Hush (Black Lotus #3) (32 page)

I have to remind myself how fragile she still is. It wasn’t that long ago when she completely broke down after she found out about her mother and had to be medicated. She’s experienced only a handful of episodes since that night, but none that measure in magnitude.

Walking over to the edge of the bed, I watch her as she sleeps peacefully. Her face is soft and her breathing is steady. I run the backs of my fingers along her cheek, feeling her smooth skin warm against mine. I can finally look at her without the past fueling my hate for her. No longer do I want to cause her pain and suffering. No longer do I want to punish her.

Seeing her with her father helped stitch the wounds she inflicted with her deceitful ways. For the first time, I saw through all the walls she’s spent her whole life building and into the very core of who she is. Watching her with him, hearing their stories, and learning about who she was as a little girl suddenly made her transparent, and I could finally see the purity and softness that’s shrouded beneath years that have hardened her.

I let her sleep while I go into the closet to hang up my suit jacket, and when I go into the bathroom to splash my face with cold water, I realize I forgot to grab a hand towel. Turning off the faucet, I walk into the toilet room and pull a towel from the linen cabinet. That’s when I look down and notice something sitting in the bottom of the toilet bowl. I flick the light on to find it’s a tiny blue pill, half-dissolved in the water.

I go to her sink top and pick up her prescription bottle to confirm it’s the same pill.

She’s been lying to me.

I have to wonder why she’d flush the pill instead of taking it because she
needs
to be taking them every day.

Going back in the bedroom, I sit on the edge of the bed where she’s still sleeping. The dip of the mattress beneath me causes her to stir awake. Her eyes flutter open, and I handle her delicately. “You’ve been sleeping long?”

She looks at the clock on the bedside table and responds, “Not too long. How was your day?”

“Busy. What about yours?”

She sighs when she sits up and leans back again the headboard. “Same as the day before.”

“Did you remember to take your pill today?”

“Yes,” she answers with a curious look on her face. “Why?”

“You know how important it is that you take them every day, don’t you?”

Annoyance paints her eyes. “Yes, Declan. I know. Why are you telling me this?”

“Because I want you taking care of yourself.”

“I am.”

“Then tell me why your pill is in the bottom of the toilet.”

Her eyes tick, widening for a fleeting second, but I catch it.

“Do you want to explain to me why?”

Her throat constricts when she takes a hard swallow, and she shakes her head slowly. She’s scared.

“How long have you been doing this?”

“I can take care of myself. I don’t need you parenting me,” she snaps.

I harden my voice, demanding, “How long?”

“I’m fine. I don’t need them.”

“How long, Elizabeth?”

She takes a deep breath, steadying herself to take me on when she admits, “Since I got them.”

My teeth grit in an attempt to temper my anger, and when she notices my mood shift, she tries coaxing me. “Declan, I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine.”

“I am.”

“I heard you talking to someone the other night, but nobody was here,” I say, calling her out.

“What are you talking about?”

I stand and pace back a few steps as my irritation grows. “You were in this room with the door closed. You were talking to someone. Who was it? And don’t you dare feed me a lie.”

Her eyes dart to the corner of the room, and when I look over to the window where she’s focusing, the truth hits me.

Pike.

I turn back and take a few steps towards her. “What are you looking at?”

Her eyes, now rimming with tears, shift back to me.

“I need you to talk to me,” I plead as I sit back down on the bed next to her. “Is it your brother? Are you seeing him again?”

“Don’t lie to him.”

I’m completely caught. He’s going to run now that he knows I’m crazy and that I’ve been lying to him. Panic pangs through my body as Declan stares at me.

“Trust me, Elizabeth. Trust me enough to tell me.”

He scoops my hands into his, and I can see the worry pouring out of him.

“Is that who you’re looking at? Is he here?”

I close my eyes, scared of what his reaction will be, but I can’t hide from the truth he now knows. My hands tremble in his when I finally nod my head yes.

“He’s here?”

I nod again, and when I get the courage to open my eyes, I confess, “I need him.”

“Baby,” he breathes, cupping my cheek with his one hand. “You can’t do this to yourself. It’s not healthy, and I need you healthy.”

“But . . . he’s my brother.”

“He’s dead.”

I blink and the tears fall. “I know that. But I still need him.”

“Need me more.”

His words expose an insecurity I wasn’t aware of. I look into his eyes—really look—and I see what I’ve never seen before—self-doubt. The green in his eyes brightens in vibrancy, the effect of unshed tears that threaten to fall.

“I do need you,” I tell him.

“It’s not enough.”

“Don’t you dare choose me over him.”

I turn back to Pike as Declan keeps his eyes on me.

“This has to end, Elizabeth. You have to start taking your pills. I need you well.”

I don’t look at him when he says this, instead I stay focused on Pike as my tears fall.

“He’s right.”

“No.”

Pike walks over to me and crawls onto the bed, sitting on the other side of me, across from Declan.

