Page 10 of Not Her Day to Die (Star-Crossed #2)

T ime passes.

It passes in a way I am not unaccustomed to, but it is painful nonetheless. After my breakdown, I was put under in order to calm my nerves.

A panic attack. That’s how the nurse explained it. But it was more than that. It was my soul unwinding from my body. It was my emotions and feelings readjusting to the knowledge that Axel and Grayson placed on me.

I needed it.

But now I need to heal. And that’s what I have been doing. Healing. Recovering. Rehabbing.

A gunshot wound does not just go away, but finally it feels as if I am nearly back to normal.

Or as normal as can be.

“Sunday, talk to me. What’s going through that pretty head of yours?” Axel wraps his body around mine in the stiff hospital bed. He has long since learned to take up as little space as possible, to avoid my wound, to not hurt me.

I am back in my own clothes, this is my last day here. Yet it leaves me wary. “I hope Darius is okay.”

This room is small, sterile, cold . But it has felt like a reprieve. A quick pit stop before diving right back into the madness that is our town.

Axel jolts. “I’m sure he’s fine. ”

Grayson makes his entrance, banging the hospital door open. Now it is my turn to jump.

Grayson hasn’t spoken to me since I had my meltdown. Since he told me I should leave. Since I woke up with only Axel.

He doesn’t acknowledge me now, his eyes focused above us. On the tiny TV that is perched on a metal box. I haven’t used it once, but Grayson clicks it on.

It only takes him five seconds to find what he is looking for.

“Darius?” I gasp.

There he is. My best friend. The sweetest man I have ever known. The one who took care of me at my lowest. Who cooked me my favorites.

The ones he must have figured out from previous lives.

Who gave me my only birthday gift.

Who kept me company when I was at my lowest.

There he is, stone-faced standing shoulder to shoulder with none other than Maxwell.

“Is this a joke?” Axel is standing now, as close to the TV as he can manage, his neck crooked upwards glaring at it. “They put Darius next to Maxwell? The guy whose brother he killed.”

Grayson clicks up the volume.

“–cording to the lab report, it has been confirmed that Darius and Rayden were biological brothers. And new evidence has emerged via text message communication, a woman was the reason for their altercation. Unfortunately, Rayden, who was so lost to his own jealousy, hurt the woman before turning the gun on himself.” The man speaking is clearly a lawyer.

A slimy one at that. The expensive suit perfectly tailored to his body, his hair slicked back, his eyes soulless.

“The Thorne’s will be taking care of the victim’s hospital fees and anything to help on her road to recovery. ”

The screen flickers to an evidence bag. To a gun .

“Axel?” Grayson growls.

“That’s not the murder weapon.” Axel squares his shoulders. “They’re twisting the narrative. Darius’s idea with the live feed worked. It’s probably the only reason we have been left alone. Too many witnesses outside of the town, they couldn’t cover it up the way they typically do.”

When it’s clear that Darius will not reappear on the screen, I shift my focus.

A light shimmers.

A flicker.

This time I stare at it, allow it to take form.

“Sunday?” Axel asks.

“Water,” I say.

He moves.

“I want to get it. Just let me have a few minutes. I won’t go far.” I don’t want to tell Axel or Grayson for that matter about what I’m seeing. About the incessant urge I have to follow it.

Keeping my eyes peeled I leave my room in a trance. For once, the brothers seem to listen to me.

Avoiding the other patients, the hustle and bustle of the hospital, I follow the light. It is hypnotic, and before I realize it, I am at the nurses station.

Standing there lamely for a minute, I’m unsure of what I’m supposed to do.

Is my mind unraveling? Am I losing it?

But then one of the nurses walks around and smiles at me. “Hi Sunday, I was told to give this to you when you were alone.”

The light that was once so dim is bright now, it envelopes the woman before me. I reach out to touch it, but instead she drops something small and rectangular into my hands. A phone. As soon as the item touches my skin, the light disappears. Almost as if it were never there to begin with.

The nurse’s blonde hair hangs sharply around her jaw, and her bright eyes are kind.

“The agent wanted you to have a way to get in touch with her. She was afraid those boys were being too overprotective, and I can’t say I blame her.

That O’Brien may be your appointed guardian, but that doesn’t mean he knows best. Now put that into your pocket and keep it with you when we release you.

Just in case.” She squeezes my uninjured shoulder reassuringly before stepping around me and walking away.

I clutch the item lamely. This encounter wasn’t what I expected.

Well, that’s not exactly true. I hoped if I followed the light, I would magically understand what it meant, but now it has left me with more questions than answers.

“Sunday,” Grayson barks. His voice is unmistakable, even if it feels as if a lifetime has passed since I heard it.

For the second time, he startles me. I spin on my heel, slipping the phone into my pocket.

“He speaks,” I say snarkily. “Aren’t you done with me now? You did what was needed, now leave me be. When I am released, I will return home and stay out of your hair.”

“ Sunday .” His voice is velvet as my name leaves his lips again. He casts a glance around. “Not out here.” He reaches out, gently taking my wrist and tugging me along.

When we make it to an unlocked closet, he throws us inside before placing his back against the door.

The enclosed space smells strongly of bleach, but that isn’t what is turning my stomach. It’s Grayson’s eyes.

This is the first time we have been this close in weeks. The first time he has truly looked at me since I woke up in this hospital. Before, it almost felt as if he were staring through me, but now he is scrutinizing me. As if he can see every piece of me.

