Six Brothers

Eleven

This time, when I wake up, I’m in Jase’s bed again, but everything is different. I look down to see that my black dress is gone and I’m wearing a large black T-shirt and a pair of boxers. My cheeks burn as I realize someone had to undress me to redress me.

I see movement to my left and turn to see Jase, sitting in a chair he’s pulled into the bedroom, watching me intently. It is then I notice I’ve got an IV nestled in the crook of my arm, a clear plastic tube carrying blood from a bag into my vein.

I sit up with a start and fiddle with the cannula impaled snugly in my flesh, a piece of tape securing it.

“Hey,” Jase says, peeling my fingers off the cannula. “It’s a blood transfusion. The doctor just left.”

I stop fiddling for a moment. “A doctor?” I repeat. “How long was I out?”

Jase shrugs. “It’s almost seven.”

I think back to the morning. “But I woke up at seven,” I protest, confused and feeling pathetic and vulnerable.

“At night,” he clarifies.

“I slept for the whole day?” I ask, throwing the sheets off me.

“Yes,” he says slowly, as if I’m stupid.

“Why do I feel like I just injected a bunch of heroin?” I ask, too tired to get out of his bed. Instead, I slouch back against the soft pillows.

“The doctor gave you some morphine,” he said.

“What?” I’m struggling to remember the pain. It was bad, but it wasn’t that bad. Parts of my tattoo hurt more than the stab to my thigh. “Why?”

Jase raises his eyebrows and I can see him fighting off a smile. “I told him what a hero you were trying to be this morning. How you can’t stop, even for a minute. So he gave you something to let you get some rest.”

Now I’m the one who is angry. “You let someone drug me?” I ask incredulously. “Sedate me? What am I, a dog?”

“That’s how he treats you,” Jase mutters under his breath.

I sit up again and swing my legs out of the bed. I glance at the almost empty bag of blood sitting on the top of the mahogany bedhead above me, gravity ensuring a steady stream of the stuff into my veins. I reach my hand over to pull the IV out and Jase’s hand darts out, covering the cannula.

“Stop,” he says. “Just let the rest of it go in. You lost a lot of blood.”

I take my hand away reluctantly.

“What’s wrong?” he asks. “I’m just trying to help. You said no hospitals, so I got my dad’s doctor to check you out.”

I stiffen, wondering if the doctor undressed me. I look down at the boxer shorts and T-shirt, panicking. The tattoo is good, Elliot did an amazing job, but if the light is right…if someone was looking hard enough…the scars still remain.

“There was blood and glass all over you,” Jase says. “I didn’t look, I swear.”

I relax a little, detecting no animosity or suspicion in his voice. Then I hear a knock at the door and jump to my feet, the room whirling instantly around me. I grab the bedhead to steady myself, looking down at what I’m wearing. If Dornan sees me in his son’s underwear…

“Is that him?” I ask worriedly.

Jase sighs. “Sammi, for God’s sake, lay down, okay? It’s just the pizza guy bringing some dinner. Dornan’ll be back in a couple hours.” He points at the bed and waits for me to lie down again before he leaves the room. I smooth the covers over my lap as I wait, fiddling with a single loose thread of cotton. A whole day with Jase, and no Dornan. The thought makes me feel anxious, and delighted, and exhausted all at once..

He comes back in a few moments later, balancing boxes of pizza in one hand and a handful of dollar bills with the other. He shoves the money in his jeans pocket and brings the pizzas over to the bed, arranging the boxes on the empty side next to where I lay. The smell of tomato sauce and garlic invades my nostrils and I can feel my mouth watering.

“Pepperoni or cheese?” he asks me.

“Pepperoni, please,” I respond, and he hands me a napkin with a large slice of the best looking pizza I’ve ever laid eyes on resting on top. I take a massive bite and struggle to chew it, my mouth is so full. It tastes divine.

Jase eats slowly; he’s clearly eaten since breakfast. We don’t speak until I have downed four slices and am considering a fifth. Jase has finished and is sitting patiently in the chair beside me. I can feel him watching, waiting to broach something with me.

“What?” I ask him.

“What, what?” he responds, a look of amusement on his face. I smile, feeling a lot better after eating.

“You look like you have a burning question for me,” I say, looking around for some water.

“I have lots of burning questions for you,” Jase says, slouching down in his seat, his feet resting on the edge of the bed frame. “I just don’t think you’ll like any of them.”

I am feeling talkative, despite my secrets. “Go ahead. Ask me something.”

Ask me if my name is Juliette and I might say yes. Ask me to kiss you again and I’ll do it. Ask me to run away with you and I just might.

“Where are your family?” he asks, sitting up in the chair.

Predictable. “Dead,” I reply. Technically, it’s not a lie. Dad is dead. Mom might as well be.

“How?”

The easiest answer. “Car accident.”

He nods. “I’m sorry.”

I shrug. “Why? You didn’t kill them.”

He rolls his eyes. “I meant I’m sorry for your loss. My mother was killed as well.”

“Was killed,” I echo, even though I already know what happened. “Like, on purpose?”

His eyes cloud over and for a moment he’s somewhere else. Then, he blinks, and the cloud lifts. He nods. “On purpose.”

I eye him warily. “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” I say.

He shrugs. “I’m sure my dad will tell you eventually. When she found out she was pregnant with me, she left the club and went back to her family in Colorado. Somehow, Dornan found out about me when I was fifteen. I came home from school one day and she was dead in the bathtub.” He seems detached from his story as he is telling me, and I can only assume it is because he is numb after all of the horror of the past years. I can’t help but remember the shy, angry boy who showed up with the title of Dornan’s long-lost seventh son when I was thirteen and stole my heart.

I study his face, chewing on my lip as he surveys me wearily.

