Page 8 of Created in Chaos
NOVA
“You were found in the bathroom down the hall from the Union.” As Lucian speaks, I expect some recollection to accompany his words, but there’s still a yawning emptiness inside me.
“I was at school?” I assumed I was in a car wreck, since I kept thinking about the accident. “What happened?” My question is frantic as panic wells up inside me, causing a wave of tremors to rack my body.
“You’re safe, we won’t let anything else happen to you again.” Lucian strokes his hand over my head, but it doesn’t make me feel any better.
“What happened?” I ask again, more insistent this time.
“You were attacked.”
Even though I knew the words were coming, I’m still not prepared for them. The gaping hole inside me surrounding the event grows larger and threatens to swallow me up. Someone did this to me. It had to be more than one someone, because I refuse to think that I could have gotten in this shape any other way. I feel battered, like I did after the accident.
“I was in the bathroom?” I try to think back to my last memory, and the only thing that comes to mind is waking up between Lucian and Nox. It was still dark out, so I pretended I was still asleep for a while longer just so I could stay there with them on the couch and not feel alone.
I don’t even remember getting off the couch or leaving their house. It’s all blank after that, until my dreams and fuzzy memories of trying to wake up at the hospital.
“I can’t remember. Why can’t I remember?” I look between the two brothers, and a sick thought forms in my head without warning. Did they drug me or something, and that’s why I can’t remember anything after spending the morning with them?
“Don’t look at me like that, lamb. You’ve never once been afraid of me, so don’t start that shit now,” Lucian demands, then explains, “You got hit in the head and had some swelling in your brain. The doctors said you might not remember what happened.”
“Jesus,” I hiss as the seriousness of what happened begins to set in. Who the hell could hate me that much? My eyes lift to Lucian. He hates…hated me, but it feels off. He’s too arrogant to deny his involvement if he really were part of this. The tension in my muscles eases, and I settle deeper into the crappy mattress.
“Don’t doubt me again,” he grumbles dejectedly, as if he knows exactly what I was thinking and that I arrived at the conclusion that he most likely wasn’t involved.
“Or what?” I challenge, but it comes out weakly.
He lets out a soft chuckle, and I feel him lean over me before tender lips brush across my forehead. “Or I might make you stroke…” I blink my eyes open to glare up at his cruelly curled lips. “My ego,” he finishes around a smile.
“The only thing I’m going to be stroking is a knife over your throat.” It shouldn’t feel so comforting to threaten him, but it does, and we both know I wouldn’t really do it. Well, I think he knows I wouldn’t anyway.
I feel Lucian’s heavy huff of surprise against the side of my face before he nuzzles my ear. “Oh, lamb, I’m going to hold you to that, but you’ll be riding my cock at the same time.”
I gulp, pretending his comment isn’t slightly terrifying and exciting at the same time.
“Now rest so you can get out of this bed, and we can figure out who did this and make them regret touching you.”
NOX
I squint up at the sun when I exit the hospital. It’s been three days since Nova officially woke up, and the doctors are finally releasing her today. She still can’t remember what happened, and it might be better if she doesn’t. She’s anxious and moody, not that I blame her.
She has nightmares all the time, jerking awake with a scream poised on her lips that never seems to escape her parted mouth. I can’t wait to get her the hell out of here, but Rory thinks she’s returning to the Umbra estate, and that’s not happening.
Lucian will never let her out of his sight. His obsession with her has grown to the point where it’s dangerous for the nurses to even come into the room and disturb her. I know he feels responsible for the attack, and I’m not saying he’s blameless, but I’m worried he’s going to push Nova too far and fuck things up for us because he’s trying to assure himself that she’s safe.
I hand a small slip of paper to the valet standing near the curb, but I doubt he needs it. Our name has been whispered all over this hospital since our arrival. The generous donation we made greased the wheels of the upper management and kept everyone happy, even while my brother acted like a feral asshole ready to lash out at anyone who came close to us or Nova.
I turn my head to see an older man exit a glass door and give the valet a nod of acknowledgement before he tells me, “I’ll take care of that, Mr. Morningstar.”
When he returns with the SUV minutes later, I give my gratitude in the form of a fifty before getting behind the wheel and texting Lucian that we’re good to go.
We only have a small window. Nova’s grandparents know she’s being released today, and despite Lucian’s insistence that she would come home with us, Astrid isn’t on board with the plan, and she could arrive anytime to try to lure our girl away. I’m not sure who Nova would choose to go home with. Considering she’s an adult, the option should be hers, but we’re taking that choice out of her hands, and I don’t feel bad about it.
We still don’t know who attacked her. The bathroom she was assaulted in is just down the hall from the Union, yet no one is coming forward with any information, and all of the cameras were blacked out the night before, letting us know the incident was very much premeditated.
We have a long list of suspects, though, and the elder Umbras haven’t been crossed off the bottom of that list yet, even if it’s purely because we don’t like them. They didn’t stay with Nova. Hell, they barely came to see her the entire time she was in the hospital. We were the ones who were by her bedside every minute, making sure she was okay and that no one tried to fuck with her while she was helpless, which just confirms that they don’t deserve her in their lives.
Lucian is pushing a sour-faced Nova out the door in a wheelchair. I can just imagine her mumbling about being able to walk on her own while he pretends to follow the hospital rules, when we all know he doesn’t follow anyone’s rules unless it suits his needs and having Nova in the chair, completely reliant on him, fits that to a tee.