I feel naked . I cross my arms. A shield.

His hands come up, they push my hair behind my ears before landing on each side of my face, his thumbs stroking my cheeks.

“Sunday.” His lips move fluidly. I’m in a trance. “I should. For your own sake. But I can’t let you go.” He provides no more explanation.

He bends, until our lips are centimeters apart, he waits, allowing me time to stop this.

I don’t.

“Please.” I blink up at him. “ Please . Convince me that it wasn’t all a lie. That you care about me. That I’m not a mistake. That it wasn’t just to escape the loops.”

“Oh, baby girl. Is that what you think?” His hot breath fans my face.

The phone weighs heavier than it should in my pocket, but I ignore it. “How can I not? You want to send me away. You want me to lea—”

And then he is pressing against me. Harsh lips that leave no room for argument. But that is what I want to do.

Grayson has been the most confusing of the brothers. Hot and cold.

Always leaving me on edge, afraid that at any moment he would simply disappear. That I was too much of a burden.

His tongue drives into me as he continues to consume me.

I give as much as I take. My arms reach up, my fingers tangling into his hair. One of my legs wraps around his waist.

He uses a hand to grab my other, to cradle me against him, to walk us back to the metal shelves behind me. They dig into my back as he wedges me against them, his hard cock rubbing through the thin fabric of my shorts.

He pulls back to say, “You let them all leave their mark. ”

His lips trail along my neck. He sucks the sensitive skin there. The sensation sends sparks of desire directly to my core. It has already bloomed and now it is overgrown, attempting to escape.

I need more than this.

“Grayson,” I murmur, rolling my hips up to him. I want to reach between us, to shove down our shorts, to jump on him. To ride these waves of ecstasy wherever they take me.

His hand moves and for a fleeting second I think he might do just as I want, but then he brushes against the phone in my pocket.

Before he can question me, the door whips open behind us. A nurse I don’t recognize stands in the doorway and mutters under her breath.

Grayson doesn’t react, he slowly separates from me, turning around, blocking me with his body. Protecting me. “Apologies, we will be leaving.” He grasps my hand and shields me from the newcomer’s line of sight as he leads us to my hospital room.

Back in there, he slams the door shut behind him. “Sunday, what is in your pocket?”

Axel jumps up from the bed. He eyes me speculatively. “I told you to make-up not make-out. But I suppose it needed to happen. The tension between the two of you is thick.”

“She has something in her pocket.” Grayson redirects him, not acknowledging anything Axel says.

Axel marches towards me.

I have all of three seconds to come up with an excuse, to run, to leave this situation.

But then I question that.

Why would I hide it from them?

“I was going to tell you.” I’m not sure if that’s the truth, but it shocks both the brothers when I don’t fight them on it. When I pull the phone from my pocket. “I felt…fuck it. I saw something and I followed it.”

Where has keeping secrets from them ever gotten me?

Dead.

“Look.” My lips are still tingling, my nerves shot, my neck throbbing in a mixture of pain and pleasure, but I push it all down.

I place my free hand on my hip, jut out my chin, harden my shoulders.

“This is going to sound crazy but I saw a light shimmering and when I followed it, I ended up with this.” I open my hand, revealing the phone.

“A nurse gave it to me. It’s from the agent. ”

As soon as the words escape my lips, there’s another spark, a bright thread, it tangles endlessly around the phone, making it nearly impossible to look at.

“A…light?” Grayson questions. His voice is soft, unsure, but he doesn’t sound critical.

“A light.” Axel mulls it over. He too seems to be taking me seriously.

“Aren’t you going to call me crazy? That all of these deaths have made me go insane? That a knob is loose?”

“Sunday, you died ninety-nine times. You seeing a light is not too far out of the realm of possibility, is it?” Grayson murmurs, his voice is soft, gentle. “And you’re…you’re trusting us?” He reaches for the phone.

I hand it to him without a fight. I want the light to go away, it doesn’t seem necessarily bad, but it isn’t good either.

Chaotic neutral.

“You are trusting us…”

I cannot ignore the unfiltered happiness that lathers his words. “I am. I think, at least in this timeline, I have always trusted you. I just wasn’t sure what the feeling was and so it made me apprehensive. But you all make me comfortable, safe, happy.”

Shame hits me now, out of nowhere, shortly followed by grief.

“To you all, Auggie and Tripp have been dead for years.” Their lack of reaction at the memorial makes more sense now. And in some ways it feels as if years have passed since their death to me too, but that doesn’t dispel the guilt I feel. As if I am substituting Tripp.

Except even as that thought whips through me, I know with certainty Tripp will never be replaced. He will always hold a spot within me. My first love, first kiss, first broken heart.

“They have,” Axel confirms. “It still hurts, but nowhere as much as watching you die over and over again. Unable to stop it.”

“Except you have stopped it. I’m alive. And I am putting my trust in both of you. But…But I need you both to do the same.” The plan swims to the forefront of my mind. It started in that closet with Grayson, it grew on the walk back, and it expands now in this hospital room.

This town makes a cycle of victims, of pain, and suffering.

Julia. Tripp. Auggie. They all pointlessly died because of it.

And who knows how many more will.

Darius was taken from us by the evil behind it all.

And who knows what will happen to him.

Unless we stop it.

Axel always calls me his Little Lamb.

Perhaps it’s time I start playing the part.

“I will be the bait.”