Page 11 of Rest In Knotty Pieces

“You need to sleep. This is for your own good, Aaron.”

“No,” I slur the word.

But it’s too late; I’m already falling back into the soft darkness that I’ve been running from for too long.

“Asshole.”

His laughter chases me into sleep.

Rolly

“Dum, dum, dum, da, da, da.”

I look both ways down the corridor, and as soon as I see the empty hall with its rich burgundy carpet; I dance down it until I find her door. The handle is gold and elaborate, exactly like that pompous alpha Blaze. So over the top. I depress the handle, and to no one’s surprise, it’s locked.

I just grin wider. No bitches are going to keep me out. Not today, no sirrah.

It takes me less than a minute to break into the room. I slip inside and close the door as quietly as I opened it.

They say I’m crazy. Hell, I’ve even got a few official labels from the very expensive parade of doctors they brought through to cure me. I don’t understand why they were trying to cure me when they messed me up in the first place. I remember one of the parade of white coats said there was ‘no hope, best kill him now before he kills someone else. Put him down like he’s a rabid dog’. I cherish the night we spent together.

His screams were to die for.

My parents couldn’t be bothered to do anything with me but shunt me from hospital to institution. Anywhere that wasn’t near them. Especially after Rory went after them. We don’t have much in common, but we are family.

I bite my lower lip as I approach the bed, needing the pain to help contain the excitement. She looks too small, too bruised. Something in my chest pulls. It shouldn’t. I’ve been told there’s nothing there, but…

It’s funny in life when the but comes along. I trace one finger up the soft linen sheets, watching her face for any sign of waking, but there is nothing.

It’s like she’s a corpse. A living dead girl.

My living dead girl.

I need to see her.

I cross into the bathroom, filling some warm water into a small basin and grabbing some clothes. I sit on the edge of the bed and stroke a path along her face. With each swipe of the wet cloth, I pull and tease her out of the mess that was.

I hum as I work, and when I have her neck and face clean, I move to her thin arms. The scars I unearth shine like silver. Lines of pain that are like tiger stripes. They lash her upper body, curling from the back to the front like she’s been whipped, but not recently.

No, a scar like this would have been a long time healed.

The door opens, I don’t turn to look. Raspberry jam pervades the air, and I suddenly have a knife at my throat.

If it were anyone else, they’d be dead by now, but this omega pulls at me as strongly as the one lying in the bed.

I raise my hand and cover his, pressing the knife deeper, cutting my skin so hot blood runs in long drops down my throat and disappears under my T-shirt.

“I’ll bleed for you,” I murmur. “Omega.”

The knife doesn’t tremble, but I can feel how much the word affects him.

“What are you doing in here?”

I blink innocently as he gives up his intent to cut me open and moves around me, his eyes darting to her and returning to me.

“Why, caring for my omega, of course.”

Pix snarls and shoves a ring-laden hand through his messy dark hair. His almost-black eyes catch and hold the light like a glittering night sky. I trace the high cheekbones, the sharp jaw, and linger over the tattoo on his cheek.