Page 76 of Wicked Little Darling

Silence.

I reached for the knob, then hesitated. If he already hated me for what just happened, invading his privacy wasn’t going to win me any favors.

But I couldn’t hear anything in there. No movement, no water, nothing. He probably wasn’t even in there, had just left the light on.

Well, if he wasn’t in there, then there was nothing to worry about. Or maybe he had headphones on and couldn’t hear me. I’d rather face his anger than take the chance that he wasn’t okay.

I grabbed the knob and turned.

It was unlocked.

I swung the door open and immediately saw his legs sticking out of the bathtub, like he was sitting sideways, and my pulse roared in my ears.

“Reese?”

He didn’t move and didn’t answer.

“Reese.”

I moved closer, a fear so visceral lancing through me that I couldn’t breathe. My legs weren’t working anymore, I just stood frozen as my brain tried to figure out what was happening.

What thefuckhappened?

His face was sweaty and flushed, his eyes closed, and his hair was plastered to his forehead and cheeks. He was only wearing a t-shirt and boxers, and his legs, fuck,his legs?—

“Holy fuck,” I rasped. Suddenly a frantic urgency to hear his voice, to see his eyes, to make sure he was okay—heneededto be okay—unlocked my rigid muscles.

I dropped to my knees at the side of the tub and reached for his face, patted his cheeks, then slid one hand down to the pulse point on his neck. His pulse was there. A little too fast, but there. “Hey. Reese. Darling, wake up. Wake up.” I patted his cheeks again, harder this time, and when his eyebrows furrowed and he groaned, the relief that crashed through me was overwhelming, and I started to tremble.

“Oh, fuck, thank god. Okay, you’re okay, I gotta get—I need to—” My breathing was turning shallow and ragged, and it felt like my throat was closing up. Reese blinked his eyes open, squinting at me through tiny slits. His eyes looked like they were glowing.

“S’matter?” he slurred. He tried to lift his hand, but was barely able to move it before it fell back down again.

Was he on drugs? Did he take something?

I grabbed the hand he’d tried to lift and squeezed his fingers. “Hey, I need you to tell me what happened. Did you take something? Are you on something right now?”

“No, I don’t feel good, Dakota,” he murmured. “’M sorry.”

The roaring in my ears was getting louder, and I tried not to look at his legs but?—

My gaze dropped to his thighs.

There were so many scars, criss-crossing over each other, some longer, some thicker, and some in neat little rows.

There were hundreds of them. They didn’t look recent, though, and he wasn’t bleeding anywhere so that wasn’t why he was like this.

Fuck, I’d thought he looked sick earlier and had waved it off. I shouldn’t have let him go, I should’ve followed him up here.

“Hospital. We need to get you to the hospital,” I choked out, getting into the tub and kneeling beside him.

I had to call Val. He would know what to do. How to help.

“Reese,” I said, patting his cheek again when his eyes fluttered shut. “I need you to stay awake. Stay with me. I’m gonna get you some help, okay? We’re going to the hospital?—”

Reese’s eyes, shiny with fever, blew wide and he looked around until they locked onto mine. He looked so terrified that it sparked an echoing terror in me, and then he had the strength to grip my fingers in his and squeeze as hard as he could. He cried hoarsely, “No! No hospital! Please, please, please, no hospital, no hospital!”

He was staring into my eyes, desperately pleading with me, and I felt so torn between doing what he wanted and doing what he probably needed. I glanced down at his legs again, and then he raised his trembling hand until it was covering my eyes. “No,” he choked out. “Please don’t—don’t look, don’t look, don’t look.” The absolute devastation in his voice was gut-wrenching, and he was too weak to stop me from moving his hand away from my eyes.