Page 27

Chapter Twenty-Six

LAMB

A sh stared down at her lap, her face pale and eyes avoidant.

I slid the plate further toward her, drawing her eyes up to the tabletop before they made a hasty retreat elsewhere in the kitchen. I said nothing as she squirmed under my stubborn stare.

We’d been at this for a while already, the eggs and toast already cool, as our silent showdown continued. I expected it to go on as long as was needed; even if the food was stone-cold, I expected it to be in Ash’s stomach, and I’d take no less.

“Is this some weird game?” Jax interrupted. The cowboy stood propped against the doorframe, arms folded over his chest, eyeing us with a strange stare. I had no idea how long he’d been standing there, but I had other priorities.

I pushed the plate an inch. “ Eat. ”

Ash sucked her teeth between her lips, and I knew from the pallor of her face that the morning nausea was draining her today. Her detox was still working its way through her system, and it had become more of a challenge to get her to eat than it ever had been before.

Beautiful, whitewashed green eyes slunk up to meet mine, pleading with me across the breakfast bar counter, where I stood, waiting. Her eyes searched my face, squinting to make out details.

I sighed, releasing my grip on the plate, and for just a moment, relief flushed across Ash’s face, bringing back a hint of life.

I grabbed a stool, the metal scratching across the floor until I could sit comfortably in her space, my knees locking around her hips, so close her body heat seeped into the material of my jeans and warmed my thighs.

Misery sank back into her sharper features; our battle resumed. I fought not to react as I saw the bob of Ash’s throat, her purpled bruises shifting as those milky-white eyes began to focus on anything else.

I scooped up her hand and placed a fork tightly in it. Ash sighed, once again looking down at her food—the eggs, toast, and half of a banana sliced on her plate, like a mountain towering before her.

“Mint said you’d be fine to eat this type of thing now,” I pushed, releasing her hand with the fork. I let my own slide down into place on her thigh, her soft muscles relaxed and calm beneath my touch.

“I know,” Ash grumbled, her weak expression altering into a stubborn pout.

Jax, feeling neglected as the attention seeker he was, strolled further into the room, putting himself in my vacated place on the opposite side of the breakfast bar. “You got something against eggs?”

Her lip turned at the question. “No, but …”

“ Jax .”

It was one single word. A name she’d heard a million times. Except, it was spoken by a voice she hadn’t ever thought to hear again.

“You got a minute?” Anna asked, her blonde head poking through the doorway.

I glimpsed her white-blonde hair out of the corner of my eye, but my gaze didn’t stray from the woman in front of me.

In a heartbeat, Ash had turned to fragile glass in my arms, her body brittle, barely breathing. I wanted to cage her in tighter but feared she’d crumble to pieces if I even dared to touch her.

“Uh, yeah, what’s up?” Jax responded, looking like a deer caught in headlights. His eyes bounced back and forth between Ash and Anna in panicked confusion.

“Meet me in the office in five?” Anna asked, not waiting for a response before she vanished from my sight, and all I could hear was the famous click of her boots disappearing down the hallway.

Jax glanced between Ash and the empty doorway, hesitating before quickly scuttering down the hallway in Anna’s wake.

I waited and watched.

Time seemed to move slower than before, the clock on the far wall ticking in the empty silence.

I wasn’t sure what I had expected Ash to do, but like any other time, she proved to confuse me as her hand began to move. She stabbed her fork viciously into her eggs, nearly sending them off the table before she began to scoop large mouthfuls onto her fork.

I observed the struggle as she fought to fill her stomach, each bite like torture as she forced it down.

I shifted my eyes back to the empty doorway, the sound of Ash’s fork in my ears, and the sound of cogs turning in my mind.

T he wall was cool against the back of my head as I let the noises around me fade into the background—machines beeping, metal clinking, and voices muttering; the usual hospital stuff. The clinic was abuzz with people who sat waiting until their name was announced, but overall, it wasn’t a particularly stressful environment. The chairs were small but not uncomfortable and the machine coffee was bland but not bitter.

I opened my eyes, letting them slide to the juxtaposition next to me.

Ash was the definition of stress. Paranoia radiated off her like a chemical spill; head whipping at every noise, jumping every time the door opened, her hand knuckled-white as it squeezed mine so hard that I feared we’d need to surgically separate us.

