I want to help her, to force myself to get better, so I can keep her.
I’m not sure if I am strong enough to do that either.
I’m jolted out of my turbulent thoughts at the sharp knock on the door. I groan when I try to push myself upright. Getting up from this bed is still a bitch.
“Ms. Wright, you have a visitor. Would you like to go out on the grounds with them?”
My mouth drops open in shock.
A visitor?
My parents haven’t come to see me, not once, and now, all of a sudden, they want to pretend they care? Despite my better judgment, I force a smile and ask for some help.
Like an invalid, the nurse helps me out of bed and gives me a minute in the restroom to make myself look somewhat presentable. The scars are still there, but they’re slowly starting to fade. The bruises have gone through most of their phases, but for the most part, a few are still sticking around, mostly from my fight with that psycho, Jones. If I’m being totally honest, I still look like I’ve gone twelve or more rounds with a trained fighter.
The second I lay eyes on the broad shoulders and dark suit, my heart starts to beat again for the first time since the night of the accident. No amount of trauma or even a brain injury could ever erase this man from my mind. He is ingrained in every single part of me. His name written across my skin like a tattoo, a branding I can’t seem to part with.
A sharp burning tightness spreads across my chest in a flash of horrible intensity and I fight to mask the bolt of surprise when I see him again. The sensation is heaven and hell. He is the devil disguised as an angel.
Baz King is the kind of man you can’t help but notice in the room, and that’s exactly what’s happening at the moment. He is the only thing I can focus on. He is water in the Sahara Desert after days without a single drop. He is rain in a drought. He is the glimmering stars next to the moon. He is the very air you breathe—essential.
He’s not noticed my presence yet, so I take advantage of this moment and soak him in. All of him. He looks good, better than my memory has served me. Dressed in another impeccable three-piece suit, the charcoal and black match his inky hair, somehow making him look more devastating and handsome. He looks stronger, bigger, somehow, more like a man than the last time I saw him. That chiseled face, reminiscent of a Greek god, gives nothing away to what he could possibly be thinking.
In the back of mind, I know I should tell the nurse to turn me back around. I should stay far away, but I don’t do that.
I find myself tightening my grip around the nurse’s arm instead, preparing myself to speak face to face with my sister’s murderer.
The man who stole my heart.
Sebastian Kingston Pierce.
Baz King.
One and the same.
My heart races violently in my chest, and I’m sure if it wasn’t for the nurse’s help, my good leg would’ve given out by now. His hair looks a little longer than I remember it being before. It curls more at the edges. On anyone else, it would look ridiculous, but on him, it only serves to add to his rugged features. It adds to the unkempt look he already has going for his hair.
I let out of hiss of pain when we get closer. That is the thing about sustaining a shit ton of injuries. I can’t stand or do anything for too long. I’m exerted, huffing like an asthmatic who just ran a mile. Baz tenses at the sound, his gaze clashing with mine almost immediately. Thick and arched, his brows darken his expression with heat as he watches me, but his eyes remain icy, chilling me to the bone. The blue in his gaze feels like shards of ice piercing my heart.
The spark ignites between us, even when I try to ignore it. Something crackles in the air, in the space between us. It’s electrifying. Waves of tension that are so thick I can feel them flow through my body, intensifying the air.
I sense his gaze on me, taking in the cast, the scars, the bandages, and the bruises. I can’t imagine I’ve looked any worse than I do now. Once we’re close enough for me to sit, the aid lowers me onto the bench across from Baz. I suck in another pained gasp when I try to swing my leg to the side, so I can fit between the table and the bench. It doesn’t work. My mobility in my hip is still very limited. Tears of pain spring to my eyes, and I blink them away rapidly, hoping he won’t notice. Odds are, he’d get off on my pain.
An awkward silence descends when the nurse takes off, leaving us on our own. He stays within a safe distance, in case I need help or in case I decide to attack my visitor.
I keep my gaze fixed on the plain, gray concrete table resting between us. It feels like an ocean instead of a slab of concrete. That’s how far off we are. I still feel his gaze on me, taking me in. It’s fire along my skin, incinerating my flesh. If I’d known it was him, I would’ve at least taken a fucking brush to my raggedy hair.
“What are you doing here?” I try to disguise the pain in my voice. But it’s no use. I just hope he chalks it up to my condition and not the pain bursting from the seams of my heart.
Baz remains silent, still soaking me in. In my peripheral, I notice the muscle along his jaw jumps, and I can see the tic, like he’s grinding his teeth back and forth, working through his response.
“You’re hurt.”
My eyes widen, and I glance up at him, surprised by his pissed-off tone. There’s a second that passes between us, as I stare in his eyes, where things don’t feel so fucked up, but like the devil on my shoulder, I hear Vincent’s voice, a sinister whisper, telling me over and over how he and Baz hurt my sister. Took their turns with her and killed her.
My throat closes up, and my battered heart takes another blow. My lips thin, and I dart my gaze away, no longer able to look at him. “No shit, Sherlock,” I mumble.
“Why are you in here, Mackenzie?”
Suddenly exasperated by his very presence, I snap at him, “Look, just say whatever it is you came here to say. I don’t want to look at you anymore.”
A darkness enters his face, and slowly, he leans forward. I get a whiff of his scent, and it exposes the chink in my armor. “I waited weeks to get in here and talk to you. After everything you’ve done, the least you can fucking do is show some goddamn respect.”
My mouth drops open in shock, and red enters my vision. “Respect?” I hiss, my chest heaving. “Where was the respect when you killed my sister, you fucking bastard? If you think for one second I’ll let you guys get away with this, you’re dead wrong. I’m not done. I’ll never be done.”
Baz searches my gaze, and for a quick second, I see the surprise. Maybe it’s the surprise that I know. Maybe he really thought I’d never figure it out. But that surprise quickly morphs into something else. It’s not exactly sad, but disappointed. Is he…disappointed?
Baz laughs darkly, roughly scrubbing his hand down his face. “So, that’s what you think? That’s the conclusion you came to, that I killed your sister?”
“Yes! Vincent painted the picture for me very clearly. I didn’t want to believe it, but that’s what you all were counting on, wasn’t it, me never figuring it out? Me being so fucking in love with you that I’d look past it all.”
Baz’s fist curls into a ball on the table and his lips thin. “Vincent told you this?”
“Seconds before he fucking stabbed me.” I jerk down to my bandaged middle and the ugly scar hidden there as an example.