Page 44

JARED

K eeping my feet planted to the ground while I wait for my wife is difficult. All I want to do is pace, and my nerves are eating me alive.

Is Rachelle going to freak out when she sees me, or will Elijah give her a heads up?

The nurse at the desk glares at me as the door separating the rest of the facility opens. The bitch has made it very clear she’s ready to see my backside as I leave and that it can’t come soon enough. I’ll be happy to oblige her. I don’t like this place.

Elijah helps Rachelle through the door, and she looks incredibly pale and sore as she walks. Her hair is so fucking short, but it’s not as uneven anymore. I wonder if someone else cut it or if Elijah offered to do his best to fix it.

Either way, while she looks like hell, I’m glad to see her.

Her eyes widen slightly as she sees me, but she doesn’t show any other emotion.

The nurse bustles out from behind her desk, a large plastic bag in her hands. It appears to be things that Rachelle was wearing when she came in. Honestly, I’ll probably burn it all. All reminders of the day she came in here are tainted and wrong.

“She needs to see a psychiatrist as soon as she can,” the nurse says, ignoring Rachelle while all I can do is stare at her. “Here is a rundown of the medication she’s been taking.”

That I want. I have to force myself not to snatch the damn paperwork from the nurse’s hands and move to Rachelle’s other side to offer her my arm.

“Let’s go home, shall we, wife?” I ask as I watch her tentatively move her hand to hold onto my bicep and leave Elijah’s.

She still doesn’t say anything as Elijah gives me a hard stare before going back inside the facility and I begin walking her out.

“Wife, huh?” she asks finally when the sun hits her hair after a few steps. The strands appear dull, the light not reflecting the way it should.

“Mmhmm. You’re officially mine,” I say with a small smile as the car comes into sight in the parking lot. So close to making our getaway.

“I don’t think it works like that,” she says mildly, looking around.

“Everyone is waiting at home, even your stepfather,” I say quietly.

“Are you going to tell me where home is?” she asks, watching as I open the back door to the SUV and toss the bag and paperwork back there.

I figured this would be the more comfortable vehicle of all of them. Opening the passenger door next, I lift her into the seat. She just looks confused as I also pull her seatbelt on.

“I am capable of doing that,” she reminds me.

“I know,” I state. “I wanted to be sure you were buckled in before telling you that you’re living with me. While we finally got a judge to agree to get you released, it came with stipulations. One of them is that you have to live with me, your husband.”

Closing the doors, I walk around, knowing the tinted windows won’t allow me to see her expression until I’m back inside.

“That can’t be a thing,” she says as soon as I open the door.

“This is a really odd town,” I sigh, getting in the vehicle. “It’s totally a thing.”

“Ugh,” she mutters. “As long as I don’t wake up tied to my bed, I guess it’s better than this place.”

My body freezes as I glance over at her.

“What the fuck?” I ask, gaping at her.

“That’s how I woke up today,” she answers, watching me turn on the car before looking pointedly at my still open door.

“I’m getting to it,” I say, even though I completely forgot it was still open. I shouldn’t even be surprised about anything that’s happened at this godforsaken place.

As soon as Elijah clocks out for the last time today, we’re having a bomb threat called in to evacuate the facility and then destroying it. Mr. Reyes already has federal agents prepared to step in and relocate the patients after a complete investigation into their medical condition.

It took way too long for us to be able to get the right people to pay attention to our concerns. I expect there will be more red tape to deal with, but the photos Elijah was able to take and the conversations helped more than anything else could have.

“No one will ever tie you to anything unless it’s to fuck you senseless,” I grunt, putting the vehicle into reverse.

“I very much doubt that,” Rachelle murmurs, rubbing at her wrists absently.

While still driving, I take her arm and glance at her arm as I hit the brakes. It’s too thin and there are bruises mottled over the skin. Forcing myself to take a breath that resembles an angry ogre, I gently press my lips against her wrist before releasing her.

I know I’m confusing her. We’re going to be changing so much about the rules she thinks exist between us, but life is too damn short to play fair. I’ve never enjoyed keeping a level playing field, so I don’t intend to do it now.

Elijah was very adamant about wanting to keep Rachelle, and threw the gauntlet down in front of Ignacio and Liliana the other day. Ignacio threatened to let Lili take him apart with her knives if any of us fucked Rachelle over.

