Fractured Hearts (Shattered Lives, Book Three) (7 page)

Over the course of the next couple days and nights, Henry slept on and off. Every time Elaina checked on him, he seemed to be sweating more and more. He wasn’t sleeping peacefully, either. Then again, he never had a peaceful slumber
before
the detox.

Knowing most, if not all, of his issues had been caused by Roger and his program, an angry fuse ignited in Elaina’s gut. When Henry started mumbling, she leaned in close, trying to figure out what he was saying. She could only make out one word, and he was repeating it over and over. “Mum.” Elaina’s heart broke.

For most of his life, he believed his mother to be dead—brutally murdered in front of him. But after Kellan’s untimely appearance at Elaina’s family home, Henry wanted to see if she was alive like Kellan had said. Gunther was clueless when Henry asked him. Supposedly, she was the guardian of Sophie’s kids and he wanted to find them and raise them, if possible. Somehow, some way, he was going to get back to England and find out the answers for himself.

His body shivered as he cried out, “No! Please, stop!”

Elaina figured he was having another nightmare about his mother’s death. The anguish in his cries tore through her and she wanted to make him feel better. Slipping under the covers to hold him, she tried her hardest to comfort him in his restless state.

While rubbing her thumb on his stubbly cheek, Henry’s body constricted and he yelled out, as if he was experiencing intense pain. She hushed him and stroked his arm, fighting the tears building in her eyes.

This was killing Elaina. He had been such a chore with all of his drunkenness, but she couldn’t blame him. He had been through so much. Her tears could no longer be contained and rolled down her cheeks.

Throwing Elaina to the side, Henry sat up and belted out a scream she never heard from him before. She jumped up, grabbed him, and made him look at her. His eyes were glazed over.

“Henry. It’s okay. You’re okay.” He was breathing fast. “He can’t hurt you anymore.” His entire body shook as he wiped the couple of tears trickling from his eyes. “You all right?”

“I think so,” he whispered between pants.

Elaina had an eerie feeling he wasn’t awake as she watched his anxious eyes looking around the room. “Lover?”

“Shh,” he commanded, a finger to his lips as he stood. His shirt clung to his sweaty torso.

“Henry?”

“I said to be quiet, Sophie!”

“Henry, it’s Elaina.” She was worried, unable tell if he was sleepwalking or having a flashback.

“Shut it, Sophie! I think he’s coming.”

Elaina stood and walked toward him. “Who? Who’s coming, Henry?”

“Why do you keep calling me by my middle name? You know my name is Liam.”

For a moment, Elaina felt like she was living in his nightmare, on the edge of reality tangling with insanity. “Okay… Liam, who’s coming?”

“Have you lost your fucking mind? Roger! I won’t let him hurt you. He’ll have to get through me first.”

Elaina grabbed his shoulders in an effort to try and shake him awake.

With all the bad timing in the world, someone knocked on the door. Henry yanked Elaina by her arm, throwing her out of the way. He bolted through the door and, without pausing, started fighting whoever it was.

“Henry!” Elaina screamed. She jumped into the mess of limbs and grunts, trying to peel him away. She watched in horror when he slammed Gunther’s head into the tiled floor. “Henry!” she yelled again, getting thrown off Henry’s back.

Quinn came running out of her and Gunther’s room. “What the hell is going on?!”

“Henry! Stop!” Elaina shouted as she tried to pull him off of Gunther again, but he was in a complete rage.

Gunther somehow managed to flip him over and punch him in the face a few times. Eventually, he was able to pin Henry’s arms down with his knees, then pulled out his Sig and pressed it to Henry’s head, holding his other hand around his throat, choking him.

A constant drip of blood was running from Gunther’s mouth onto Henry’s face. He breathed heavily through his nose, rage tremoring through his body.

“Gunther! Please don’t!” Elaina screamed as she yanked at his thick shoulders.

“Give me a reason not to!” Gunther growled, not even looking at her.

“He’s having a flashback or something. Please! Let him go. Please! I don’t know what’s wrong with him,” Elaina sobbed.

Legs flailing, Henry tried to kick Gunther off. His eyes were huge, set in his red-rimmed sockets and, judging by the purple coloring blooming on his face, shit was hitting the fan real fast.

With all the calm, cool, and collectedness in the world, Quinn knelt, putting one hand on Gunther’s shoulder. “Gun…” She ran her hand down the arm that held Henry’s throat. Her voice was soft, smoothing out his seething breaths. “Let him go. He obviously didn’t know it was you.”

Gunther looked back and forth between Quinn and Henry, then released his grip. Henry gasped and coughed.

“Do it again, you little prat,” Gunther growled, putting his Sig away. “I fucking dare you.” He stood and spat a mouthful of blood onto the floor, wiping his lips with the back of his hand.

“Come on. Let’s go get you cleaned up.” Quinn grabbed his arm and pulled him down the hall, toward the clinic.

“I was just checking on him. He’s fucking mental,” Gunther snarled.

“I know your intentions were good. He’s going through withdrawals. That, coupled with the issues he already has… It’s just not a good combination,” she murmured as they walked.

I came to while Gunther was choking me. Dazed, I had no idea what was going on. While lying on my side and rubbing my throat, Elaina leaned down and helped me up.

“Henry, are you with me now?”

“Yeah,” I groaned. “What the fuck happened?” I rubbed the side of my head, expecting it to be split open.

