My thoughts rushed and whorled like water circling a drain. I could barely feel my body anymore, the pain had washed it clean of sensation, but I recognized that I was free to move.
“Cressida,” Zeus bellowed from across the room as he came charging over.
I blinked slowly, not understanding why he was yelling.
A clatter brought my attention to King again and I watched as the knife flew out of Victor’s hand and skidded to a stop by my feet. Victor used King’s momentum against him and pinned him to the floor with his knees so he could reach into his waistband for a gun.
No.
Anything in world could happen to me, could happen to anyone else. I didn’t care if all the kittens, birds and bees had to die, if I had to personally slaughter men, women and children to make it so but nothing could happen to King.
I wouldn’t allow it.
The knife was at my feet, I just had to get it. I fell to my knees with a brutal crack that vibrated from my kneecaps and up my thighs, but I ignored the pain and tried to clutch the knife in my brutalized hand. It fell through my weak-as-water fingers again and then again.
“Cressida,” Zeus shouted, closer now.
I looked up to see him close to Victor, who was about to press the gun against King’s thrashing head.
Fury launched through me.
“Give it to me,” Zeus ordered, hand out stretched as he lunged towards me.
I wrapped the knife in a excruciating grip and tossed it to him.
He caught it on the fly, sprinted the two steps to where his son lay prone on the ground with a gun at his temple, and without hesitation, he plunged the bloodied blade into the back of Victor’s neck, right at the base of his skull.
The sick sound of crushing bones and tearing flesh was louder than the last gunshot that reverberated through the warehouse.
I tried to keep my head up and my eyes open, but moving so much had drained the last of my reserves. With a thin sigh, my head dropped to the concrete and I was out.
I knew before I woke up that I would be in a hospital. The smell was the first thing I noticed, the plastic, medicinal scent of all hospitals everywhere. My body felt strange, not my own, but at least the mind-melting pain was gone. I tried to lift my hand, suddenly terrified that it would still be nailed to the chair. When I succeeded, I opened my eyes to look at the heavily bandage flesh and burst into tears.
“Babe.”
I turned my crying face to King as he moved to lie down beside me and carefully pulled me to him. I wanted to clutch at him, touch him all over to assure myself that he was alive and well but my hands were mittens, so instead, I nuzzled my face hard against his cheek, his neck, his chest.
“I’m here, babe, I got you,” he assured me over and over again.
I cried harder, so hard I couldn’t breath.
“Shh, babe, I need you to take a deep breath for me, yeah?”
The air rattled around in my open mouth as I tried to suck it into my uncooperative lungs. King took my face gently in his hands and breathed deeply, silently prompting me to mimic him. I tried again and finally found air. We did this, deep breathing together, until my mind cleared and the tears stopped.
“I got you, babe,” he said then, each word low and weighty with significance.
“Thought you were going to die,” I croaked out because even my throat, teeth and lips hurt.
King’s thumb swept tenderly over my swollen mouth before he ducked down to kiss each side where the rope gag had given me a temporary Joker-like smile.
“Luckily, I had my Queen to keep me alive,” he said.
I stared into his eyes, desperate to mark each bubble of air caught beneath the ice of his irises and every color of pale blue that brightened and darkened them like shapes under glacial caps.
“I want to go home,” I told him, suddenly desperate to leave the hospital. “Can I?”
His lips pursed in thought but when I whined low in my throat, he sighed. “We can do whatever the fuck you want, Cress babe. The doc’s checked you out. You don’t need surgery on your hands but you’ll probably have nerve damage and you might need rehab. Otherwise, you have a concussion, a fuckin’ laceration on your throat and a fractured jaw. Not to mention your beautiful face is fuckin’ black and blue.”
“Not great,” I murmured.
“No,” he bit out.
“Alive,” I pointed out. “Both of us.”
“Thank fuckin’ Christ,” he said against my lips before kissing them softly.
“Home?” I asked again.
“Okay, wait here and I’ll get everythin’ in order,” he gave me another kiss before sliding off the bed and made his way to the door. He paused at the door and looked back at me, his hand pulling hard through his curls. “Need a second. Haven’t left you since it happened and I’m havin’ a hard time doin’ it now.”