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Mal.
I close the door behind me, letting out a long, shaky breath. My fingers brush over my neck, where the purple bruises from his touch still linger.
A reminder of the hold he has on me, even when he’s not here.
I shouldn’t want him. I shouldn’t wantthis. I shouldn’t crave him the way I do.
Mal is a monster—dark, dangerous, twisted in ways that should, and do, terrify me. But that fear is mixed with something else. I can’t explain it, can’t make sense of the way my body responds to him, the way my mind fixates on him. I’m supposed to hate him.
I move to the window, staring out into the darkness. The city is quiet tonight, the distant hum of traffic barely audible through the thick glass, but the stillness does nothing to calm me.
I find myself wondering where Mal is now. Is he thinking about me? Does he regret leaving so abruptly last night?
Then I groan and almost slap myself.
Grow up.
This isn’t high school. We’re two adults who engaged in a little adult fun, that’s all. And Irefuseto be “that girl” who gets all emo about a guy.
I mean, like hell ishefeeling anything close to that. Mal doesn’t have regrets. He doesn’t do guilt, or even emotions—at least, I seriously doubt he does.
And yet, despite everything, I can’t help but want him here with me.
It’s fucking maddening.
And the worst part?
I don’t think I want that to stop.
20
FREYA
The next evening,I’m back in the sterile, fluorescent-lit hallway of the hospital. The sharp, overwhelming smell of antiseptic hangs heavy in the air, but I’ve grown used to it by now. When you’ve been in them as much as I have, hospitals have a way of becoming familiar no matter how much you hate them.
Delores beams at me when I walk over to the nurses’ station. Before she can say a word, I’m marching behind the counter and into her space and flinging my arms around her.
“Thank you,” I blurt as I hug her tightly. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
Sometimes, karma has a way of balancing things out. Amid the shitshow of the last twenty-four hours and everything that happened at the wedding, something good actually happened:
Damian woke up.
Delores hugs me back, rocking me side to side as I fight back the urge to cry into her shoulder.
“Told youhe was a fighter,” she says quietly, smiling as we pull apart. “That was all him, honey.”
I throw her a look. “Hey, you’re the one who took care of him and kept him comfortable, so he could focus on getting better. I brought you something.”
I sling my bag off my back and pull out a wrapped present. Delores’ brows arch as she takes it. “Can I open it now?”
“Please do.”
She almost loses hershitwhen she unwraps the vinyl copy of Fleetwood Mac’sTuskalbum, autographed by Lindsey Buckingham.
“Is this real?!” she blurts, staring at the scrawled signature.
“Yup,” I grin. I nod my chin at a rusty stain next to the autograph. “And that, allegedly, at least according to the guy I got it from, is a bloodstain from Stevie Nicks’ nose after one too many lines of coke.”
