Hunter (Broken Bad Boys 1): A New Adult Bad Boy Romance (23 page)

Lola looks us over, but then shrugs. “If we hurry, we can make the bus.” She starts walking in front of us and we follow. I don’t actually need to take the bus, I live close enough that I can just walk home, but I guess that seeing the twins off is better.

As we’re approaching the buses, someone grabs my arm and turns me around. “Hunter.”

Oh, crap. It takes me a moment to recognize the guy in front of me. He’s changed his hair, so it’s now the same bright red that Tessa’s was, and his leather jacket never strained against his shoulders like this before. Tessa’s younger brother. “Tyler.” I nod at the guy, not sure what he wants, but there is an anger in his eyes that I don’t want to unleash.

“You having
fun
?” He sneers as he takes a step back, but balls his fists at the same time.

I glance behind me. Lizzy and Lola are watching what is going on. I want to tell them to keep going, but I can’t take my attention away from Tyler. “What are you doing here?”

He shrugs, pretend-nonchalant. “Spending the day.” As far as I know, he doesn’t live here. Tessa’s family lives about two hours away.

“Right. Well, have fun. I’m just about to go home.”

“To fuck your new girlfriend?” His voice reaches a level of danger that makes me cold, not scared, but nearing there.

“She’s Lola’s sister.” I know she is so much more, but it’s also the truth. This seems the safest way to refer to her right now. And it seems like he’s only after one thing, a fight with me.

“What, so the other sister almost dying was not enough for you? After Joey and Tessa, you want to have another death on your head?” He raises his voice, baiting me.

“Shut up.” I’m going cold and at the same time, anger is flaring inside me.

“What? You don’t want your new
girlfriend
to know about your past? About how everyone around you dies?” He pulls up his chin, looking straight at me. “Afraid she won’t want you anymore?”

Like that is an issue. It would be so much easier if Lizzy didn’t want me in the first place. No matter how that would hurt me. “Shut up.”

“I didn’t think you’d move on so quickly. You’re a lying, cheating bastard. Did my sister mean nothing to you?” The insanity in his eyes rises. “You first ruin my sister. You change her so much that even her own family doesn’t recognize her. She never got in trouble until she met you.”

“I’m sorry.” I suppress my anger, no matter how much I just want to hit that look off his face.

“You’re sorry? You think you’re sorry? Because of you, my sister is
dead
.” His voice peaks. “There is no
sorry
for that, no apology good enough. There is only one thing that would make it right again…”

Behind me Lizzy screeches and I swivel to her, then I feel the burning in my arm. It slices through skin and muscles, the fabric of my body giving away to the weapon, the pressure on my arm. And then the warmth flowing down to my hand.

He stabbed me! I turn to Tyler, but he’s already running away, the knife on the ground before me.

“Hunter!” Lizzy and Lola run to me. “Oh, my God.”

I wince as I shrug out of my jacket—if not for the jacket and Lizzy crying out, it might have gone differently. The blood flows down my arm and there is a big gash over my upper arm, one side to the other.

“Oh, God. Oh, God.” Lizzy looks at it as Lola calls an ambulance. I wrap my good arm around Lizzy, trying to calm her.

“It’s okay. I’m okay,” I whisper in her hair.

“You’re not. He
stabbed
you.” The words are almost too muddled to be understood.

“If not for you, it might have been worse. So I’m okay. I’m alive. Just hurt.” And in a lot of pain, but I bite it away. Lizzy can’t know that. She can’t stand pain or violence, and I can’t have her freak out on me right now.

A set of mall security guards comes rushing over. “What happened here?” They eye the knife on the floor and my bleeding arm.

“A guy stabbed him and ran.” Lola steps in front of me, her back straight.

Lola… Fuck. She must have heard what Tyler said about her, she can’t not have heard. To have him talk about something so bad, just to hurt me… Fuck.

“And he didn’t do anything to provoke it?” The man looks at me like he doesn’t believe it.

“Check your cameras. He didn’t do anything.” Lola can appear quite scary if she wants to, which is a good thing as I’m not sure how much longer I can stand on my feet.

