Kings of Anarchy (Brutal Boys of Everlake Prep #3) - Caroline Peckham Page 0,175

so I hadn't been back there since his isolation had begun but the camp bed that Monroe had made up for me on the couch had gone unused for the last three nights.

I'd only slept once. Face down over the toilet in Saint's bathroom after drinking myself into a near coma. The fact that he hadn't forced me out was more than enough to let me know how much he cared. But it didn't change anything. My love for my mom hadn't been enough to save her and our combined love for the asshole in that room down the corridor wouldn’t help him either.

"You need to get control over yourself," Saint snapped at me as I slumped in Monroe's arms and I was almost certain he was just holding me for support at this point. "He is on day four of the infection already. This is the crucial day. If he makes it through today without bursting any blood vessels in his lungs from the cough, then his chances of survival go up to eighty one percent."

"How the fuck will we know if he bursts a blood vessel in his damn lungs?" I snapped.

"Because he will either start coughing up blood or he won't," Saint snarled.

"And if he does?" I demanded.

"Then his odds don't improve but they don't worsen either. Not unless that goes on for a second day. Or a third." His delivery was so cold and uncaring that if I didn’t know him, I would have wanted to tear his throat out for it.

I'd bet Saint would have made an excellent surgeon, perfectly able to put aside any trace of emotion and calculate the odds involved in survival with a steady hand while carving into human flesh. Of course, most people who go into the medical professions did it out of a desire to help other people, so that wouldn't attract him at all.

"Well excuse me if I'm not jumping for fucking joy at the prospect of spending a day waiting to find out if one of the few people I love in this world is going to start literally coughing his lungs up or not," I snarled, wrenching myself out of Monroe's grip as I stormed towards the door.

I needed to get out of this fucking place. I needed to get the fuck away from here so that I could just breathe.

My chest was tightening to the point of pain and there was a ringing in my ears which was only getting louder.

"Blake!" Monroe called out as I kicked my sneakers on, and I looked up to find him charging my way with the clear intention to stop me from running.

"Leave him," Saint snapped, catching his arm as he made to move past him. "Blake needs to learn that the whole world won't just come rushing in to save him whenever things get tough. His daddy taught him to be a winner, but he never learned how to take a beating and we have enough real worries to concern us today without us trying to soothe his childlike sense of injustice at the world.”

"Fuck you," I hissed, his words hitting home like the strike of an arrow and Saint's glare only darkened.

"We'll be here, waiting on Kyan while he fights for his life and supporting Tatum with anything she needs to help him when you decide to stop pouting and come home," he said icily.

Monroe was looking at me like my pain hurt him too, but I just sneered in response. I wasn't the one who needed his pity or concern right now, Saint was right about that.

"I just need some air," I snapped. "I'll be back when I've cleared my head."

"I can come if you want me to?" Monroe offered even as Saint shook his head in disgust and sat back down before his laptop.

"No," I replied. "Saint's right, the others need you more than I do. I'll get my own shit together."

I stumbled outside and slammed the door behind me as the pounding of my heart made my head spin and I sucked down lungfuls of the cool air.

Birds were singing in the trees and I tried to focus on that instead of this all consuming fear that was threatening to destroy me. I wouldn't survive this a second time. I couldn't. The fragile scraps of my battered soul which I'd managed to salvage in the wake of my mom's death were held together too loosely. And the things securing them in place at all