“I think you were sleepwalking, having a nightmare or a flashback. I don’t know. Plus, with your detox…”

Then a wave a nausea hit me again. I was fucking tired of that. “I feel like I’m going to be sick,” I mumbled.

Elaina dragged me back into our room in time for me to dry heave into the bucket. When my stomach finally stopped rolling, she wiped my face with a wet cloth and made me rinse my mouth out.

“Come on. Lie down,” she coaxed.

No problem,
I thought, as she helped get me in bed. Her fingers swiped over the marks around my throat. She tried talking to me several times before I rolled over so my back was to her. I was mortified by my behavior and wasn’t in the chatting mood.

After several attempts to get me to respond, I murmured, “I’m going to leave you alone and go check on Gunther.”

When Elaina walked out of the room, her entire body began shaking. She leaned against the wall next to the door to steady herself, but slid down it instead. Her stomach cramped, her heart pounded. Knowing it was a lie, she continued telling herself it was only temporary and he would be better once the alcohol left his system.

Henry would never be better. He would always be broken.

Feeling her world imploding, Elaina pulled her knees in and wrapped her arms around them. She couldn’t handle him anymore. She couldn’t muster the emotional strength to deal with him and his issues another second. Closing her eyes, she rested her head on her knees. Her heavy black curtain of hair fell around her body, sealing her off from the critical public eye. Exhaustion made her impossibly weaker by the minute.

As Quinn and Gunther came back down the hall, Elaina knew there was no way she could move to spare herself an interrogation. Her body felt like it weighed a thousand pounds. She heard Quinn tell Gunther to go to their room and she would be there in a minute. She sat on the floor next to Elaina and wrapped her arm around her shoulders.

“Hey, hon. Gunther feels bad about what happened. He said he would like to apologize to him once Henry is squared away.”

“I can’t do this anymore,” Elaina whispered.

“I’m sorry?” Quinn questioned, tucking Elaina’s hair behind her ear.

“
This
,” she hissed. “I can’t fucking do it anymore.”

“You don’t have a choice, Elaina.”

“That’s part of the problem. I
have
to deal with him because who else would? It’s too hard to try and survive, plus take care of someone who is so fucked up.”

“Nothing worthwhile ever comes easy, but there’s always hope.”

Elaina barked out a sarcastic laugh, thinking that Quinn was just as mental as everyone else. “I think I cashed in all my hope months ago,” Elaina muttered. “You have no idea how long I’ve been battling him. So many times, I’ve had to drag him somewhere when he could barely walk. Or clean up his vomit. Or deal with his rages, his tears, his pleas.”

“Do you love him?”

“With all of my heart.”

“Then it’s worth the effort.”

Elaina wiped the tears, snot dripping down her face. “You don’t understand.”

“How do I not understand? You
do
know Gunther is just like him, right?”

“Not really. He’s not an alcoholic. Besides, you are much stronger than I am.” The fact of the matter was Quinn had miles of strength stacked up, and Elaina felt hers had taken the five o’clock train months prior.

“That’s not true. I’ve had plenty of meltdowns. Most have been in private, though.”

After eavesdropping in on Quinn and Elaina’s conversation, Gunther decided he needed to go out and talk to her.

When a door opened, Elaina looked up. Gunther stood in the doorway with a blood-stained cloth pressed to his mouth. He looked like how she felt…beat up, bloodied, and defeated.

He sat on the floor across from them, leaning back against the wall. “Let me give you some perspective,” Gunther murmured through the cloth.

Elaina was shocked he would even insinuate she didn’t get it. “I’m pretty sure I have a handle on how things are for Henry. I have all of the perspective I need, thank you very much,” she muttered in anger.

“Just hear him out, Elaina,” Quinn pleaded.

“Yes, he’s broken, mental, an alcoholic…” He paused, looking around, making sure there wasn’t anyone else listening. “Not fully alive… You have no idea what it’s like for us.”

“How dare you sit here and try to tell me I have no clue about what is going on with Henry?! I have lived this right beside him!” she growled. “
You
were the one who beat him, nearly killing him on more than one occasion!”

With pursed lips, Gunther knew her anger was justified. “I know, and I feel tremendous guilt about that, but it wasn’t my choosing. It was either do that, or I was beaten and starved.”

Clenching her fists, her voice grew fierce. “So you chose to beat someone else, hurt someone else, to save your own fucking ass?! How does
that
work? Real fucking noble.”

“You don’t understand. If I didn’t do it, someone else would have. Kellan and Drew were much more brutal than I was.”

“Oh, so now you’re showing him some compassion?! Fracturing his skull wasn’t brutal?!”

Gunther continued, ignoring her, “If it was Roger doing the dealing, all bets were off. If we didn’t obey, they would starve us to the brink of true death. I can’t even begin to tell you how painful that is. Then they would beat us on top of that.” His eyes watered, obvious guilt weighing heavy upon his shoulders. Then he choked out, “Or make us do unspeakable acts as punishment.”

In silence, they watched Elaina pick at the frayed hem of her jeans.

“Elaina, he can’t help it,” Quinn said as she rubbed her back. “He just happened to be graced with an addictive personality on top of all his other issues. You can’t walk away from him right now. He needs you to take care of him.”

“Why does it matter to you if I take care of him? Who is going to take care of me? Who?!”