Hush (Black Lotus #3)(5)

“What?” she questions, looking up at me. “What’s wrong?”

“What do you mean?”

“Your body tensed up.”

“I’m sorry . . . I just . . .” I start, trying for gentle words.

“What?”

But gentle doesn’t come easy for me, so I go with honest. “I want to take all these marks away. All the ones that aren’t from me.”

“I’ll always be marked by someone else’s touch. I always have been.”

“I’d give anything to take them away,” I tell her, knowing now that the scars on her back and wrists came at the hands of her foster dad.

“You can’t make me into something I’m not, you know?”

“You’re not my charity case, if that’s what you’re inferring,” I snap with irritation.

“Was I ever? Even in the beginning?”

“No. You were never a woman I pitied.”

“If not pity, then what?”

“There’s no easy answer. I don’t understand you or your reasoning for all the shit you’ve done. All I do know is that I must be crazy for loving you, because dammit, I do love you. I’ve tried not to, I’ve fought it, but I can’t stop.”

“But what about what you said last night? You still hate me?”

“Yes.”

She drops her eyes, but I bring her back to me, saying, “I love you, Elizabeth.”

“Do you really?”

“Of course I do. I’ve killed for you.”





HIS WORDS, HIS truth, they may haunt some people, but for my decrepit soul, they soothe. It’s true—he has killed for me—and I have also killed for him. I murdered Pike when I thought he killed Declan. And it’s also a murder that I wish every day I could take back. But I can’t. The only way I can have Pike is through my mind’s trickery.

But aside from Pike, I was a split second away from killing Richard last night, and it would’ve been all for Declan. In a sick way, it was going to be my gift to him. To rid the world of the man who took my love’s mother. Declan wouldn’t let me pull the trigger though—he did it for himself, robbing me of the satisfaction. I wanted it selfishly, but if there was one kill Declan deserved, it was that one.

Declan’s eyes dig into mine, and I know I’ve touched a nerve by questioning his love for me.

“I’m sorry,” I tell him, running my hands over his, which are tensed around my neck.

“I’ve never been anything but honest with you.”

“I know. I didn’t mean to be dismissive of your words.”

His grip loosens as he relaxes, resting his shoulders against the back of the tub.

“I’m having a hard time processing everything,” I add.

“Then talk to me. Don’t hold it in.”

Declan made his feelings known last week when I read the file on my mother. He made it clear he wants me to deal with my feelings instead of hiding them and locking them away the way I’ve done my whole life. I owe him anything he asks of me because of everything I’ve done to him, but sometimes it’s just easier to go numb.

“Maybe later. I’m still really tired from the pain pill.” But there won’t be a later. I can’t cut myself open like that for him because there’s nothing that will stop the blood gushing from the wound. Declan’s ability to connect me with my emotions scares the shit out of me. There’s too much to feel. There’s too much termagant despair inside me. I need it to go away and disappear so I can find relief.

I’m in the arms of the man I love, the man I was so desperate to have again, and here he is. Flesh on flesh—every part of me touching every part of him, and here I am—scared and closed off. He’s wrapped around me, and I should be content, but in this moment, I crave another man’s arms. It’s Pike I wish I had right now. He’s the only one who can numb me.

He’s safety.

He’s constant.

He’s my painkiller.

“You’ll rest better if you get your thoughts out,” he suggests.

Leaning forward, breaking the contact, I lie, “I’m really tired. Can you help me back to bed?”

“Don’t shut me out, Elizabeth.”

“I’m not. It’s just the tub is uncomfortable, and I really am exhausted and not feeling well.”

I hate lying to him when I swore to him and to myself that I never would, but the alternative is unbearable to even think about. It’s best for the both of us if I don’t go down that road.

Declan dries me off, brushes my teeth, and dresses me. I give him these things because he needs them. I know him well enough to see that he needs his hands on me, to control and take care. He’s always needed that, and I can’t even imagine what these past few days have done to him with not knowing where I was and having that authority taken away by another man.

After he applies the ointment to my cuts, he grabs the prescription bottle and shakes out a pill.

“Here,” he says, holding the mood stabilizer that was prescribed to me by the doctor who examined me the first night I arrived here.

It’s the pill I’ve been tossing in the toilet because I don’t want to lose Pike, and that pill will vanish him from me. I can’t say goodbye though. I don’t want to. I need him. His smell, his voice, his presence. I’m not willing to let him go.