Savage Vandal (82 Street Vandals #1) - Heather Long Page 0,67
Bit. That wasn’t a bird either.
So I was two for two.
Freddie left when Doc came in and I answered his questions, but mostly, I wanted to go to sleep. So when he asked to check my wrist and ribs, I let him and kept my gaze fixed on the wall when he checked them. There was almost no ache at all.
“Little Bit, do you want to talk about it?”
“No,” I told him. “I really don’t. Goodnight, Doc.”
I’d left him downstairs and returned to my room on my own, aware of his gaze following me. The next few days, I didn’t want to leave my room. That one little taste of freedom, and not only did I not take it and run, I’d helped to kill someone.
One part of my brain said self-defense. The rest of it though? I kept replaying the crunch of when I’d struck with the rock. The meaty thunk of it. Then Rome knocking him over. The body had been so still.
And those eyes had been open.
Lifeless.
I couldn’t close mine without seeing them.
The first night, I pretended to be asleep when Kestrel came in. He slept on the floor in front of the door. The next night it was Jasper. He actually tried to talk to me, but after a few monosyllabic answers, he left it alone. The third night it was Kestrel again, instead of Rome or Vaughn, but I didn’t say anything and neither did he.
I hadn’t seen Vaughn since the night we came back. Weirdly, I hadn’t seen Rome either. On day four, Jasper woke me early, or I guessed it was early.
“Get dressed,” he said. “Doc’s here, and he’s taking the splint off today.”
A part of me wanted to be excited, but the rest of me just wasn’t. What did it matter? I was still going to be stuck in this building.
I’d still killed someone.
Self-defense.
Didn’t matter. Someone was dead. I’d struck him like I’d been struck over the years.
I helped kill someone.
If I ever met the angel and devil on my shoulders, I’d punch them both in the mouth.
Jasper opened the drawers on the dresser and pulled out a couple of items and passed them to me. One was a leotard. The other was capri dance pants.
I stared at them for a moment.
You know, it wasn’t worth the effort.
He turned away as I went into the bathroom and began stripping my bed. I paused in the doorway and watched. In all the time I’d been here, Jasper had done some odd things, but this was weird, even for him.
“Get changed,” he said without looking at me.
I closed the door and stared at myself in the mirror. I barely recognized myself anymore. More, I hated what I saw when I looked at the dark hair that needed to be washed, the wan face that hadn’t seen enough sunlight—not that I ever did, but I didn’t recall ever being quite this pale.
I stripped off the nightshirt I’d been wearing, which probably belonged to one of the guys, and the panties and dropped them on the side. I had become an expert at wrapping a plastic bag that taped closed over my brace before I got in the shower.
Icy water on, I stepped right under the spray and stayed there until my teeth chattered, then I flipped it over to hot and washed my hair. The chill knocked some of the cobwebs away, and I finished the shower as efficiently as I could.
Hair toweled and combed, I dressed in the leotard and squeezed into the dance pants. It was weird. They were form-fitting, but they were looser than normal.
The loss of muscle tone had my gut dropping all over again. Maybe that was why my face looked so hollowed out in the mirror.
Jasper was not only not in my bedroom when I came out, but the door between my room and the room next door was wide open. I still hadn’t figured out who slept in here, but it couldn’t be Rome. Even if Liam had slept in here that day. As far as I could tell, Rome was never in here, or maybe he just hadn’t been back. The guys had said something about a cleanup.
I should ask.
I made it all the way downstairs before I found people.
“There she is,” Vaughn greeted me. Surprise fluttered through me. I hadn’t seen him in days, and I hadn’t even realized I missed him. “You look a little lost, Dove.”