Page 7 of Not Her Day to Die (Star-Crossed #2)

“ G et the fuck out of here. Haven’t you done enough?” Axel grumbles, but the words are distant, muted.

I reach out to swat him, to shut him up, but he’s no longer next to me.

My head is pounding, my mouth dry and aching, but my body is cooperating. At least better than it was before.

“She has a right to make her own choices.” This voice I don’t recognize, a loud whisper.

Grumbling, I reach up, rubbing my eyes and opening them. The light in my room is off, but there is a window that is partially uncovered offering just the dullest rays of sunlight to creep onto my skin.

“You’re awake.”

My head wrenches to Grayson. He sits on the chair next to the bed, his arms crossed, his eyes gaunt.

It reminds me of a distant memory, of when he was the one in the hospital bed. It feels so incredibly recent and also as if it were years ago.

A crash draws my attention to the door, through the window at the top, I can make out the back of Axel’s shaggy hair.

“Who’s out there?” I ask, readjusting on my hospital bed. I don’t feel nearly as weak as I did before.

Grayson reaches up, massaging his temples. “A nuisance. We didn’t see her in every timeline, but she was always on the edge. I don’t have proof but I suspect she led to your demise on more than one occasion. ”

Before I can question who exactly “she” is or pummel Grayson with the endless questions pouring through me, the door is slammed open.

“The hospital is forcing this onto us. Sunday. Do not listen to the hot garbage she will spew your way.” Axel takes up his spot on the other side of the bed, he stands next to it, his arms cross over his chest.

I don’t have time to understand what is going on before the woman steps into the room.

“Sunday Masch,” the woman states, migrating to the foot of the bed, directly in my line of sight.

Her chestnut hair is pulled into a bun, her eyes nearly the same color. Her face is hard, stoic.

There is an eerily familiar nature to her, but in this instance, it isn’t déjà vu that takes hold–it’s something else entirely.

“Who are you?” I shift further up the bed, this encounter is hitting hard and fast. Stabbing at my psyche, prickling across my nerves, slithering uncomfortably in my gut.

A shimmer of light catches in my vision, but when I blink, it’s gone.

The woman reaches into her pocket and pulls out a badge. She flashes it at me. “Agent Franz. Jane Franz.”

Whatever I am expecting, it isn’t that .

“Agent?”

“Ex-agent,” Axel snarls. “Are you even on the force anymore? Did your superiors approve you coming down here to interrogate a gunshot victim?”

Jane’s eyes darken before she plasters her face back into place. An impressive mask. She is both a concerned woman and a bullheaded agent.

“This doesn’t concern either of you two.

Axel, you still have a few years left on your probation.

Do you want me to put in a call to your PO?

” The woman’s voice, which had been so gentle with me, turns stern.

“I am here on official FBI business. Due to her injuries, the public outrage, and the suspicious nature of the sheriff’s response to the man that has been taken into custody, a case has been opened.

Didn’t you wonder why she was placed in a private room?

Why the reporters have been kept at bay? ”

Axel’s jaw clenches, but he remains silent.

I am surprised when it is Grayson who speaks. “You mean our brother. Our brother’s half-cocked arrest. His lawyer will have him out at the trial. I mean, the entire case should be thrown out! He didn’t even have a weapon, nor was one found anywhere nearby.”

The woman’s eyes widen in shock. “You don’t know?”

Axel breaks his silence. “Know what?”

I open my mouth to speak but then that familiar flicker flashes, and I close it. This time I try to follow the light, but it’s almost as if as soon as I do, it disappears.

Am I going crazy? Have all of these deaths caused me to lose my mind? Did I meet this woman in a past life? Is that why she’s so familiar?

The agent rolls her shoulders, flattens her lips. She places her hands on the rail at the foot of my bed, levels me with her stare. “Darius was released just a few hours ago.”

Grayson falls back, away from me and towards the nearby wall. My attention catches on the movement, the way his eyes dull, his mouth opens in shock.

“No!” Axel yells, lunging himself towards the woman.

My hand moves on its own catching him, he lets me.

“Isn’t that good?” I whisper. Nothing is making any sense, even less than before.

Darius has been sprung, he’s free, we don’t have to worry about him. We escaped the loop. Everything is okay…

Nobody answers, but Jane examines me with a critical intensity .

“Where is he?” I ask even softer than before. The urge to cough presses against me, but I swallow it down.

“With his father .” Jane continues to stare me down.

Axel jerks under my hold. She pauses for a few beats.

Jane cocks her head. “You don’t know who his father is?”

My head twists on a swivel, looking between Axel and Grayson. “What’s wrong with your dad?” I had never met the man, never heard of him. But Tripp had mentioned him once, he was a deadbeat that disappeared before Darius was born.

“She doesn’t .” Jane stands back to her full height, her tone evolving, her eyes darkening until they are nearly black. “What else are you keeping her in the dark about?” She raises a hand to push a strand of hair that has escaped her neatly pulled back bun.

And that is when I see it.

“What is this?” I jerk back in the bed, my hands shaking. “Who are you?” My mind falters between reality and somewhere much darker. A nightmare I can’t escape. A loop I wasn’t even aware I was thrown into.

A picture of a girl.

On a bed.

With a matching tattoo.

Yin and yang.

“This is the girl’s mom. From the photo,” Axel provides.

“She is the reason everything bad has ever happened. She is the reason Tripp and Auggie are dead. She is the reason you are in this hospital bed.” And he believes it.