The ambulance comes over and the irony is not lost on me. Normally they’re around because of me, not for me… Fuck. They start fussing over me, but Lizzy keeps holding my other hand, holding on tight the whole time. I wish I could tell her that everything is okay, just to take that look of panic from her beautiful eyes. But I know it’s not right, not this time.

Only when they put me in the ambulance do I realize something very significant. Tyler tried to goad me, tried to get me to hit him, attack him. He tried to get me to act first so he could stab me…

And I didn’t.

I might not have stayed calm, but I didn’t explode, I didn’t harm him. And if that doesn’t say anything about how I’ve changed… Dammit.

T
hey let
me stay with Hunter as they drove him to the hospital, and I’m not sure if I would have been able to let go, even if they asked me. I feel like I’m outside myself. I saw the glint of the knife as the guy pulled it from his pocket. I couldn’t help but scream. The sound coming out of me—I didn’t recognize it. Pure panic. I don’t care what the guy accused him off, but he was about to stab him. Everything went so fast, Hunter turned to me and then I saw the knife go through his jacket, through his arm, the blood dripping over the jacket, making small rivers go down the leather. The look of pure shock on Hunter’s face…

I shudder and Hunter squeezes my hand. I look up at him. The nurses cleaned his arm and they’re about to patch him back up.

“It’s okay.” He tries to smile, but his eyes don’t shine. Instead they’re dark, confused, upset.

“It’s not.” It’s not okay that he got stabbed.

“I’m okay. They’ll fix me up.”

And then what? Will he just wait for the next time this happens? Before this crazy guy comes after him again?

A doctor comes over. “I’m going to numb the area, and then I’ll put in some stitches. Is that okay?”

Hunter nods. “Yeah. Thanks.” He doesn’t look very happy with the prospect, but I guess that is normal. He winces and squeezes my hand for a moment as they stick a needle into his arm, and then at another spot, until they’ve surrounded the area with it. I’m both fascinated and repelled by what is going on. It’s… gross. But as they start to stitch the wound, I can’t keep my eyes off it. It’s disjointed, to see the skin and the needle, but at the same time, it looks so similar to trying to sew clothes. I know that there is a difference, and the color kind of gives it away, but still… the similarities are weird. And weirding me out.

When the doctor has finished, Lola comes in, two cops following her. “These men want to talk to you.”

Hunter nods. “I’d guessed as much. Thanks.” He doesn’t seem surprised by this. Though I guess that any stabbing would automatically get the police involved. “Lizzy.” He looks at me. “Could you wait outside with Lola?”

I don’t want to let him go, but I know that I’ll have to now. I nod as I slowly let his hand go and walk over to Lola, who guides me out of the room and closes the door behind us. Then she starts pushing me again, but I stay still. I don’t want to be away from Hunter, not now.

“We’re just gonna sit down the hall. They’ll find us again.” She wraps her arm around me, and I follow her slowly. Lola sits me down on some chairs and then sits next to me, her arm around my shoulders. “I called the clinic. They understand why you can’t be in on time for dinner.”

“Thanks.” The clinic! I hadn’t even thought about that yet. Fuck. Seeing someone getting stabbed was way more important than that.

“He’ll be fine. He’s strong.” Lola rubs her hand up and down my arm.

“I know… Just… Why would he hurt Hunter? I though Tessa’s death was an accident?” I don’t get it. Why would he do that?

“It is. Tessa lost control of her motorbike and crashed. There was no fault on H. Even if he doesn’t believe that himself.” Lola holds me close.

But it wasn’t just Tessa the guy talked about… He also talked about Hunter’s younger brother, and Lola. “The thing he said about you. Is that true? Did Hunter hurt you?”

“No!” She shakes her head, her face pale, shocked. “God, no. That had nothing to do with H. We were just friends. And stuff happened, but there was no other connection.”

“He said that you almost died?” If that was at the same time… then no wonder she looked so upset after seeing Hunter again.

Lola squeezes her lips together, closing her eyes, a pained look on her face. “I—”

“I’m sorry. I—” I shouldn’t have just asked that. I wrap my arms around Lola tightly.

