They’d been out for blood, of course, but Heath and Keltan’s men had spilled it all. Including Craig’s.
He’d wanted to make it slow, painful. Agonizing. But he couldn’t waste time killing someone when it was more important to bring Polly back to life.
It hit the Sons too, what happened to Polly.
Scarred them.
And they had renewed motivation to try and end Fernandez.
The energy Heath had left to spare was spent on that.
But this meeting with the women was for everyone to coordinate their shifts. Their shifts with Polly.
She had not been left alone since it happened.
Not even for her benefit, she hadn’t made a show of not being able to be alone, hadn’t made any kind of show, hadn’t shed a fucking tear. But not one person who knew and loved Polly could stand the thought of leaving her alone.
Her friend Rain was with her now.
Every single person she’d helped, she’d given to, had been around. Dropping off some scary and meat-free food. Crystals. Prayers. Affirmations. All sorts of shit. People who loved her, whose lives she’d touched wanting to show her she wasn’t alone.
Heath had hated how much she’d given to people before, because he was selfish. But he was so fucking glad of it now.
“She’s handling it well,” Keltan said as he sat his wife down on his lap.
Quite a feat, considering how pregnant she was, but the men didn’t seem to willing or able to let go of their women these days.
“That’s just it,” Lucy whispered. “She shouldn’t be handling it well. No one handles this well. Handling it well means that she’s not handling it at all. It means it’s eating her up on the inside and she’s too worried about preserving the outside in order to save everyone around her. She’s always done that. She’s always going to try and save everyone before she saves herself,” she whispered, but it was a roar in Heath’s ears. “She would sacrifice every part of herself if it means someone she loves is saved even an ounce of pain. And that’s what she’s doing now. She’s sacrificing all of it, whatever’s left, whatever he didn’t take and ruin, and she’s holding it together on the outside because she knows how much we love her.”
Heath hated the words. Hated the pain in them because it showed him the depth of his own. Hated them because they were fucking true.
Apart from the night where she’d screamed bloody murder at being taken to a hospital, she hadn’t reacted to what happened to her.
But that reaction was burned into his brain. Her breaking, falling apart right before his eyes as she pleaded, fucking begged to not be taken to a hospital.
She needed a hospital.
Fuck did she need one.
But no one could say no to Polly. Not before. And surely not fucking then.
So they’d made her a hospital in the security offices. Pooled all their collective contacts, Luke’s, Rosie’s, Keltan’s and the Sons of Templar.
Got her better treatment than a hospital would ever offer.
Physically, at least, she was almost fully healed.
Not the best doctor in the world could stitch up the wounds that Heath saw, that cut him to the fucking bone.
He couldn’t do that, though he’d carve his own heart if it would repair hers.
But she was the only one person who could do that.
And it fucking terrified him, the knowledge that she might not. That the dead in her eyes and her soul might be permanent.
“Give me a second with Heath, babe,” Lucy said, kissing Keltan.
Keltan paused, hand on her belly and nodded.
He clapped Heath on the back on his way out, closing the door.
“How has she been sleeping?” she asked the same question she asked every week.
“Good,” he said.
Lucy’s face pinched. With most people, being able to sleep, not having the nightmares of the past reality keep you awake was a good thing. Polly was not most people. She didn’t sleep much because she had too much light, too much life in her to do so. She didn’t like missing out on life, she wanted to suck as much out of it as she could.
But lately she’d been eager to curl up on Heath’s chest and lapse into unconsciousness. It didn’t mean he didn’t like the weight on his chest. He did. He barely slept himself because he couldn’t give in to a world where he couldn’t feel her.
“Has she told you what happened to her yet?” he asked, dragging the words from his throat was a physical exertion.
Lucy blinked away the pain on her face. Or attempted too. Her hand went to her swollen belly, rubbing it for some kind of comfort.
“No,” she whispered. Her eyes shimmered and she focused on him. “Has she said anything to you?”
He resisted the urge to openly scoff. Not just because he respected the fuck out of Lucy, liked her, considered her a sister already, and doing such a thing in the face of her pain was callous even for him. But also because he didn’t even have the energy to acknowledge the dark humor of it all.
“No,” he said. “And you know what?” he found himself saying. “A tiny part of me is glad. I want to know, I’m consumed every fucking day with not knowing. But I also am glad I don’t know yet because...” he pushed his hand through his hair in frustration and shame. “Because, fuck, I don’t know if I can handle hearing it, not from her. What kind of coward does that make me? I can’t even handle the thought of hearing it, and Lucy, she had to fucking live it. And she still does. She’s fucking good at hiding it, so good it scares me, but she’s not that good. So she lived it once and she’ll continue to live it for the rest of her life. And whether she’s handling it badly or not, she’s fucking handling it. And I’m not.”
Lucy was across the room, putting her arms around him the best she could with her belly.
He wasn’t one for physical contact that didn’t come from Polly or didn’t come from violence. But he found himself putting his arms around Lucy, kissing her head.
“She’ll get through it,” she whispered. “And she’ll get us through it. Because she’s Polly.”
He didn’t answer because he was fucking terrified that was a lie. That she wasn’t Polly anymore.
Chapter Seventeen
Polly
The door slammed shut and I jerked awake, sweat both cold and hot on my forehead, my heart in my throat as my nightmare still held onto me and taunted me with the thought that the bang of the door was the sound of it being brought into reality.
“Okay,” Rosie sang, her voice ripping through thoughts of violence and confinement.
Rain had only just left—or had only just left before I nodded off—and now I was getting sure that they were rotating on some kind of shift. Rain had arrived just as Heath was leaving. Though I knew he didn’t want to, leave that was.
I knew that because for the first week, he didn’t leave my side. Not once. Granted, for the first two days I was drugged up and barely conscious. That had been nice. All my wounds dull at the edges, the pain only a nagging ache. And I could almost pretend that it wasn’t that bad. That it never even really happened.
My only constant, the only solid thing had been Heath’s grip on my hand. His presence. The utter pain in his eyes. That had made it impossible to believe it never really happened. His mere presence was the reason I couldn’t sink into a fantasy. Couldn’t escape.