Page 19

19

MADDOX

S he’s nothing like I thought she’d be, and the more time I spend around her, the harder it is to hate her. Instead, I want to pick at her, pick at the parts she’s so obviously struggling to heal, and figure out why.

She’s skeptical, and with reason. I kicked her ass not just a few days ago, and then today, I’m splitting my knuckles over her on the Siren’s pivot. Watching her get picked on flipped a switch inside me, turned something on that I couldn’t fight back anymore.

The thing I’ve been resisting this entire time, ever since she came to Skatium after Asha’s death. The very thing I’ve been trying to mask for contempt.

Obsession, desire.

Something even more.

She hasn’t spoken since we arrived at the hospital pharmacy, the pain obviously setting in to the point where dissociation is the only thing keeping her together. Staring at a spot on the brick wall, her focus is on the furthest thing from herself. I’m standing at the counter, waiting for the pharmacist to come back with her medicine while she sits on a bright blue chair pushed against the wall.

“Alrighty, Vera. Here they are. Do you need instructions for taking these?” He looks past me to ask her.

She shakes her head, coming to a slow stand.

He holds the bag out for her, but I take it from him. Then, with one hand on her lower back, I shepherd us out of the pharmacy. She’s quiet, glancing at the prescription bag in my hand the entire walk to the car.

“Should I take you back to K’s…or?” I had no reason to be saying “or.” Or what? Or leave her behind? Or take her back to Skatium? Or…

My house.

“K’s is fine,” she says with another quiet nod.

Vibrant. Full of life, energy, and confidence.

That’s how Asha had described Vera Havik. But now, with her here in front of me and our only connection dead and buried, there was no more painting her in lies.

All I see is her truth: Vera Havik is breaking from her own chaos.

Cracking by her own hand.

I blast the music, some old cover of a song written by The Smiths . The time on the radio reads nearly one in the morning; between the X-rays and the journey through the hospital to see multiple specialists, this wasn’t a quick trip.

But I’m dreading the minute she’ll be gone.

I can’t stand the feeling,

She doesn’t even try to pull the door open when we get there; she just gives me that blank stare. It’s like she’s waiting for me to open it, but asking for help isn’t ingrained in her vocabulary, so she thinks looking at me is enough for me to guess her needs.

It is, but I don’t tell her that. No, I just reach over to push the handle and let her out.

One more vacant look my way, the words probably itching at the base of her throat, but she won’t say them.

“Do you need help?” I raise an eyebrow.

“Please.” The vibrance, the confidence, is now meekness and self-consciousness.

I grab her skate bag from the backseat and toss it over my shoulder. Following her from the driveway up the stairs to K-Otic’s place, I wait for her to fish the keys from her backpack with her good hand. She’s a mess. The backpack’s strap hangs off her cast, and it’s gotta be killing her, but she hasn’t asked me for the pills yet, and I hate the tension.

We both know she’s going to abuse them.

So where do we go from here?

She unlocks the door and carelessly tosses the keys back into the abyss of her backpack before pushing it open with her shoulder. All the lights are off, K obviously sleeping in their room, only the cat waiting for Vera.

He greets her with a loud mew, one that sounds nearly savage on a beast that size.

I drop to one knee to pet him, the purring a collection of bees in a jar, so loud and rumbly that it soothes. “Where do you want your bag?” I shift my gaze back her way.

“Um. In the room is fine. Thanks.” She points to a door down the hallway.

I’m expecting to see K-Otic sleeping, but the room is empty. “Is K here?”

“Long asleep, I’m sure.” She breathes out, and it looks labored.

She’s in pain, but she’s still afraid to ask me.

“Do you need anything else before I go?” I lean on the open door frame as she dumps the contents of her bag onto the floor.

“You’ve done too much already,” she says, but then doubles back.

“Yeah, but is there anyone else to help?” I’m careful to ask the right questions. I’m realizing this girl has a habit of answering exactly how she needs to keep people from digging too deep.

Her gaze darts to the side before she shifts it back to me, and I already know the answer.

She gets by far too often with letting others assume her needs, or she doesn’t ask for help at all. It’s her style. I’m not quite sure why, but I know that if I don’t force it, she’ll probably go to bed with dried sweat on her body and her shoes still on. There’s probably nothing she can do for herself without her dominant hand. “Get your clothes off. I’ll get the shower ready for you.” I turn away from her and head for the bathroom.

“N-nevermind, actually.” She’s all nerves suddenly, and it makes me stop mid-movement.

“Then you should probably wake Kade up and ask for help.” This tension between us feels immense, but I need the clarity. Even if K and I aren’t friends, we’re still teammates. I’m not stealing someone’s girl out from underneath them.

She laughs, a warm, summery sound straight from her chest before she speaks again. “Kade’s made it pretty clear they’d rather burn their eyes out than see me naked.”

That’s all I need.

“Their loss.” It falls freely from my mouth as she walks past me and heads straight across the hall.

I grab her good wrist, forcing her to turn to face me again. She stumbles back a step into the bathroom, biting her lower lip. Gripping her hips, I lift her up and place her on the marble of the bathroom vanity. Her eyes are wide, alert now, as she waits for me to make the next move.

“Lift your arms up.”

She obeys the command, letting me grab the hem of her tank top and pull it over her head. Her sports bra clasps in the front, and I’m thankful, because it looks too tight to pull over her shoulders with the cast on. Vera’s fully capable of undoing the clasp herself, but she’s not. Instead, she’s fixated on me, her eyes glued to my lips, shifting every few seconds to where my fingers sit.