“Yes. I had a brush with death. It wasn’t… It wasn’t anything big, just… medical issues.” She touches my face. “That’s all I can say right now. I don’t talk about it, it hurts.”

I nod, as tears well up in me and I hold her tighter. Why didn’t I know this before? How can she not have told me? Why? How? “When?” I put my hand over my mouth. She didn’t want to talk about it, I need to respect that.

“A week before graduation. Mum and Dad came over to support me.”

Lola’s graduation… I was in the clinic back then. In very bad shape. I never thought anything about Mum and Dad going to visit Lola for a week. I’d assumed that that had always been the plan. Only then does it dawn on me. “Mum and Dad know.”

Lola nods. “Yeah, they’ve always known.”

“Hunter knows, Tessa’s younger brother knows… Only I didn’t.” Anger surges through me, and I rip myself away from Lola. I was the only one who didn’t know that my own twin had nearly died.

“Lizzy…” Lola grabs my arm but I pull myself free again.

“No. Why did you never tell me?”

“We thought it would be bad to tell you when you were at the clinic. You needed to recover and this wouldn’t have been good. But when you finally got out… It felt weird. I wanted to leave it behind me. I didn’t want to talk about it. Mum and Dad wanted me to tell you, but I didn’t want to anymore by that time.”

“Excuses. You never wanted to tell me, so why should I listen now?” Why do people keep hiding things from me? Lying to me? I guess I’m back to being the ‘sick girl’ again, the one who can’t handle anything.

“I’m telling you now.” Lola stands in front of me, her face pained. “I’m telling you.”

“No. You’re not telling me
what
happened, you’re just telling me that something bad happened to you and you’ve been hiding it from me for years. Me. Your twin sister.
You
like to point that out to me. I’m your twin, twins share things. But apparently not everything.”

“Lizzy… please.” When I see her tears, mine won’t stop either. “I never meant to hide this from you.”

“And yet you did. I can’t do this. I—I think I’m going back to the clinic now.” There it’s safe, at least there I know what happens. There people at least don’t hide huge secrets from me.

A strong hand grabs my shoulder and I’m about to fight myself free, only to realize it’s Hunter.

“You’re leaving?”

I look at him, at his arm in the sling, the pained look on his face. He also knows what happened to Lola. He too.

“Yeah. I need to get back to the clinic.” I’m exhausted by now. Too many things went on.

Lola steps closer. “At least let me get you back to the clinic.”

“No.” I shake my head. “I don’t think that is a good idea. Not now.” Not now, not any time soon. I grab my bags and look at them. They both look so devastated that I’m leaving, but I just can’t deal with it. The secrets, the hiding, the ‘protecting’ me.

I walk down the hallway and even when I walk away, I hear Lola’s tears. Her pain. I want to turn around, but as she thought of me previously, now I need to think of myself. I need to figure out what I think about all this before I talk to her again. The knowledge that so many people have been hiding this secret from me, it rips a dark hole inside me. A black hole that is attempting to suck all the good things that have happened since into it.

* * *

“
L
izzy
.” Janine knocks on my door and I only groan.

It’s Sunday, they usually let me sleep in on a Sunday morning. So why is she waking me? “Yeah?”

“Can I come in?”

I pull the blanket up higher. “Sure. Come on in.”

Janine opens the door quietly and steps into my room. “How are you feeling? Sofia said that you were upset last night. I’m checking in on you.”

“I’m okay.” I didn’t do anything stupid or anything that would upset them.

Janine kneels in front of the bed, looking at me closely. “Did you cry?”

I shrug. I cried myself to sleep, and then I woke up from a nightmare. I dreamed that everybody was leaving me, everybody was lying to me. And then I cried myself back to sleep again. Something about dreams and reality mixing.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

I shake my head.

“Okay. Just know that you need to have breakfast in the next hour, yeah? It’s nine in the morning.” She stands up again, I can see the worry in her eyes, in the lines of her mouth. She’ll write it in my file—‘Lizzy cried, something upset her’—and then everyone from Rose to Dr Cole will check my every move for the next week…

“I’ll be up soon.” I sit up as Janine leaves the room again. Nine, so maybe I did get some sleep, even though I don’t feel like I have. I turn my phone on and check for messages. There are some from Lola and my parents, and then, at the end, also one from Hunter. I’m tempted to open it, but then I put the phone down again. I don’t need all of this right now. I need something quiet and simple. Even when that’s going to be difficult in a corridor with girls everywhere.