I pulled her hand into my lap, toying with the fingers digging their way into my skin. “Ash.” I kissed the back of her hand, smelling the soft scent of the drugstore body soap lurking around my club bedroom. For a cheap bottle, one I normally wouldn’t touch, it smelled light on her skin and didn’t drown out her natural scent. “ Ash,” I stressed, nipping her lightly.

Ash whirled on me with a flash of fire in her eyes.

“There you are.” I smiled against her hand, reaching my other hand out to tuck away a stray hair escaping from the bun I’d tied it back in this morning. She dodged the gesture in annoyance.

“Why are we here?” Ash hissed, leaning in close enough for a kiss. “Anybody could be watching us. This is not Fellpeak.”

“I hadn’t noticed,” I playfully gasped, unable to hide the smirk on my lips.

Ash glowered. “You know what I mean.”

“And I said what I said,” I countered, letting her hand cradle back into my lap before I decided to take a bigger bite. “So long as you are with me and by my side, you have nothing to fear.”

“Are you an idiot?” Ash growled. “I am genuinely asking.”

“I’m starting to hear that a little too often,” I grumbled. “But no, I’m not an idiot.”

I’d have laughed at Ash’s dubious look if it hadn’t been so genuine.

“Well—”

Before I could defend myself, a woman’s sharp voice rang across the room.

“Christopher Black?” A petite, round woman called out, clipboard clutched between her fingers. Round glasses sat perched on her nose, her ebony skin complemented by the bright blue of the frame.

I stood, giving my legs a well-deserved stretch and earning a sharp glare from Ash while doing so. Still locked onto my hand, she tried to tug me back down.

“Sit down,” she demanded.

“They called for us.” I threw my thumb over my shoulder at the woman with the clipboard, her dark brow rising with impatience.

“Your legal name is Christopher ?” Ash’s eyes nearly bulged out of her face.

I rolled my own, returning her tugging gesture as I pulled her off her chair and up to her feet. “Believe it or not, they wouldn’t allow Lamb on my birth certificate.”

In her shock, Ash’s eyes stayed fixed on my face as I managed to peacefully cart her across the dimly lit waiting room and began trailing behind the nurse—or receptionist, I assumed—into a narrow hallway.

Sense was returning to Ash as we stopped outside of a closed door.

“Dr. Burkitt?” the nurse/receptionist called, leaning her head into the doorway.

“Wait.” Ash’s hands jumped up to my arm, fingers digging into my muscles as she dug her heels into the worn carpet. “I am not—”

“No more waiting.” I ignored her plea, pushing open the door and dragging her ass behind me.

Much like the waiting room, there was little deviation from the standard doctor’s office. A small, elderly woman sat behind a wide desk, long gray hair tied into a wiry braid around her shoulders, sagging eyes hidden behind thick-rimmed glasses. She looked like a dwarf in the large office chair, tucked in the corner with a bookshelf overhanging her workspace, full of random anatomy books and colored files with loose papers jutting out. The desk surface reflected the chaotic organizational system, if you could even call it such. Pens, papers, devices, and tools were scattered amongst the piles of paperwork, sticky notes, and folders. A mug sat abandoned, coffee stains dried on the surface, next to the large dinosaur computer.

“Doctor,” the receptionist said from the doorway, looking displeased with our abrupt entry. “Your two o’clock is here …”

The doctor’s wrinkles pinched as she took in our standing figures lingering in the doorway. “Thank you, Carol.” She smiled, waving an old, freckled hand.

Carol returned it and, without a second glance at either of us, closed the door and disappeared.

“Doctor.” I smiled, offering a hand over the wasteland she called a desk. “You haven’t aged a day.”

“ Christopher. ” The woman’s dark eyes narrowed, taking a long peruse up and down my length. “I can’t say the same about you.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Ash’s head turning back and forth like a ping pong ball between us, trying to piece together the puzzle with missing parts.

“This”—I changed my outstretched hand into an introducing gesture—“is my great- aunt, Dr. Mabel Burkitt.”

A sharp pinch shot up my palm, and I jerked my hand away from the vicious woman as fast as I could.

“The great was unnecessary.” She glowered before turning to Ash with that deceptively gentle, old lady smile. “Pleasure to meet you, dear.”

