Splinters of You (Retired Sinners MC #1) - Anne Malcom Page 0,107

glanced down. “As much as you can, at least.”

He tipped an imaginary hat and walked out.

I let him.

For whatever reason.

Because us villains needed to look out for one another.

“I’m leaving.”

That was the first thing he said to me when I woke up from surgery.

Not that he loved me or that he was glad I was okay, or that he’d never let me out of his sight again.

Though, that wasn’t exactly his style.

Or mine.

But I was groggy from drugs, out of my comfort zone, wearing polyester, and had a dull ache in my bones that whatever was in my IV wasn’t enough to dispel.

But that, the emptiness of the tone and the heaviness of the of the words, that washed everything else.

I didn’t need to ask him what he meant, or to repeat himself, because I knew what it meant.

He was leaving me.

I wanted to push myself upward on the bed, so I wasn’t so vulnerable, much like the first day we met. But this time, it wasn’t a sprained ankle.

The crack, the pain, the way my hand contorted, I knew it was broken. I’d had surgery, obviously. I didn’t look at it, not yet. I wasn’t brave enough. Because I knew it was bad, and I knew it would break my soul just as easily as the hammer broke my bone. This wasn’t just a hand. This was how I survived. How I wrote. How I saved myself. And it was broken.

So no, I wasn’t brave enough to look at it.

Instead, I faced Saint, who had his own hammer and was smashing other things.

“Why?” I asked, my voice a thin rasp that made me angry. There was no strength in it. No backbone. He wasn’t playing fair. He knew I was weak right now, and he was striking anyway. Because that’s who he was.

His eyes flickered downward, to the place where I wouldn’t look. Couldn’t look.

He flinched.

Actually flinched.

The man who’d seen it all, done it all, flinched at the sight of what I could only guess was my deformed hand.

I wanted to vomit at that, at his inability to keep his mask on. Hide his disgust.

But I didn’t.

“You know why,” he replied. “You’re smart enough to know that this is too wrong, even for us.”

Acid hit my tongue.

“No.” I spat the word, hoping it would melt his fucking face off. “You’re being selfish and weak, and if that’s who you are, then leave.” I paused to suck in air that was nothing but blades. “And don’t come back.”

He waited. For more from me. More insults, more ugliness. And I had it. My well of hate opened and deepened with his words. That’s all love was anyway, just a softer form of hate.

But I wouldn’t give him that. No, he didn’t deserve that. He wasn’t getting anything from me anymore. Especially not my hate.

Despite how jaded I was, how quick I was to put up my walls, I waited. Held my breath just a little, and hated myself for it.

Somehow, there was still a shred of hope, that should’ve been well buried and decomposed by now.

But Saint took a shotgun and blew it to pieces, simply by turning on his boot and leaving me broken, bitter, and helpless in a hospital bed.

Though I had one important person—who I now hated more than myself, just—leave me in what might’ve turned into the lowest point of my life, I had someone else come back.

She might’ve saved me.

Which was interesting, because I never considered myself savable, by anyone, though that thought process was directed at men. Because they were the ones that considered themselves in the business of saving.

Then Katy came in.

The unlikely hero.

Unexpected.

But she came.

And she did save me.

By being her insensitive, callous, self.

She did not cry or show emotion to my injuries. She was a doctor. She’d seen worse. I’d survive. Heal. My body was built for that.

Though my heart wouldn’t.

But she wasn’t kind about that either.

She didn’t even know how deep the break went until the third night she’d arrived. The first night I’d been out of the hospital, against the doctor’s orders, but my doctor signed off on it.

She didn’t sign off on the whisky I drank, but didn’t argue with me either.

So my tongue loosened just enough for me to spill it all. Luckily, nothing could loosen me enough to tell the story any other way but dry-eyed and even-toned.

Katy hadn’t seemed surprised or shocked, but she’d always had the best poker face. That, and she wasn’t often moved