hook up an IV, and change out his colostomy bag.

Once all of that’s done, then I can go check on Lila.

I speed through the tasks, doing the bare minimum necessary to keep him alive for the next several hours.

Any medical board in the country, including the one that controls my license, would absolutely find that I’ve neglected the basic standards of care.

It doesn't phase me to much because I figure that ship sailed after I did a gastrostomy tube insertion and a colostomy—both of which are grotesquely unnecessary surgeries here—in an unsterilized basement on a patient who was unconscious but not under general.

Might as well commit to the criminal, unethical bit.

An hour later, I'm finally done, stripping off my gloves as I make my way up the stairs to the first floor. My leg is tender as hell, and I want nothing more than to crawl into bed, rip off my prosthesis, and sleep for a year.

But first things first: Lila.

I walk down the hallway to the master bedroom's closed door. It’s unlikely that she locked it, but the bedroom is her safe space. I’m not going to invade it unless she tells me I can.

Raising my hand, I tap lightly on the door, calling, “Lila?”

A sniffle is my only response.

“Lila?”

A few seconds pass before I hear a wobbly “Yes?” through the door.

“Did you get hit by any of the glass?” If she did, it doesn’t matter if she wants to keep me out; I’m going in, so I can check her over and make sure she’s cleaned up.

Unfortunately, the words “cleaned up” have a different type of visual floating through my head: Lila in the shower.

Her beautiful golden skin misted from the humidity.

Pale blue eyes that glitter with the same intensity as the water falling around her.

Thick hair drenched, tangled around my fingers, unwilling to release me from their dark strands…

My cock starts hardening before I can redirect my thoughts.

I clench my fists at my sides, fingernails biting into the skin of my palms as I try to force my mind away from the fantasy of a naked, wet Lila.

Pull yourself together. Don’t fucking make it weird.

With the amount of times I’ve reminded myself to not be an absolute creep, it may be my unofficial motto at this point.

Might as well learn how to do needlepoint, so I can embroider it onto a pillow.

“No,” she finally mumbles in response.

“Okay, that’s good. That’s really fucking good.” I let out a relieved sigh, resting my head against the door. “Are you okay otherwise?”

Another few seconds of silence and then a cracked “No.”

My heart clenches at her answer. “Can I come in?”

A third “No.”

“Alright, that’s cool. No problem. I’ll chill out here, and we can talk through the door.

That okay?” By the time she gives me a yes, I've already dropped to the floor, my back resting against the wall, my legs stretched out in front of me.

“Any particular reason you ran out of there crying, sweetness? You scared the shit out of me.”

“I think…” She pauses. “I didn’t want you to get hurt because of me.”

“You want to walk me through that one?” I ask. “Because the only pain I felt was not knowing whether you were okay or not.” I adjust my right leg and press my fingers into the tense muscles in my upper thigh.

There’s a shuffle of feet and a creak from behind the door before it shifts incrementally in its frame. When Lila speaks again, her voice comes from inches away rather than feet, separated only by the thin piece of wood between us.

“I think… I think I made the window shatter.”

In the past five weeks, I’ve seen enough to know Lila isn’t quite human, considering her ageless—stunning, my brain supplies unhelpfully—appearance and her sometimes scarlet irises.

Not to mention the claws and fangs. So it’s not completely outside of the realm of possibility she might have some sort of power capable of exploding glass.

“I know it sounds crazy, but I promise you it’s real, Sam. I promise.”

“I believe you,” I immediately reassure her. It’s not a knee-jerk reaction meant only to reassure her so much as an acceptance of something I’ve known for a while. The woman who has lived in my head rent-free all these years is something more than human.

“Really?”

“Yeah. Always.”

A watery laugh comes through the door. “You don’t mean that.”

“I absolutely do. There’s not much I can say about my life with any certainty, but me always believing you is one of the few things I know is true.

” I glance at my watch, stifling a groan.

With everything going on tonight, it’s already almost 8.

I still haven’t eaten dinner or showered, I need to get the window installed, so nobody can sneak past the unkempt bushes and see the half-dead man in my basement, and my 5:00 AM alarm is going to fucking suck if I don’t get to sleep soon.

“Hey, it’s getting late. You want to eat dinner with me?

It’s probably only going to be cereal, but we’re eating the name-brand stuff, so it’s practically haute cuisine. ”

“I’m going to stay in here if that’s okay,” she replies. “I don’t think I’ll be very good company tonight.”

“You don’t have to explain anything to me, sweetness. It’s your room. You stay in there for as long as you want.” The protective side of me rears up before I can leave. “Just promise me you’ll eat something tomorrow, okay?

I can feel her eye roll through the door.

“I told you I exploded a window from across the room, and you’re more worried about whether I’m going to eat?”

“Damn right I am. Nobody has taken care of you for way too long, so let me do it now.”

“But—"

“No buts.” I roll to my hands and knees, pressing my left foot under me to balance my weight, so I can push easily to a stand. “Let me take care of you, Lila.” There’s silence from her room as I lean against the wall. “Please?”

“Okay.” She sighs deeply. “Fine, yeah, okay.”

“Now was that so hard?” I tease.

“It was, yes.” Her tone is snippy. At least she doesn’t sound like she’s crying anymore. That's a win in my book.

“I’m going to go eat and take care of some stuff before I go to bed. If you need anything—seriously, anything, doesn’t matter what it is—holler for me.” The grumble she gives me is an agreement, albeit begrudging.

I wander down the hallways towards the living room, chewing at my lip as I work through what I have to do before I can go to sleep.

I don’t want her to be alone tonight or to be any further away from her than necessary, so I’ll sleep downstairs.

That way, if she needs me, I can get to her quickly.

I’ll grab my pillow and blankets once I’m done with everything and get bunked down on the couch.

No matter what the clawing need inside me that wants to sleep next to her, watching over her from inches rather than a hallway away, says, I’m not going into her room without permission. Which means I’m sleeping on the couch.

I eyeball the oversized piece of furniture as I enter the living room.

It’s big and plush and, fortunately, absolutely nothing like the backbreaking futons I used to sleep on during med school.

“Okay,” I mutter to myself, rubbing the back of my neck as I work my way through my task list for the evening.

“Food first then window and shower. Then bed. You got this. Just a few more hours until you can sleep.”

I exhale deeply and head towards the kitchen and my bowl of Cap’n Crunch. Dinner of champions paired with a busy evening of unexpected house repair after the work day from hell. I glance towards the master bedroom where Lila sits, safe and warm in my house.

Worth it.