Ash stared at her with wide eyes and a gobsmacked expression, as if an alien might have landed on Earth right in front of her. It lasted a long time before she noticed the woman’s hand extended toward her.

Panicked, Ash jumped onto the hand, both hands wrapping around the fragile bony fingers. “Sorry,” she apologized, eyes cautiously flickering back to me and then Aunt Mabel, unable to reconcile us together. “I have just never seen him so … friendly. ”

“I’m sure.” She nodded. “It took a while, but his acting is flawless … when he chooses to use it.”

Ash’s mouth turned into a small circle, eyes bright. “So, you know about … his disposition .” She gestured loosely up and down my body.

“ His disposition ?” Aunt Mabel didn’t even try to hide the sharp cackle that burst from her mouth. “Sure, let’s call it that.”

“Perhaps programming would be a better descriptor,” Ash muttered to herself, not loud enough for an older lady to hear, but enough for my ears.

Aunt Mabel gestured to the two foam seats in front of her desk, and Ash guided herself cautiously into it. Seeming to remember where she was, her eyes lit up with unsettled energy, darting around the room—the apparatus and the wall charts—before lingering longer on the scattered items on the desk.

“Christopher and I have a deal,” Aunt Mabel explained with a shrug, shuffling around the piles on her desk, beady eyes scanning like a crow. I settled into the chair next to Ash. “If he acts like a human, I shall treat him as such.”

That caught Ash’s attention. She leaned forward, peering closer at my aunt. “And if he does not?”

“If he chooses to act like a robot, then I’ll take him to the closest junkyard and sell him for scrap parts.” She shrugged, and I reveled as Ash’s jaw dropped to the floor. “Society is for humans, not robots,” she continued, the familiar drawl falling off her tongue with ease as it had done for many years. “Being born with a low emotional intelligence will do little to change where you’re born. It’s better to fake it till you make it, as they say.”

Her eyes lit up with more life than she had shown previously as she spotted a small, thin barreled penlight underneath an upturned file.

“Aunt Mabel was the only one who agreed to post my bail.” I shrugged, leaning in and whispering into Ash’s ear. I watched the shiver run over her body at my nearness, pleased when she didn’t outright jerk away from me. “I paid for the bond, but everyone needs a guarantor. Aunt Mabel was the only one willing to sign for me.”

“You needed bail?” Ash turned to me, her face close enough that, for the first time, I noticed a small splattering of freckles faintly dusted over her nose. A pink blush rose up her cheeks before she ducked away, easing but not subsiding the strong urge I had to kiss her, not caring who was watching.

“Don’t get worn out too soon, sweetie,” Mabel interrupted, pushing away from her desk and rolling skillfully on the wheels of her office chair. She swung around with a spry not suited to her age and parked in the small gap between Ash and the desk. Their knees almost touched as Aunt Mabel gave the little penlight a few smacks into her palm before turning it on.

Ash jerked straight, her back almost slamming into the back of the chair at the sudden invasion. If Aunt Mabel had noticed or was offended, she didn’t show it. She closed the small bit of breathing space Ash had made herself, armed for battle with her penlight.

Crooked, skinny fingers cupped Ash’s chin, and Ash’s hand jumped into mine. She bore down hard, her knuckles turning white from the force as Mabel pulled Ash closer, pointing the penlight directly into her face. Flicking it from one side to the other, her scarred eyes were now jarringly white in the bleaching light. She continued doing all sorts of maneuvers, some of which served no purpose whatsoever.

When Mabel eventually turned off the penlight and tucked it into the top pocket of her white doctor’s coat, she reclined back into her chair with a gentle, saturated sigh. “You poor soul,” she mourned, shaking her head. “You’ve been through a lot.”

Ash, still blinking rapidly from the effect of the light, frowned in her general direction.

Mabel turned and began rummaging through her junkyard desk again, the unhappy energy clouding around her. “Eyes like yours don’t get that way by accident.”

A weight hung from Ash’s head as she tucked her chin into her chest, staring down into her lap. She reached up to rub at her eyes, whereas her other hand went limp in my grip. I held tight in return, not letting her escape.

“So, what do you think?” I pressed my foot into the wheels of Aunt Mabel’s chair, knocking it ever so slightly to get her attention.

