TWENTY-FOUR
There was something keeping her from consciousness. It was something cool and fluid, like being underwater. It made her thoughts hard to form, her eyes too heavy to open like they should. She lie there, listening, the sounds seeming far away. There was mix of voices were around her. A female she didn't recognize and a male voice she did.
She was catching the tail-end of an argument between the two. "family only..." the woman finished.
"I'm her brother," Gabe's voice came then. Calm, charming, sure of himself.
"And them?" the woman asked.
When Gabe spoke again, his tone was laced with a bit of amusement, but steely. "We're all her family," he told the woman.
"Yeah," came another familiar voice. "I'm her brother too." K. That was K.
Ellie heard laughter, short and quiet. "And those two?" the woman asked and Ellie could practically hear the resignation in her voice. She knew she wasn't going to win the argument.
"Cousin," a voice she didn't know said. He sounded younger, like a teenager.
"And you?" the woman asked, sounding more and more frustrated.
"Her other cousin," came the voice she hadn't realized she wanted to hear so badly. Xander.
She struggled harder against the drugs keeping her down.
Coming into her consciousness felt precisely like surfacing from water, slow and thick, making frustrating progress before suddenly breaking through.
The room was bright, both from the fluorescent light overhead and the sun shining through the windows at the side of her bed. The walls were white, the floor, the blankets covering her... everything was white. So, she was in a hospital, she realized with an almost overwhelming sense of relief.
It hadn't been a hallucination. Xander really had charged in and taken down Nick and Jason. And then so had Gabe and K. Xander really had taken her out of her shackles and carried her up the stairs. He really had been holding her in the backseat of a car.
She really was free.
The tears came then, hot and fast, streaming down her cheeks.
How many hours she had spent thinking about death? About the easiest and fastest way to kill herself. Because there wasn't any hope. Because no one knew what had happened. No one would know where to find her. All that time and they had all found one another, put their heads together, and searched for her. They hadn't given up on her.
The tears lessened as she watched the nurse continuing to argue with her saviors. They all looked tired. Even model-perfect Gabe. Their faces were scruffy, their eyes puffy. There were bruises on them all. Gabe's light skin had a deep purple mark under his eye, K had one across his jaw. Xander had several down one side of his face.
They towered over the middle-aged nurse, looking too much like warriors to be in such a mundane, normal environment.
"Hey guys," the young voice broke in. She had been right. He was a teenager. And he had a split and swollen lip. "Guys," he called, louder.
"What?" Xander asked, then turned and froze, staring at her like she was some mythical creature lying in the hospital bed. "Ellie," he said, moving quickly to her side. "Heya sweetheart," he smiled, reaching for her hand. "You're in a hospital," he said, unnecessarily.
"I see that," she said, her voice sounding hoarse. She smiled up at him, ignoring the pain she felt at the movement. She gave him a smile that had her whole heart in it. "You saved me," she said simply.
"Of course we did," Xander smiled back.
"Miss Piotrowski," the nurse said, sounding surly, probably from fighting with her four warriors for God-knew how long, "can you please tell me who these men are?"
"Oh," Ellie said, a smile playing at her lips as she tried to sound serious. "Well, this is my cousin," she said, looking at Xander. "And that's my other cousin," she said, looking toward the teenager she had never seen before in her life. "And those two," she inclined her head toward K and Gabe, "they're my brothers," she finished and they were all laughing, smiling big goofy smiles.
"Oh, for God's sake," the nurse said, rolling her eyes and looking up at the ceiling. "Fine," she said, shaking her head and moving to the door. "Just keep it down in here."
There was a pregnant silence when the door closed. Everyone was shifting their feet, watching her like she was going to crumble into a million pieces.
"You guys look awful," she said and they laughed.
"How are you feeling?" Xander asked, his fingers stroking her hand.
"Well, I'm not hanging from my wrists anymore," she said, attempting levity, "so... pretty damn good."