I lift myself out of bed and grab some other clothes to wear. Sweating and twisting and turning doesn’t make for comfortable clothes. As I get dressed, I run my fingers over all the spots where I used to harm myself. The inside of my thighs, the sides of my hips, my stomach, and finally my upper arms and my wrists. The scars are barely visible any more, just thin lines. It’s been years since I hurt myself last, even when the urge to do so surfaces regularly. No, correct that, I’ve not
cut
myself in a long time, but I’ve punished myself with food too. But that’s invisible, that is something people don’t see. So they ignore it until it’s too late.

I make my way to the main area and check the breakfast schedule for me. Croissants and orange juice. I frown. Right now, I’d really like to eat something that is simple and safe. This feels like a bad sign for the rest of my day… Ugh.

Luckily, breakfast is over quickly, and even though the nurses are keeping an eye on me, I can mostly ignore them. When I’m almost done, the head nurse, Laura, comes over and sits down next to me.

“Hi.”

“Hi.” I look at my plate, the tears suddenly close under the surface. I hate feeling off-balance.

“What are your plans for the day?”

“Art.” If all else fails, art. And, even with everything going on, I’m dying to try out my new supplies.

“Do you need someone to supervise?”

I shake my head. “I’m okay, just a bit upset. I’m not a danger to myself.”

“Are you sure?” I know she has to ask, but also has to use her own intuition. I’ve got a lot of freedom at the moment, so they can’t really stop me unless they think I’m a real danger to myself or others. I’m not, I’m really not.

“Yeah. I bought supplies yesterday and I really want to try them out.”

“Do you want to try them here, in your room, or in the art therapy room?”

I’ve bought paints and other things, so my room is not that good of an idea, plus the hallway will be busy all day today. “The art therapy room.”

“I’ll get someone to open the room for you. Is there anything else that you need? You know you can talk to people if you need to.”

“I know. Thanks.” I don’t feel like talking just yet. I need to express myself through art before I can use my words to express myself. That is how my brain works.

I clean my plate and put it away. I change into my painters’ clothes and then take my supplies to the art room. Inside, it’s empty. There isn’t anyone around and the quiet calms me down somewhat. I close the door behind me and pull down the screen on the door—no peeking in. I take out my new paints and grab some paper from the stacks. Then I cover the floor in cloth and start to arrange a couple of sheets of paper on it.

I sit down in the middle, my supplies all around me, and I start to paint in front of me—just colors, adding, mixing, creating nothing but more colors. Slowly I relax, the painting coming together in ways that I can’t see at first, but soon becomes clear. I lose myself in it. The creating, the calm of it all.

So when the door closes, after I’ve been painting for at least an hour or two, I startle. I look up, ready to glare at whoever disturbed me. But instead, I find Lola standing in the room, her hands behind her back, her eyes unsure.

She walks over, looking at the things I’m making. She doesn’t say anything, she just looks.

I’m not the first to talk. I’ve said everything I wanted to, everything I needed to. So instead, I hold out my brush and my paints.

Lola takes it, not paying attention to the paint that is all over my hands. She looks at the paper and paints a little in one of the corners. The colors match well with what is going on around it. She hands me back the supplies. We go back and forth like this a couple of times. Creating together, making things together. There is so much that we don’t say, but at least I’m no longer mad at her.

I look up as she sits back, her face pained, and she takes a couple of shuddering breaths, opening her mouth as if she wants to say something, but doesn’t. Then she meets my eyes. “I missed you so much. After everything I went through, I was so alone. Mum and Dad didn’t know what to do, or what to say. I didn’t have anyone else. And I couldn’t tell you, or I would have to explain what happened, how I—” Her voice gives out, sobs racking her.

I get up, quickly closing the distance between us, and wrap my arms around her. Holding her as close as I can. It hurts to know that she didn’t have anyone, even though I was right there. I was feeling exactly the same, and we just didn’t reach out to each other.