Page 106 of Victorious: Part 3

I’ll take care of them.

I’ll love them fiercely and protect them completely.

The way Hurricane would have wanted.

The way family does.

But for now, we will sit here, on the LA Defiance clubhouse floor, surrounded by the people we love, and we will mourn.

For as long as it takes.

Chapter Twenty

PHOENIX

The Next Day

Afternoon sunlight filters through my bedroom window, casting warm shadows across Clover’s peaceful face as she sleeps curled against my chest. It’s well past noon, but after the hell I went through yesterday with the battle, losing Hurricane and Nickel, all the brothers injured, everything with my mother, we both needed this. However, I haven’t exactly found the words I needed to tell Clover everything that happened at the prison with her brother in the wee hours of this morning. The deep, dreamless sleep of exhaustion somehow seemed more important.

We have time to talk all that shit through.

But through my foggy haze, something feels wrong.

I blink awake, immediately alert, my internal clock screaming that it’s too late. Too quiet.

Clover’s breath is steady against my neck, but there’s a stillness to her that sets my nerves on edge.

Shit.

Her eight a.m. glucose check. Sheneversleeps through it.Ever. Her smartwatch should have been buzzing hours ago, and if it has been, she’s been too deeply asleep to notice.

“Baby,” I whisper, gently shaking her shoulder. “Clo, wake up.”

She makes this adorable grumbling sound, burrowing deeper into my chest like she’s trying to hide from consciousness itself. “Urgh! Sleep!”

Despite everything, the lingering trauma from yesterday, the weight of what Maverick and I had to deal with when it cameto my mother, I can’t help but smile. Sleepy, grumpy Clover is fucking adorable, even when she’s being stubborn about her health.

“Come on, beautiful. You missed your morning check. I need you to test your levels for me.”

“Don’t wanna,” she mumbles, but I hear the slight slur in her words that tells me her blood sugar is probably low. “You’re warm. And snuggly. And I love you.”

My chest tightens with emotion, but I force myself to stay focused. “I love you, too, which is exactlywhyyou need to check your glucose. Right now, Miss.”

She finally cracks one eye open, glaring at me with the intensity of a very irritated kitten. “You’re the worst husband ever.”

“Uh-huh. And you’re the most beautiful wife ever. Especially when you’re being a bratty little princess about taking care of yourself.” I reach over to the nightstand, grabbing one of the juice boxes I always keep stocked for moments like this. “Drink this while you check your levels.”

Clover sits up slowly, her hair an absolute disaster of tangles, and her face still creased from sleep. She looks like she wants to argue, but the slight tremor in her hands tells me her body knows what it needs even if her brain is being stubborn. “Fine,” she grumbles, taking the juice box and immediately stabbing the straw through with more force than necessary. “But I’m only doing this because you’re annoyingly persistent, and I don’t have the energy to fight you.”

“Smart girl.” I watch as she pulls up the glucose monitoring app on her phone, waiting for the reading from her continuous monitor. “What’s it say?”

She squints at the screen, frowning. “Sixty-two. That’s lower than ideal.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought. Drink your juice, sweetheart.”

“You justlooovebeing right, don’t you?” She grins, taking a long pull from the straw, making a face. “Apple juice is gross when you’re half asleep.”

“Apple juice is life-saving when your blood sugar is in the gutter,” I counter, settling back against the headboard before Dracula jumps up onto the bed, immediately claiming the warm spot between us.