Page 31 of True Honey (The Hornets Nest #4)

COURTNEY

I was shaking, absolutely terrified of what came next. Silas helped me into a pair of coveralls and I pushed the safety glasses down over my face and took a deep breath.

“So I just break stuff?” I asked him and he nodded, zipping up his own and grabbing the sledgehammer from the bin he rolled it in his hand.

“You just break stuff,” he said with a bright smile.

Just not your heart .

No, that’s special.

Silas watched closely as I stepped toward the table. The gloves were a little too big, every fibre scratching at my skin. He had laid everything out of the table and stepped back so I could pick what I wanted to break.

It felt silly, absolutely ridiculous that he wanted me to take out my anxiety on the poor chip plate in front of me. I stared at it, remembering every time Bradley hurled one across the house, the sharp shatter echoing off the walls.

Figure yourself out Drew.

Smash.

You’ve got to do better.

Smash.

You wanted this.

Smash.

Can’t you just be happy?

“Drew?” Silas’s voice was calmer than before as he came around to stand in front of me. He lowered his six-foot frame to come eye to eye with me. “Take control of the sound, remove the emotional trigger from it. ”

“How do you know all this?” I asked him.

“Years and years of therapy,” Silas smiled. “You didn’t think a man this regulated did it on his own, did you?”

I took in all the features of his face, the hardened ridges of his jaw and the soft swells of his cheeks when he smiled at me. The tiny flecks of dark blue danced along the light gray color that swallowed his pupil. Long lashes and tiny gray hairs poking out from his beard and around his ears.

“Shocking.” I grinned at him, forcing the smile to my face in a pathetic attempt to hide how terrified I was.

“Just have fun.”

“You go first,” I suggested.

Silas shook his head at me, “you have to go first,” he said, reaching out to push back a piece of my hair that fell loose. “If I go and it scares you, we’re right back where we started.”

“Okay,” I huffed nervously.

“Hold the bat…” he mumbled quietly, shifting my hands around on the handle, “yeah that’s better, and swing as hard as you can. Don’t hold back.”

Silas stepped out of my way, moving to the back wall as I counted myself down. I stared at the plate, more ready than I had been before. I could do this, I could break a plate. Nothing will happen if I do. It’s why we’re here.

I lifted the bat over my head and brought it down on the plate, shattering it into a bunch of pieces without remorse.

I froze, waiting for the screaming, waiting for the panic, taking in all the fractured pieces.

It had exploded across the table much like the laughter that exploded from me.

“Holy shit,” I turned to Silas, my heart racing out of my chest. “That was…”

“Fun?” He was standing with his arms crossed over his chest, the hammer hanging down at his side and a smug smile on his face.

“Can I do it again?” I asked, the adrenaline pumping through my veins.

“Have at it, killer.” He shrugged and I turned back to the room, taking in all the things that were meant to be broken. Like someone had turned on a switch I just went at it all, swinging the bat around and releasing all the negative energy that I had been holding on to.

Silas watched on as I moved to the T.V. In the corner of the room, looking back at him to ask permission only for him to nod. I couldn’t begin to imagine how Silas had stumbled upon something as ridiculous as this. It felt so out of how he typically carried himself in the public eye.

I swung through and smashed out the screen with a satisfying pop of glass and fibers.

Silas strode across the room and, tapping me so gently on the hip with his sledgehammer to get me to move.

I smiled, stepping to the side and leaning on the bat out of his way as he brought the hammer up and over his head.

The muscles in his back rippled beneath his tight shirt as the hammer collided with the top and caved in on itself.

“Wow, you’re strong,” I said sarcastically with a smirk on my face.

“Don’t patronize me,” he huffed, no real heat in it, just light dancing in his eyes.

“It's not about the size of the dog.”

“Sorry, sorry. Please continue,” I stifled a giggle and put my hand over my mouth as he glared at me playfully.

Silas was anything but a small dog, his arms were wide with strength and his shoulders broad. The veins in his neck popped as he ripped through the side of the already dismantled television and sent it flying across the room.

It was clear that he hadn’t just brought me down here to work through my own emotions, he was carrying heavy pains of his own.

His face tightened with the next swing and I could see the stress building and releasing in his body with each hit.

I was going to ask him earlier why he wasn’t back at the hospital but the thing was, usually he would have just told me and it was like he was avoiding the conversation of what happened all together.

I could respect his space, even if I didn’t want to.

