Page 52 of Reaper and Ruin

But Whip…

Whip sat on the edge of the mattress, swaying. His skin grayish, eyes dull and glassy.

“You okay?” I handed him the bottle of water I’d been forcing on them every twenty minutes, trying to flush out the plague.

He took a sip, swallowed, and grimaced. “You’re lucky I’m too weak to murder you.”

I flopped down beside him, my back hitting the headboard, and gently tucked a stray strand of Violet’s blond hair behind her ear. “I’m lucky in more ways than that.” I jerked my chin toward the lump under the blankets that was Levi. “That one jumped off a cliff for me. Violet’s still letting me in her bed. You haven’t pissed in my shoes yet. It’s been a good day, despite all the vomit.”

Whip didn’t laugh. He rarely did. But he smiled, just a little. “You’re an idiot.”

“I prefer ‘chaos gremlin,’ thank you.”

We sat in silence for a long beat, the room full of low breathing and the occasional gurgle from someone’s gut. Then I turned toward him, serious and honest. “You know you don’t have to keep doing this.”

He blinked. “Doing what?”

“Running.” I paused to pick at the edge of my blanket. “From us. From her. From…this.” I waved vaguely at the bed.

But also at the feelings that existed between the people in it, even when I sort of accidentally, on purpose, poisoned them. “I have a really great family, you know? You haven’t met them yet, but they’re the best. Great parents. Great brothers. Cute niece and nephew.”

“Why do I sense a but coming on?”

I lifted a shoulder and shrugged. “They don’t know the real me. I can’t show them that. But you…” I gave him a half-smile. “You know me. You might want to kill me all the time, and I know I deserve that. But you’re kinda my guy, Whip.”

His brow furrowed into a frown. “I thought Scythe was your best friend?”

“Oh, he is,” I assured him. “We’re like this.” I held up my hand, my first two fingers entwined around each other. “But it’s you I trust with Violet. It’s you who jumped off a cliff for me. It’s you who I’d call if I entered a pie-eating competition and needed to be rolled home.”

Whip clutched his stomach. “Please don’t talk about pie. Or rolling.”

I went on like he hadn’t said anything because I needed him to understand why I’d poisoned him. “Scythe has a family of his own. Butyou’remy family. So when you said you were leaving us tonight…”

Whip’s expression finally morphed into one that might have been understanding. “You lost your mind and thought poisoning me was the way to go?”

I grimaced. “In hindsight, after cleaning up vomit for hours, it might not have been my best idea.”

“You don’t say.” Whip’s voice was dry as the Sahara.

“I’m sorry.” I honestly meant it. I felt like shit over how sick they’d all been.

Whip sighed. “If it’s my turn to be honest, part of me was glad I couldn’t go tonight.” His eyes narrowed. “That part was definitely not my stomach, just for the record. But my heart wasn’t in it. I wanted to be here with the three of you.”

Something filled with relief unlocked inside me. “So stay. Stop hiding in the beds of strangers when the bed you belong in is right here.” I gave a small laugh, feeling awkward about being this vulnerable with someone, and patted the mattress as enticingly as I could.

Whip’s voice was quiet when he answered. “It’s not that easy.”

I pushed the urge to make jokes away and instead focused on the words I knew he needed to hear. The ones I knew I needed to say, not just for him but for me too. “I know it’s not that easy right now. But it could be? You belong here. With us. In this madness. In a found-family soap opera of trauma bonding and inappropriate lust…”

Well, I’d tried. It wasn’t my fault it was really hard to have a serious moment when you were just naturally hard-wired to be hilarious.

He huffed something that might have been a laugh.

“I’m serious, Whip.” I tried again. “You matter to us. To me.”

His mouth moved, like he had a thousand replies and didn’t know which one was safe to say.

So I saved him.