Page 144 of Guarded Knight

Gabriel gives a curt nod. “Why don’t you come back later and try again?”

“Gabriel.” I squeeze his hand gently.

G lifts both brows but steps back with exaggerated innocence, like he wasn’t two seconds away from climbing into this bed.

Xander steps into the room, gaze scanning over me. The hospital gown. The monitors. The IV in my arm. His throat bobs like he’s trying to swallow something sharp.

“Thank God, you’re okay…” He clears his throat twice. Fails the first time. “You look…”

“Like I’ve been through a wood chipper?

His gaze flicks to Gabriel, then back to me. “I was going to say better than I expected.”

He drops into the chair beside my bed and folds forward, elbows on his knees. “I don’t even know where to start. With the crazy shit that’s over or the crazy shit that’s just beginning.” His eyes drift back to Gabriel. “But since one’s easier to wade through… Trent…”

His jaw tightens. He places a hand on the side of the bed like it’s the only thing tethering him to the room.

“I fucked up, Lara.”

“What else is new?”

He snorts, a reluctant smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. “I’m serious. Me thinking it was Cameron? I should’ve dug deeper. I should’ve…”

“Stop.” I smack his hand. “It made sense. We were all blindsided. Nobody here is to blame but Trent. Well, and Kevin and Belinda are pretty nasty, but that was a bonus round, I guess.”

He doesn’t answer. Not really. Just lowers his head like it’s still heavy with guilt.

“And if it wasn’t for you and Gabriel when we were younger…” My voice wavers. “I’d never have gotten out of there. And more than that…”

I hesitate.

“…I wouldn’t be so damn proud of myself.”

His gaze meets mine.

“You watched me so carefully, Xander. Sheltered me so hard I never got to see what I was really capable of.” My chest tightens. “But you also taught me how to be a badass.”

“Yeah, well,” he mutters. “There are less traumatic ways of proving it.”

“But us Youngs? We go big or go home, right?”

That earns a rough laugh. “Anton told me you stabbed the son of a bitch enough times to make him a paper doll.”

The memory hits like a punch behind my ribs. We’re joking, but there’s weight beneath it. I already know I’ll be drinking midnight coffee with Gabriel long after this is over, waking from dreams with Trent’s face in them or his phantom breath on my skin.

But I won’t say it to Xander. He’s carried enough.

I glance at Gabriel. He’s watching me with a look I’ll never fully translate, something between awe, ache, and pride. God, I want to believe that’s enough to build a life on. But what if it isn’t?

Xander sits on the edge of the bed, and my attention is back in the room.

“A paper doll, huh?” I say, voice lighter than I feel. “I left that much of him intact?”

“He deserved worse,” Gabriel says quietly.

I mean to laugh, but a cough, rough and sudden, fills the room instead. Gabriel’s already moving, circling the bed, lifting the straw to my lips with the quiet ease of someone who’s done this before. Like it’s second nature.

Xander watches him with something in his expression that I can’t quite name.