Despite our history, I believe Nacio wouldn’t hesitate to kill us if we hurt her. I’d rather see what it takes to put her back together so she can rule with us than pull her apart. We already did that.

It’s not at all as satisfying as I thought it would be.

“You’re all acting really weird,” Rachelle says, gazing out the window as I resume driving. “I’m not nearly as breakable as people think.”

“No, you just coded after their stupid isolation room,” I grunt.

“Elijah didn’t tell me that,” she says, twisting to look at me with a wince. “I have a feeling he is keeping a lot of things from me.”

“His mission was to get you the fuck out of there without freaking out,” I say, biting the inside of my mouth.

It’s a fairly new issue I have, and if I don’t stop, I’ll end up with sores.

“Elijah was exposed to a lot of traumatic shit while he was working here, and I have a feeling he’s keeping things to himself. ”

“I figured you told each other everything,” she says with a yawn as I finally put the facility in my rear view mirror.

“It’s easy to be avoidant when we don’t see much of each other,” I admit. “Between school and two jobs, Elijah hasn’t seen Theo or I outside of passing out to sleep.”

“Huh,” she says softly. “Why did I code?”

“You were in the isolation chamber for six days, went cold turkey without your medication, and we think you had a severe panic attack that strained your heart,” I explain.

“It’s hard to know what was the final straw that broke you.

One second Elijah was trying to get you to drink, the next you were seizing and your heart flipped out.

The facility is pretending none of that happened. ”

“They seemed really excited to get rid of me,” she says with a shrug. “It doesn’t seem like they’re qualified to keep someone long term on a feeding tube and ensure they’re also hydrated well.”

“Fucking assholes,” I growl. “I’ve been here every single day trying everything possible to get you out. They wouldn’t let me see you, and had a million excuses. What I do know is because of Elijah.”

“It sounds like he was also keeping secrets though,” she says mildly.

“When you’re wading through hell every day, it’s easy to want to keep it to yourself,” I reply.

“He says the staff found reasons to send him to other departments or found him busy work like scrubbing toilets and cleaning floors. He tipped his hand a little pulling you out of the isolation chamber, but you would have died otherwise. Between the two, the choice was clear.”

“I remember that you wanted to take me on dates and get a second chance with me, but being my fake husband and infiltrating a mental facility feels like so much more than that,” she says, at a loss.

“Dating doesn’t seem enough for what we want with you,” I say. “I know it’s a lot, but we want more.”

“I’m afraid to ask how much more,” she grumbles.

Worried she’s going to think helping her comes with unkind strings, I frown.

“I don’t like the sound of that. We want a relationship with you, Rachelle. Somehow, I’m fucking this up,” I complain.

“You can’t kill someone and then give them whiplash by telling them you’re suddenly married,” she says, rolling her eyes. “Is this supposed to be real? You do know how complicated I am, right? I’m a mess and in relationships with two other people that are in the infancy stages.”

“I’m aware of all that,” I say, nodding as I get on the interstate.

I’ll be happy to get home. I’m pretty sure I’m bumbling this entire conversation.

“The way I see it, you’re someone who is special enough to have a lot of people want to show you the world.

Life sucks without you in it. Your doctor did you dirty, and we all have different ways that we can help you.

The guys and I have Calvin to help us with a meal plan to help you gain weight, and we already have a program prepared for strength training. ”

“That’s a lot of assumptions,” she says, watching the signs go by. “I may be entirely too fucked up for any of that.”

Snorting, I shake my head. “You’re stubborn and tough,” I remind her.

“It takes a lot to kill you. While I would prefer we not push the boundaries of fate, the last thing I see you as is fragile. This is a bump in the road. By the way, there’s a water bottle next to you with your name on it. Your voice sounds a little rough.”

“It’s been like this since I woke up,” she says, picking up the cool bottle and gazing at the seal.

“I wouldn’t have to break the seal to drug you,” I grunt. “Just drink the damn water, Rachelle.”

“That’s not nightmare inducing at all,” she complains, twisting the cap to break the seal and taking a sip.

“While we now have a list of medications they had you on, I don’t really trust them,” I say. “I’d like to have some blood tests run to see what it shows.”

Swallowing another sip of water, she returns the cap on the bottle and nods. “I don’t know what would still be in my system at this point, but it’s worth a try,” she says tiredly.