When he didn’t immediately pull away, I moved my hands out from under him and stood.
I should have said thank you again to the doctor who had helped to save my best friend. I should have at least said goodbye.
I didn’t.
Because suddenly there was no one else in the room but Priest and myself, safe in the shadowy embrace of our connection.
“Priest,” I whispered past the obstruction in my throat as I went to take a step and landed on a wobbly leg, falling forward.
I was sick with grief and dehydrated from all the crying, nothing in my belly because I’d thrown up everything I had to give. It wasn’t surprising I collapsed.
It also wasn’t surprising that Priest caught me.
I was up and in his arms, tucked into his side with my bum supported by a strong hand and an arm wrapped around my torso before I could even think of falling. I tucked my sore nose into his throat, wishing it was clear enough to breathe in his clove and tobacco scent. His warmth and unyielding body against mine were enough to dry the trickle of wet still leaking from my eyes.
“Takin’ her home,” Priest told someone, probably my sister.
“She needs family,” Loulou protested, but it was weak because she was as devastated by this as everyone else, as helpless as anyone to do anything about this tragedy.
“She needs me,” he said simply, intractably.
And then he turned on his heel and left, not stopping until Lion called out and caught up with us.
“A second?” he asked of Priest.
I peeked out from my haven between Priest’s beard and leather collar in answer to Lion’s request.
His eyes were so verdant a green they instantly held me transfixed. I’d forgotten somehow how deeply magnetic Lion was, as if the force of his goodness magnetized him.
He bent closer to me, a tanned hand hovering over hair for an instant before he awkwardly, sweetly, tucked a piece behind my ear.
“Gotta say this, Bea, because I know what you’re goin’ through, and I know who you are. This shit is not on you, you hear me?” He read the obstinacy in my eyes, and his voice went deep, dark. “This. Is. Not. On. You. Wanna know how I know that? Because I got a father who corrupted an entire force against the club my woman’s a serious part of. I’m the son of the man who shot King nearly dead, the son of a man who lied and murdered to put Zeus behind bars. You think I don’t know what it’s like to live half-choked with guilt?”
I was lost in his somber gaze, shivering with the cold shock of his words. Of course, he knew, and what a horrible cross to bear.
“You can tell me this is different, and it is,” he continued resolutely. “It’s different because you don’t know a thing about this madman who has decided to end lives for sport. I knew my father, so I should have done something a lot sooner than I did to take him down. I had the power, and I’ll bear the guilt of that for the rest of my fuckin’ life. But you? You’re helpless here, Bea. As fucked and horrible as it is to say, you gotta know, this asshole has stripped power away from us all, but especially you. The only thing you can do is forgive yourself. Be fuckin’ kind to yourself. He wants to damage. He wants you isolated so he can snatch you up and make you his. But I gotta tell you”—he sucked in a deep breath and looked up at Priest then back to me—“you are not alone. You are loved, you are strong, and your entire community is gonna come back from this. Including Cleo because that girl knows she’s got everything to fight for, and all of it is waiting for her in this room.”
My heart shuddered as Lion’s words fought for purchase.
Priest clutched me tighter, and I knew he was glaring at Lion. “Pretty speech.”
Lion shrugged, a little grin playing with his mouth even though his eyes were tired. “Knew she wouldn’t get it from you, so I figured someone should make it.”
“I’m a killer, not a poet or a cop. What I got is action, not words. Bea knows I’m gonna chop this motherfucker into little pieces and tie each one with a motherfuckin’ pink bow for her,” Priest said, bored of the conversation now, already moving again.
“Thanks, Lion,” I called over Priest’s shoulder as he walked us out the sliding front doors of the hospital. “Please, keep telling H.R. to keep me up to date on everything.”
He tilted his chin in acknowledgment, a wry smile on his handsome face.
“Honestly, he helped,” I admitted to Priest as we walked across the parking lot to his bike. There were still some patches of snow on the ground, but we weren’t due for more snow for another week and I knew Priest road his Harley whenever he could. The idea of clinging to him now while we rode through the night, the world a chaos of blurring colours in shapes flying by us, unable to touch us, made the frenetic fear inside me subside further.