“What happened last night?” he repeats the same question he asked me when he found me last night, bleeding and naked.

I think for a moment before I respond. “Your father told me he thought I would be a good mother for another son. Or daughter,” I almost choke on the words, they’re so bitter. “I tried to say otherwise and he got mad. Plus, he’s suddenly realized that I remind him of his dead girlfriend.”

Jase pales. He doesn’t say anything for a little while.

“You look a lot like her,” he says finally. “It’s almost frightening. The eyes are different, but your hair, your face,” his eyes slide down to my chest and quickly back to my eyes. “It’s uncanny.”

“What happened to her?” I ask softly. I know she died, and I know what Dornan said about beheading her, but I don’t really know what happened. Why she and my father weren’t able to make their escape with us.

Why it all went so horribly wrong.

“She tried to leave him,” he says. “I think he would have let her go, if she’d just disappeared, but…“

“But what?” I press.

“But she tried to take me with her,” he says finally. “It’s my fault she died. It’s my fault they all died.” He looks defeated as he ends that sentence, his eyes tired and turned down at the edges, his teeth grinding on each other as he flexes his jaw.

“I’m sure it wasn’t,” I say. “It just seems that way to you because you were the one left behind to deal with it all.”

He shrugs. “Everyone I love, dies. So I live alone, and I keep to myself, mostly.”

Such a jaded way to be. “That’s so sad,” I say softly. “What about your father, though? Your brothers? They’re family, too.”

If looks could kill, I’d be diced into little pieces right now under Jase’s scathing gaze. “You mean, my father who stabbed you because you look like a dead woman? Or my brothers, who are animals?”

“Sorry,” I say.

“You don’t know anything about this family,” he says passionately, shaking his head. “You should’ve just stayed the hell away from all of us.”

“Well, it’s too late now,” I say, shrugging my shoulders. “I may as well enjoy the ride.”

Jase just shakes his head, my pun clearly lost on him. I care so much, I want to fling myself open and tell him every dirty little secret my soul is keeping trapped behind a wall of fiery lies and deceit.

But I can’t. Not because I don’t trust him, because it’s clear to me now that he’s a reluctant prisoner in this family, even more than I am.

I can’t tell him because I can’t bear for him to know what I’ve done. I can’t bear to see the disgust on his face when he knows that the girl fucking his father and picking off his brothers one by one is the same girl sitting in front of him.

But more than those reasons, I can’t bear to tell him because I know what he will do. He will want to run away. He’s a lover, not a fighter, and he doesn’t have it in him to kill them all. He might hate them but he’s not a murderer.

I’ve never been more certain of anything in my life.

And then, of course, there’s that tiny seed of doubt that lurks in the darkest corner of my mind. The possibility that he won’t understand.

The possibility that, once he finds out how I’ve deceived him and killed his brother, he’ll side with Dornan.

Nothing is more terrifying than that thought.

“Can I ask you a question now?” I ask, my heart beating faster at the thought.

Jase shrugs. “Sure. Doesn’t mean I’ll answer, though.”

I take a deep breath, my heart buzzing nervously in my ears. I can fuck Dornan’s brains out and feel nothing, yet whenever I’m around Jase, it’s like fireworks every single time.

“Why did you kiss me?” I ask boldly.

Jase laughs mirthlessly, cocking his head to one side as he considers my question.

“Why do most people kiss other people?” he asks.

I shake my head, a small smile playing on my lips. “That’s not fair,” I say, wriggling to the edge of the bed so that I am facing him squarely, our feet almost touching. “You can’t answer a question with a question.”

He shrugs, an amused smile dancing on his gorgeous lips. I can’t help it. I reach my hand out and cup his chin, brushing my thumb against his bottom lip. He stares at me, his expression unreadable, and I can’t help but feel like we’re falling into an abyss that neither of us will make it back out of. Not intact, anyway. I might have a new face but I still have the same heart. He might have lost me once but I’m still his, and he is still mine.

I lean closer, our noses almost touching. He mirrors my action, putting a hand on my cheek.

He shakes his head minutely. “What are you doing to me?” he breathes, his eyes never leaving mine.

I’m loving you, I think. But I can’t say that, so I show him instead. I close the small distance between us, pressing my lips to his. He groans softly, a sort of primal noise that begins in the back of his throat and makes my tongue quiver as it finds his. His other hand goes to my waist, to the place where I am scarred underneath all that pretty colored ink, and I shudder involuntarily. He moves the hand on my face to the back of my neck, pulling me closer, kissing me deeper. I feel like I am falling forever, but it is a good fall. It feels amazing.

It feels like I was born to love this man.

And yet, as I kiss him, as I love him, my heart drops. I freeze.

I shouldn’t be doing this.

For his sake, I can’t do this. If I let him kiss me like that it’s going to rip both of us apart, and we’re already both broken enough inside.

Jase feels me freeze and pulls back, panting slightly, frowning. “What’s wrong?” he asks softly.

I swallow thickly, angry and sad that our fleeting moment is gone.

What’s wrong? The battle within me is being fought like a bitter war, making my mind spin with possibilities. I’ve only just begun and I just want to be done already. An image of Dornan and his remaining sons burning a painful, fiery death as Jase and I watch on briefly flashes through my mind.

If only it were that easy.

“Everything,” I say, bursting into tears. I’m so, so tired, my body is still in some kind of shock and just to make a bitch feel even worse, I think it’s almost that time of the month. I’m a seesaw of emotions.

Jase’s expression turns from confused to worried, and he moves from the chair to sit next to me on the bed in one quick motion, never breaking our gaze.

He opens his mouth as if to say something, then thinks better of it. I’m so tired of lying; so sick of being strong.

My resolve falters as he guides my head to his chest. I lay it there willingly, clinging to him, because if I let go, I’m afraid of what might happen next.