Page 72 of Protective Love

Chapter Thirty-Six

Rory

My heart is in my stomach, my eyes are sore from lack of sleep, and my body is shaking with nerves, or maybe fear by time we pull up to the hospital the next morning.

"You good?" Leo asks, letting his usual mask slip for a moment as he watches me with genuine concern.

Glancing at the hospital entrance, I nod, wiping my sweaty palms along my legs.

"Yeah, I'm good."

"Are you going to tell me what's going on yet?"

My stomach bottoms out and my gaze snaps to meet his.

"Please, don't ask. You agreed to help me, and I'm grateful for that, but I don't want to get any of you involved."

He shakes his head, snickering.

"You realise who we are, right? You know we can protect ourselves. We're always in trouble, with a lot of different people who do a ton of dangerous things. We always manage to sort things out. You getting us involved could help you."

"No," I tell him, my voice stern. "Thank you for suggesting to Sophia about Jaylen going home, but that's all I need you to do, Leo."

He watches me for a moment and then kisses his teeth and nods.

"Fine. I'll stay out of it, but you realise I'm still probably going to have to stick around, right? You may be able to come up with a plan to keep him away from you for a while, but he cares about you, and he wants to make sure you're safe because he already knows something's going on with you."

"Luckily for you, I won't have much of an issue with that," I say honestly, somewhat reassured that I'll still have him around just in case I'm right in thinking Danny has found me and is watching me.

I grab my stuff and open the door, but before I get out, I turn to face him again and smile.

"You really aren't as scary as I originally thought you were."

"That's because you've never seen me when I'm feeling trigger-happy," he replies, smirking at me and sending a shiver down my spine.

"Okay, I take it back. You're still scary."

After putting my things away in my locker and tying my hair up, the original plan was to go to Markus' office and see if anyone had asked about Jaylen continuing his recovery process at home, but instead, I've been sitting on the bench that runs along the centre of the room for the last twenty minutes, terrified to leave the room and have to face Jaylen.

I've bitten the inside of my cheek so much since I've been here that it's now bleeding, leaving a tangy taste in my mouth.

Dread and regret are coursing through my veins, and tears keep swarming my eyes.

I look at the clock on the wall, seeing that thirty minutes have now passed since I walked in here, and I sigh.

Shaking my head at how stupid I'm being, I wipe at my eyes, stand from the bench and straighten my shoulders as I take a couple deep breaths, preparing myself to walk out of the room and get through the rest of today.

You're doing this to keep him safe.

He'll understand in the long run.

Just as I'm about to walk towards the door, it opens, and Markus walks in, his eyes meeting mine.

"Rory. Just the person I was looking for," he states, taking a seat on the bench. "Mind if we have a quick chat about Jaylen King?"

Instantly, my pulse skyrockets as the note left in my locker flickers through my mind, but despite the spike of panic shooting through me, I smile and nod my head, leaning my back against the lockers.

"Yeah, sure. What is it you want to discuss?" I ask, hoping he doesn't hear how nervous I currently sound.