It is in the cadence of his voice, the way he grits his teeth, narrows his eyes.

It’s similar to how he was with Rayden. He despises this woman.

“Her daughter?” The realization strikes, a thousand bolts.

“They kept you from me.” Jane transforms before me .

I almost can’t believe I didn’t see it prior. She is a woman on a mission. With nothing to lose. Searching for a daughter that has already been brutalized.

“You should leave,” I say. My stomach is knotting in on itself. I press back further against the bed. Sensing my discomfort, Axel shifts his attention to me.

“You’ve met her before.” He stares directly into me, and in this moment, I finally understand what I was sensing before.

A different loop, another life I lived. I have questions for him, but I save them.

Jane remains silent, but straightens back up. This time I am almost sure I see a glimmer flash between us.

A string ?

Is it a shadow of the past creeping across her skin?

The longer I stare, the brighter the light becomes before it envelopes her, thousands of bloodied neon strands, and just as it shrouds her in a disgusting cloak, she inclines her head.

It disperses, as if it were never even there.

“I’ll be back.” She throws a card onto my bed, spinning on her heel, and marching away.

The mirage vanishes with her movement, and I am left staring after her slack-jawed and uneasy.

The knots in my stomach have twisted and tied themselves together.

Once she leaves, it’s as if a collective sigh releases into the world.

Grayson paces the room. “She should be gone, we are out of the loop. This doesn’t make any sense. And Darius… fuck ,” Grayson mutters under his breath, a tattooed hand comes up to brush his hair from his face as he continues marching across the room and back .

“Who is Darius’s dad?” I ask, readjusting in the bed, attempting to find comfort, but there isn’t any for me.

While Jane was here she distracted me from the dull throb in my body, but in her absence my pain takes forefront.

I was shot.

But how long has it been?

“Obviously, we didn’t tie up all the loose ends. The bitch kept showing up at the restaurant, at our house. We’re lucky she didn’t cross paths with Sunday sooner. I almost think she’s the reason for it all,” Axel grumbles. His hand reaches out on its own, tucking one of my curls behind my ear.

The warmth of his skin is a salve I didn’t know I needed, and I incline further into it.

“Who is Darius’s dad?” I repeat my question, raising my voice just a bit.

Grayson appears deep in thought as he continues his pacing, to one corner of the room, to the door, and back to my bed, on and on he goes. It takes him all of three steps for each loop and it isn’t long before I am dizzy from tracking his progress.

“We should have just turned her in. We practically had the evidence needed. Maybe we all should have just left this town. Ran as far and fast as we could.” Grayson increases his pace.

“You know that wouldn’t have worked. We tried to ship her off to her grandmother’s. You remember how that went.” Axel’s fingers trace along my face now, but his attention is on his brother.

Darius wouldn’t ignore me. He would listen when I speak. He would know what to say, how to fix this.

“Who is Darius’s dad?” I’m not yelling, but my voice is loud enough that it causes me to cough, my lungs to heave, my wound to pulse in agony .

“Maybe we can find Darius, get to him, and then try again. Maybe it will work now,” Grayson says. “I can keep you all safe. It will be fine. We’ll get him back. We have to. We can’t lose him too.”

Lose him too?

Now panic has fully set in. This doesn’t make any sense. If Darius is out of jail, he should be here. Unless he got caught up, but eventually he would make his way here.

“What can we possibly do?” The pads of Axel’s fingers press firmly into my skin. “Sunday isn’t safe in this town. They want her at all angles. Darius knew the risks when he stayed behind for her.”

Stayed behind for me?

I knock Axel’s hand away from me. “WHO IS DARIUS’S DAD?” This time, I scream.

Grayson comes to a stop, he’s at the door, his attention zeroes in on my face, my lips, my nose, before settling on my eyes. “I promised him I wouldn’t tell you. Not until he had the chance to.”

“Well, I didn’t make that promise.” Axel jumps on top of me, onto the bed. He pushes me back on the mattress, his hands landing on each side of my head.

I expect pain to follow, but he is careful in his movements, knowing exactly where he can and can’t press down.

His lips hover above mine, his bright eyes swirling hypnotically. “Darius’s dad? Are you sure, Little Lamb? Isn’t it better to not know?”

My hands come up between us and with all the might I can muster, I push Axel off of me. I can feel my stitches pulling, but I pay it no mind as I roll him off the bed.

He falls to the linoleum ground with a loud grunt, and then… laughter .

Grayson remains silent, choosing to watch how this plays out instead .

“I see. I guess you might be ready. Darius’s dad?” Axel grunts as he makes his way back to his feet. His lips curl cruelly as he stares down at me. “Sterling. Maxwell. Thorne.”

My heart pounds up my throat, nearly chokes me. “His dad…his dad…his dad,” I stutter.

Grayson breaks free of whatever was holding him in place and rushes to my side, his arms wrap around me, comforting me. His chin finds the top of my head as he gathers me carefully into him.

Darius’s dad…

“He’s one of the founding families. One of the men in charge of the disgusting happenings of this town,” Axel confirms. “So no, Darius isn’t safe. But now that he’s in his sperm donor’s clutches? There’s nothing we can do.”

Grayson remains silent, but squeezes me tighter to him. And it is in this instance that I realize Grayson isn’t here to comfort me.

He needs the support.

Another one of his brothers is in peril. And just like before…

It is my fault.