“I can’t smash all this stuff alone,” Silas turned to me with an infectious smile, pushing back the doubts that maybe he wasn’t enjoying himself.

And even if he was masking the way he was really feeling, so was I, so I couldn’t necessarily fault him for it.

“We aren’t leaving until you’ve destroyed everything so… ”

I joined back in with him, letting every ounce of frustration out through laughter and destruction.

He couldn’t have been more right about letting it all out and taking back the subtle violence that was held in every broken dish of my past. Everything in the room turned to dust and it felt like all the tense muscles in my body were finally unknotting enough for me to breathe properly again.

Silas’s hair was sweaty and sticking in every direction as he whipped off his glasses. I hadn’t noticed the dimples in his cheeks before now, his smile pushing them forward.

“Better?” He asked, running a hand through his hair to smooth it down.

“Better.”

And for once the word didn’t feel like a lie. I honestly felt better, lighter even in the wake of everything happening outside of my control. It was absolutely insane that taking a bat to inanimate objects made me feel alive.

“How often do you come here?” I asked him as we stripped from the coveralls. He turned to me, taking mine and hanging it on the wall beside the door.

“I haven’t been able to lately with everything going on.

It's been hard,” he explained. I watched as Silas retreated in on himself.

“I probably shouldn’t have even come today but, I just needed a second to breathe.

” His jaw tightened with every thought that popped back into his head and I hadn’t meant to bring it all back up after he had left it behind with the broken dishes but…

“Have you checked on him?” I asked him as we wandered down the hallway back to the front door, the lobby was empty and I was grateful because it meant Silas couldn’t use other people as an excuse to play a part and avoid the question.

“Riona called this morning.” His words were tight and lacking any sort of emotion that might tell me how he really felt about the situation.

“Silas,” I stopped on the curb as he walked around his bike to grab the helmets. “I thought we were supposed to be on the same page again.”

“This is personal Drew, it has nothing to do with our arrangement,” he said softly, not trying to hurt my feelings but I narrowed my eyes on him.

“Neither does this.” I pointed to the building behind me and stepped up to the other side of the bike across from him. “Tell me the truth or stop giving me mixed signals.”

Silas stared at me for a moment, clearly unimpressed by the demand but it worked, it shook loose something inside him that he had locked up.

“He’s in rough shape, Cael is a recovering addict and while his addiction did not discriminate against any vice, now that he’s sober he refuses any addictive medication,” Silas explained and I listened, I knew the basics but what Cael was going through was exhausting and took so much strength I’d never understand.

“He’s going to have surgery and wake in more pain, and there’s nothing I can do about it, but I could have prevented it. ”

His whole body tensed and I could see the water lining his gray eyes.

“It was an accident.”

“Arlo hasn’t called,” Silas said, practically cutting me off.

He had already rationalized his guilt. His teeth bothered his bottom lip and his eyes lifted to the sky.

“That’s how I know I fucked this up. Arlo should have called, but him and Ryan made Riona do it because I fucked up.

It’s my fault that Cael’s injury went unnoticed, why he’s…

” His words trailed off tightly and I watched him turn away from me to hide his emotions.

“Have you tried to call them?” I asked, tip-toeing around the delicate relationship hierarchy they seem to have. The silence was deafening.

“Arlo warned me that I needed to remember what was important. I’ve been…” he cleared his throat, his hands running over his face with his back to me. “There’s just a lot happening and I thought I could handle it all on my own.”

“Isn’t that why I’m here?” I said quietly, my fingers reaching across the divide, I gently tangled them into the back of his shirt and begged him to turn around. “Let me help.” I said when he finally looked at me.

It was like it had never been offered to him before or maybe it had never been offered in a way that he listened or considered it.

“You helped me today, in the midst of all your own turmoil… you brought me here to rewire a part of me you didn’t tangle Silas. Why?” I asked him, retreating back and resting my hand on the seat of his bike.

“I don’t know,” Silas said softly.

“You don’t know or you don’t have an answer that won’t make this complicated?” I argued with a gentle smile forming on my lips. “Because it’s okay if it's the second one.”

Silas nodded.

“We should get back to the house,” I said when he didn’t have anything else to say. “But first, the hospital. Let’s check on Cael.”

“They don’t want me there,” he said with a weak shake of his head.

“We should bring them coffee.” I ignored his protest and grabbed my helmet.

“Drew,” Silas warned.

“I did something scary today,” I told him. “Now it’s your turn.”