The Grand Pact (The Grand Men #1)(125)

I hear the sound of the room erupting in chaos.

I hear Polly’s fight leave her as her grunts become barely audible.

I finally hear sirens.

And then, I get outta my head.





34





Lucy





When something bad happens, people always say, I never thought it would happen to me. Yet as someone with constant plaguing thoughts, chances are I have thought about it. Like what happened back at the house, I’ve thought about that exact moment. Not with Maxwell, or Polly, or the policeman sitting across the hospital room from me now, or even the details that make it all so very real. But there’s always been this faceless fight in my mind. They bring me down, grab hold of me, and yell in my face. I run, they catch me, I find a way out. I would’ve been lost in my mind at the time, thinking up a scenario so far from my reality. It would’ve had my stomach turned up in knots.

Although it wasn’t ever me I’d see.

There’s this woman in my mind. She isn’t me, but she looks like me. She speaks with my very voice, only it never shakes. She’s brave, strong, lives for herself and makes the best choices. That woman has lived through this already—a constant stream of what-ifs. She analyses the situations, going over them time and time again until she wins.

She always wins.

She’s the bravest person I know, and tonight was the closest I’ve ever come to feeling her strength.

Tonight I learnt that I have the solutions to all of my fears because I gave them to myself.

I just have to use them without being afraid of everything going wrong.

“Her name’s Murley,” I say with a frown, my gaze still trained on the hospital bed.

I feel his eyes on me briefly, but when I turn to face him, they’re already back on her.

“I had no idea,” I mutter.

“You weren’t supposed to.”

I watch him for a minute. I watch him watch her. The way his elbows rest on his knees, and he openly seethes. He’s mad. And it seems to be directed at Murley.

“She was incredible, you know. It was terrifying—they had a gun aimed at her. She knew they were about to find me and made sure they didn’t.” I shake my head, thinking back to how she stepped up without a second thought. “I don’t know where anyone finds the courage—”

“Years in training will do it.”

I nod, swallowing the rest of my words.

Mr Angry Pants doesn’t want to talk.

Noted.

The door opens a few minutes later, and an officer steps in. “Bishop, a minute, please.”

He throws me a look before standing to leave the room.

Watch her.

I nod, wondering what kind of a relationship Murley has with the detective.

For a while, I sit in the quiet room, processing everything that’s happened. The hospital called my family while I had tests carried out on my head, and Mum and Dad are trying to get a flight out now. I asked that they don’t tell the others right away—my intentions were only to give them their last two days on holiday before they all panic and rush back, because they will.

My gut tells me my parents wouldn’t have listened.

They’re already on their way.

I stand and move to sit on the edge of the bed. My eyes drop to the envelope, still crumpled in my hand. I flatten it before flipping it over.

“He’d kill me if he knew I told you what’s written in here,” I tell a sleeping Murley.

I peel open the seal and start to read it out loud.



Luce,

If you’ve opened this, then I first want you to know that you are without doubt the most remarkable, ambitious, and beautiful girl on earth, and you most certainly don’t need my words, secrets, or fears to get you out of whatever pitiful situation you’re currently in; you are far superior to every single one of them.

I’m not sure I’ll ever fully understand your mind, and for that, I’m sorry. But when you tell me you can’t focus, eat, sleep, or even breathe, I might just understand that feeling.

You’re probably rolling your eyes, but there have been too many times in the short time I’ve known you where you’ve left me so fucked, I’ve been unable to do anything but take the next breath.

Sometimes, I think you look at me and see it, and maybe you do. Like in the restaurant the other night. The way your eyes seemed to tell me more than those sweet lips did.

Shit. If anyone walks into my office right now. You’re not even here, and you’re fucking with me, making me inappropriately hard under my desk.

The things I do for you, Morgan.

Alright, here goes…

My secret? My secret is that I probably shouldn’t want you to fall in love with me. I’m not sure what type of person that makes me. A selfish one, maybe?

But I still hope that you do.

I don’t know what I’d even do with it, but sometimes I’ll be sat watching you, and you’ll catch me out, you’ll throw me that uncertain smile I love, and I get this incredible warm feeling that spreads throughout my chest.

I wonder if it would feel a little like that?

And as for my fear? My fear is that one day you’ll need me enough to read this, and then I’ll have to be the man I’m not sure I am nor will ever be. Terrifies me, actually, because you deserve more than that.