Page 124 of Speechless
“You warped a vulnerable mind.”
“Oh, that isit, you ungrateful, snobbish, uptight bitch.” Sarah’s angry voice struck like a missile into the center of gathering tension, followed swiftly by the woman herself as she pushed through the throng blocking the doorway.
Cain was on her heels, eyeing one of Jenna’s sisters with aHey, thereexpression strong enough to whip her panties off without a single word passing from the sinful curve of his mouth. He flicked an eyebrow at her—Isabella, Connor recalled from Jenna’s recitation of names—and grinned at full wattage when she dropped her gaze and blushed cherry red.
Flirtatious asshole.
Sarah bulled her way to Ilene, slipping so easily past her husband’s quick grab, Connor was sure Zeke flubbed the move on purpose. Toe to toe, several inches shorter than the Gucci queen, Sarah bared her teeth. “That man gave up the entirety of his life to take care of Jenna when she needed him most. While the police and the FBI twiddled their thumbs trying to identify your daughter, Connor was the one on the front line, dealing with the fallout of her trauma. Don’t you dare criticize him for giving her a family, a support system, when she had no one else in this godforsaken world.”
“And you are?”
“Your worst fucking nightmare. You don’t get to keep him from the woman he loves, just as you don’t have the right to keep Jenna from the man she loves.” The finger jab between Ilene’s breasts might have been pushing it, but Connor didn’t have the energy to protest his friend’s passionate defense. “Only Jenna can choose whether she wants to be Jenna or Penelope, and you triggered that minefield when you forced the decision from her hands. Blew it up clean in your face. No second chances.”
“Why, you—”
“Yes, me. Takemeon. You’re more than willing to bring the axe down on the head of a man who’s obviously incapable of defending himself when he’s half-passed out in a chair, bleeding from wounds he sustained saving Jenna’s life. Take on someone who isn’t incapacitated.”
The hollow crack of a slap rippled through the room.
Chapter Twenty-Five
She wasn’t sedated.
She just didn’t want to be here anymore. Couldn’t bear the physical pain anymore, handle the isolation anymore. She wanted no moreanymore. She only wanted to be able to let go and…cease to exist.
She hadn’t meant to scream when the doctor came in and started prodding and poking at her injuries, but he’d startled her from a foggy doze, and in the dim light of the room, all she’d seen was Sire, looming over her as his hands brought the pain.
Once the first scream let loose, the others followed unbidden.
When the hallucinations came in the form of Connor, she didn’t brush them away or close her eyes to get rid of him. She missed him so much she was willing to take even a shadow of his presence to keep her company.
Now there was shouting and chaos, more people in her little hell than there’d been in days. Joanna was nice, but she wasn’t Sarah. The doctors were kind, but they weren’t Connor. Even though her solitary existence now teemed with life, Jenna couldn’t find the spark needed to appreciate it.
She watched with dead eyes as her former family went head to head with a battered Connor and spitfire Sarah. The hallucination was bleeding badly and looked pale. She almost believed he was real.
Words tumbled in Sarah’s voice, her mother’s. Flung like arrows, striking hard and fast until Jenna’s head rang with the clarity of church bells. But it was the slap, that sharp connection of narrow hand against her friend’s cheek, that pushed Jenna to escape the cold dreariness of her emotional prison.
There’d been enough violence without that.
She opened her eyes as wide as the baggy lids would allow. “No.”
Several pairs of eyes flicked to her, but the ones whose attention she demanded remained steadfastly locked in battle. People rushed toward her—Cain, her father, her sisters, but Zeke blocked them all except Cain. The doctor protested, spluttering as her lover’s brother came to her side, only to be shushed fiercely by Joanna.
A red handprint bloomed over Sarah’s fair-skinned cheek, but she barely flinched as she smiled darkly. “You hit like a girl.” Her fist clenched, raised, and was ready to strike. “Hope you can take it better than you give it.”
“No. Sarah.” The effort of speaking winded her. “Please.”
Dark chocolate eyes snapped to Jenna, softened. With a glare for Ilene, Sarah capitulated and dropped her tiny fist, folding her arms over her breasts. “She deserves it for what she’s put you through, sweetheart.”
Jenna nodded in agreement. Her head didn’t like the movement, and the stitches pulled. The ache in her chest was worse, the loss of what had been, what could have been. Maybe making the choice now when her system was full of drugs wasn’t the wisest thing she’d ever done, but she was sick of the fighting, tired of being directed by outside forces in her life.
She’d nearly died. She didn’t know how she’d gotten to the hospital, couldn’t remember anything that had happened after the lights went out in the cabin that last night with Sire, but someone had intervened and hauled her from death’s door.
She swallowed thickly, her throat dry and sore. An instant later, Cain’s hand slipped beneath her head, raised it an inch while he presented a straw to her cracked lips. She drank slowly, thankful for the water. When she was done, he settled her back into the pillow with the utmost care.
“I don’t…want you here,” she told her mother brokenly. “Not now. You don’t…hit my…friends or…insult them.” She wheezed softly and Cain held up the mask in question. “Don’t need it. Thanks.” She tried a smile, but it shattered when her lip split. “I was…happy as…Jenna. P-Penelope is…dead.”
For the first time, Jenna saw something other than anger in the eyes so like her own. It struck her that this was their big family reunion after her abduction and incarceration, and that it really wasn’t going the way she’d imagined.