She tutted, landing a mean kick on my shin before scuttling out of reach. She rounded back to the other side of her desk, her rummaging increasing with impatience. “I hope you don’t mind, but Lamb did share with me some parts of your story,” Mabel revealed, earning me a soft, gentle, sideways glance.

A strong discomfort ran along my chest at the sight of the vulnerable gesture. I’d rather she bite, kick, or stab me than ever look that way again.

“Mechanism of injury is an important factor to consider.”

Ash nodded.

“An ophthalmologist can tell you more, but in simple terms, the chemical exposure to your eyes has caused significant trauma,” she explained.

“Lamb,” Ash spoke softly next to me, her free hand now tugging on the sleeve of my jacket. “Why are we here?”

I turned away. “Is it going to get worse? Can it be treated?”

I could see anger forming on Ash’s face, and I could guess her reasons why. Though I had announced where we were going, I hadn’t specified why. It wasn’t for her detox or general health but for her eyes; a sensitive subject for her, both physically and psychologically. Even so, her head turned as Mabel opened her mouth to answer, that slither of hope betraying her.

Mabel pulled a board from under her desk, one familiar to many. It had the letters from big to small across the board, and Mabel propped it up against her shoulder, no more than an arm’s reach from Ash. She pointed at the biggest letters, looking straight at Ash. “Read this.”

Ash frowned, but after a moment of hesitation, began to read, “A … R … L …”

At the second line, Ash made it through, but her eyes were already squinting hard.

At the third, she struggled.

She couldn’t make it past the fourth.

After seeing Ash suffer enough, Mabel tucked the board beneath the desk. “How was your eyesight as a child? Did you need glasses?”

Ash shook her head.

“Did you ever struggle to read things up close or far away?”

Another shake.

“Do you know what substance they put over your eyes?” Mabel asked the question as bluntly as the others, as if it was a normal question to ask during a routine physical exam.

I didn’t expect Ash to answer, or at least dodge the question, but much to my surprise, she took Aunt Mabel’s question with stride.

“I don’t know. They brought a bucket and dunked the cloth before putting it over my eyes. It smelled like petrol, but I do not think that was the only thing they used. They wore gloves, and it smelled sharp, but I cannot tell you much more than that.”

Aunt Mabel nodded, her fingers tapping, the invisible mental image of a notebook and pen in her hand jotting down the information. “I’d like to send you for more in-depth testing, perhaps at a main branch hospital.” Mabel sighed, and Ash straightened into a rod. Mabel just rolled her eyes at her reaction. “Relax, I know that’s not on the table now. But it doesn’t mean it will be forever off it, so consider it.” She wafted her hand, but her eyes stayed tightly fixed on Ash’s. “I don’t think laser surgery will do much good for your cornea scarring, considering its severity, so you’d probably be looking at a cornea transplant. As for the actual state of your vision, I’d say it likely won’t get better.”

If Ash was surprised or upset by the news, she didn’t show it. Her hand remained calmly tucked into mine, and her head raised to face Aunt Mabel as she continued to ramble on in detail about how cornea transplants work and other things. I stayed silent, watching her quietly, trying to pick apart the small pieces of emotion she had hidden in the corners of her face. I struggled to find them and wondered if Ash truly didn’t mind, or had long since given up hope. I hoped it was the former, even knowing it was the latter.

“Now, if you don’t mind, Christopher, giving us a little privacy?”

“I do, actually,” I returned to the conversation, facing the challenge in the feeble lady’s eyes.

She raised a brow with an expression I had seen so many times over the years.

“Get out before I kick you out,” Mabel huffed, shifting herself in her big computer chair, ready to hop onto her feet.

I raised my free hand in surrender, rolling my eyes at the batty old lady. “Fine,” I grunted, turning back to Ash.

She was searching my face, a mix of unease and insecurity rushing across those features that had been a mask only moments ago. I didn’t need to tell her how much her need for me to stay by her side affected me. I pulled up our joined hands, pressing a soft kiss to the back of hers.

“I’ll be outside.” With that, I let go of her palm, her fingers hanging onto mine in a brief, lingering hold before I slipped out of reach, heading to the door.

I didn’t turn back, fearing if I did, I wouldn’t be able to walk out the door. If this was how bad it was already, I wasn’t sure how I’d ever be able to leave her alone in the future.

I wasn’t sure I ever wanted to.