I drop to one knee and pull at the top of her tube sock, rolling it down her ankles and then sliding it off her foot before repeating on the other side. Standing between her legs, I reach for the first clasp of her bra, and she leans closer. I undo the second, her chest rising with a deep inhale. The third comes undone, and the curve of her cleavage begs my attention. I give a hard tug, sloppy with the final clasp as I yank it free, her breasts spilling out as the bra hangs on her shoulders like an open vest.

She shrugs it off, and I back up, giving her space to hop off the counter. I stand corrected from all previous assumptions. What I had seen as scrawny and weak was a guise for battered and beaten. Her legs are a mapwork of scars, highways edging from one knee down to her ankle bone, some round scars the size of a quarter on the front of her shins. The other leg is not much better, and the work of the week is displayed on her flesh, rink rash covering her anywhere the exposed flesh hit the track.

Purple, blue, green, and orange bruising drapes her hips and knees, the array of colors making it evident that some are from me a few days back, and some are from tonight, already setting in. There’s a bruise on her sternum, bright blue and small, about the size of an elbow.

I suddenly wish Venice hadn’t pulled me off Sav-otage so fast.

She deserved more than what I laid out.

Vera’s eyes are still on me. She stands there, all golden skin with nothing but sheer panties on. She’s not covering up, but I’m only staring at her face now, at the way the brown of her eyes are so dark in this light, it feels like an entire night sky.

She fumbles with her left hand, trying to pull the hair tie off her ponytail, but it gets stuck on a knot. Stepping closer, I take the bundle of burgundy hair from her hand and gently pull the band free from the tangle with minimal breakage. I slip it over my own wrist and run my fingers through the knot, starting from the bottom as I pull apart the strands and detangle.

Her eyes are closed, her head slightly dropped back like she’s appreciating the contact. The “Thank you,” is barely an audible whisper from her moving lips.

The crooked smirk paints itself on my face too easily, “Anything else? Or do you need me to wash you too?”

Her eyes widen, she pushes me out of the way with her good arm and stands in front of the tub. “No.” She shakes her head, and just as I’m about to exit the bathroom, she turns her head my way. “But I kind of want you to.”

I freeze, half turned with my mouth agape.

Maybe not so meek after all.

“Will you get on your knees for it?” I challenge, my voice sharp as I face her.

I need to pick apart, to see how far I can push her.

She furrows her eyebrows at first, but she doesn’t argue or counter. She lowers to her knees, using her uncasted arm to support her on the wall. I close the distance between us, my boots practically touching her knees when she tilts her head up to look at me.

Fuck, she’s a sight.

I bend down just slightly to cradle her jaw in between my fingers. “I think I really like you this way, Mayhem.” She shudders with her exhale at the nickname, but she doesn’t blink; she just waits for me. “Do you want me to take care of you?”

She nods, slow but drastic enough that the movement forces my hand loose from her jaw. I use my thumb to caress the line before I move past her and turn the shower on behind her.

Vera doesn’t move. She waits, like the burden of doing it herself is more than she can bear right now. “It’s warm.”

Her head doesn’t even turn my way. “Get in.” She begins to shift from the command, so I extend my hand to help her up and over the ledge of the tub.

She turns her back to the water; it’s the only way she can stand in the shower and stick her cast out of range of the spray. Tilting her head back so that the shower cascades down her hair, she closes her eyes and goes somewhere else.

I take the moment to squirt shampoo in my hand, and when she pulls her head from the water, I lather and massage her scalp. I hear a whimper, but I don’t stop. I work through her hair and rinse the suds fully before I coat her ends in an excessive amount of conditioner.

Once I’m done, she opens her eyes. She’s still in her underwear, though at this point, the sheer fabric is wet enough that it’s a joke of an attempt to cover up. Her dark nipples stand at attention, impossible to ignore. I loop my finger through the strap on her hip and pull, snapping it against her skin. She uses her free hand to lower her panties on one side, then moves to the other.

It takes her far too long to get it free from her hips, but I don’t help.

I watch.

I really enjoy watching Vera.

Doing a jiggle of her hips, she forces the wet fabric all the way down to her ankles, where I bend down to pick them up off the shower floor. She steps out of them, her eyes stuck on me. “You’re getting wet.”

I bite my cheek to hold back the smile, because I don’t think she hears the double entendre.

“Yeah,” I say, looking up at her as I toss the panties behind me. “Are you?”

She hides her face from me like she realizes what she’s said, biting the smile back. I stand and grip her chin, forcing her to look my way.

Her tongue slides over her bottom lip before she bites it again.

“Are you?” I ask one more time.

It’s one small nod, and she hasn’t blinked in ages, a little deer in headlights.

“If you ask me to touch you,” I warn her, stepping into the shower, boots and all, “everything changes.”

That small jerk of a nod again.

“I like routine, structure. I need things to be a certain way to function. Are you going to be a part of that?” It’s like my brain is warning her off before my mouth can save us from destroying this before it starts.

But I have to know.

I slip my shirt over my head, leaving my sports bra on.

“And you’ll take care of me.” She doesn’t ask; she parrots the same words I granted her as she tilts her chin to the side.

“Yeah. I’ll take care of you, Mayhem. But you have to ask.” I harden my stare and wait.

She gives me a slow nod. “I’m asking.”