“No!” I repeat fervently as I feel the fibers of my soul shredding apart.

“You can’t keep hanging on to me like this.”

“But I need you.”

“I can’t let you do this to yourself anymore,” Declan says, and when I look back to him, I cry, “But I need him.”

“And I need
you
. You have to let him go,” he insists. “You have to take your pills and get better.”

I turn to Pike again, and when I do, Declan adds on a severed voice, “As much as you need him, I need you more.”

“I don’t want to lose you, Pike.”

“It’ll be okay.”

“It’s not okay. None of this is okay.”

“It’s time to let me go.”

His request burns pieces of my heart into ash. I can feel it—scorching hot and blistering inside me, and I can’t seem to cry hard enough to temper the flames. How do I let go when I don’t know a day of survival without him?

“Don’t leave me!” I sob frantically.

“Baby, this is killing me to see you like this,” Declan says, breaking by my side.

“Say goodbye to me, Elizabeth.”

My face crumples as the agony of losing my brother for good strangles my heart, paralyzing the ventricles. Tears force their way down my cheeks, cutting me like shards of ice.

“Don’t leave me.”

“You’re the best sister anyone could ever have, and I was so lucky that you were mine.”

“Don’t you dare say your goodbyes, Pike.”

“Look at Declan. Look at what we’re doing to him.”

I turn to my other side and see Declan’s head in his one hand while his other is holding on to me, and he’s crying.

Oh, my God, he’s crying.

“Declan, please don’t cr—”

“I need you,” he beseeches desperately.

“We can’t continue this.”

I watch as tears fall down Declan’s face, and it’s a punch to my gut to see how much pain he’s in. A man who never cracks is now crumbling before me—because of me. Every tear of his is a fissure in my breaking heart, cutting its way deeper into the delicate tissues.

I can’t do this to him.

I love Pike. He’s sacrificed himself again and again, my whole life, just to protect me, and no words exist to express how much he means to me. But now it’s my turn to protect. And it’s Declan that I need to take care of, because I need him strong so he can care for me in return.

As much as this kills me, I dig deep inside all my rotted wounds to grab on to the strength I need to say goodbye. “I never would’ve survived this world without you, Pike.”

“But you did survive. And you’re going to be okay without me.”

“I love you.”

“I need you to promise me that you’ll listen to Declan, that you’ll start taking your pills and get yourself healthy.”

He’s adamant, and I give him my word through the strain of my throat. “I promise.”

I watch as his solid form ghosts into opacity, and I cry harder.

“I love you.”

“Pike!”

Opacity transfuses into a cloudiness.

“I’m going to miss you.”

“I’m gonna miss you too.”

Cloudiness disappears into nothingness.

And when the lingering vapors of his scent fade away, I fall into Declan.

“He’s gone,” I wail amidst the trauma of freshly crenelated wounds that bleed inside me.

“I’m going to take care of you. I need you to believe in me.”

“I do believe in you. It just hurts to let go of him.”

“Look at me,” he demands, and when I do, his face is streaked in tears shed. “I love you to the point it hurts, but I relish the pain of it because it reminds me that what we have runs so deep within me. And I swear to you, I will
never
stop loving you.”

I wipe the trail of tears from his face.

“Tell me it hurts you to love me too.”

Bracing my hands along his jaw to feel his stubble against my palms, I give him the purest part of me. “There’s nobody in this world I could possibly hurt for more. Pike helped me survive, but it’s you who helps me live. I was never able to do that until you.”

And in the madness of heartache and profound love, Declan takes me as his, holding me, fucking me, healing me. Tears never stop falling from my swollen eyes as I open my heart and allow Declan the freedom to climb inside and take full ownership of all that I’m made of.

I no longer know where I end and he begins as we cement the amorphous lines between us.

We’re serpents who feed off one another for sole survivorship.

We’re everything love is meant to be.

TEARS CRYSTALIZE INTO
salts, salts flake into dust, and dust gets swept away into the endless sky. And in the end we are left with a choice: swim or drown. The right choice is often the hardest. Drowning is so easy to do and takes no effort—you simply go weak and float deeper in the despair that consumes. But Pike wouldn’t want that for me, and I need to fight for Declan.

So I took my love’s hand and started to kick, trusting that together I would find my way to the surface. That was two weeks ago, and today I feel hopeful.

It was four days ago that I laughed for the first time since I said goodbye to my brother. A part of me thought I’d never laugh again, but I did, and oddly, it was Davina that pulled it out of me. Declan thought it would be good to have her over for dinner. He didn’t tell her anything we had been dealing with, but she knew something was wrong when I walked into the living room a disheveled mess. One would think a guest would be somewhat reserved, but not Davina. She called me out, telling me I looked like shit. It wasn’t just her crass honesty, it was the appalling look on her face and in her tone of voice, which she somehow managed to deliver in a caring way.