"You have two broken ribs," K said, his tone as reassuring as she remembered, "lacerations on your feet, stitches in your wrists, various bumps and bruises, and a nasty cut on the back of your head." That was from where they had originally knocked her out. While she was on the phone with him. It seemed like so long ago. "You were severely dehydrated when you came in so you've been on IV fluids."
"How long?" she asked.
"Two days," K answered.
"No," she said, shaking her head slightly. "How long was I down there?"
K looked down at his feet. Her eyes found Xander's, who was staring at the bandages on her wrists.
Gabe was the one who spoke up, moving toward the foot of her bed. "Four weeks."
Everyone seemed so stressed. Sad. Guilty. She could barely take it. "Damn," she said, "didn't beat my previous record then," she said and their horrified gazes fell on her, making her laugh. "I'm sorry," she said, shaking her head. "It's just... you all look so serious."
"Are you sure you're alright?" Xander asked, watching her curiously.
"I'm fine." Better than fine. Alive. Not being hit and starved and cut. She was away from him. And it made her feel almost giddy inside. "How?" she asked, waving her free hand, looking at K.
"Like I told you, I was in the city," he shrugged, "looking for you and I met this one," he said, nodding toward Xander. "I told him I would tell him when I knew you were safe. And then I got your call..." his voice drifted off, his eyes looking pained for a second, "and I tracked him down. We've all been working together since."
Ellie nodded. She should have known K would have sought out the person he knew she was getting help from. She turned to Xander. "And what about him?" she said, tilting her head toward the kid.
"Remember how you told me to take care of strays?" he asked, and she smiled.
"My name is Ryan," the kid said, standing, but not moving closer, respecting the fact that she didn't know him, giving her space.
"Hey," she said, wondering how old he was. How he ended up in Xander's care. How the men could have possibly thought it was a good idea to take a kid into whatever brawl they had all obviously gotten into.
But they were questions left for another day as Gabe walked over and patted him on the shoulder, tilting his head toward the door. "We are all gonna go catch a shower, Ellie," Gabe said, nodding to Xander. "We'll be back in a few hours."
"Hey," she called as they quickly made their way to the door. "Thank you."
K smiled at her, a look she didn't realize how much she had missed over the years. Gabe rolled his eyes. "Damsel. Distress. What man could resist that kind of adventure?" he winked and they walked out, leaving her and Xander alone.
The silence drug on, Xander petting her in places: her hand, her shoulder, her knee. Like he needed to keep proving to himself that she was there.
"Hi," she said, feeling almost shy.
His eyes found hers then, dark, searching. Then, almost immediately, amused. "You know... this was taking the whole 'playing hard to get' thing to the extreme."
Ellie laughed, ignoring the shooting pain in her side, and just let herself enjoy the moment, the short amount of time where they could completely ignore the reality of what had taken place. Where things were easy and normal. "Xander..."
"Don't thank me," he said, shaking his head. "It comes with the territory," he said.
Ellie felt something in her chest deflate a little, a new, sharp pain stabbing in her heart. "Right," she said, knowing her voice sounded sad and not caring. "It's part of the job."
"No," Xander said, rolling his eyes. "It's part of being in love with you."
"What?" she asked, sure that she had misheard him. Or that the medicine they were giving her was stronger than she originally thought. "You're not..."
"Yeah," Xander said, a part of him enjoying her disbelief, "yeah, doll, I am."
She watched him for a moment, a part of her not believing it, the other part trying to place the new feeling she was having inside. It was like something in her chest was fluttering its wings. Like she herself was flying. It took her an embarrassingly long time to recognize it as happiness. "Well, that's convenient," she said, bringing her other arm across her body to rest on his hand, "because I'm in love with you too."
"I know," Xander said, smirking at her.
"What?" she asked, wrinkling her nose. Who responded like that to a declaration of love? "How did you know?"
"Because the cord snapped," he said, sending her a crooked smile.
She reached down, putting a hand under his chin, and pulling him up toward her.
"Baby, your lips are all..."
"Just shut up and kiss me," she said, leaning toward him.
–
She got the reluctant doctor to hand her discharge papers the next day, along with a stern warning that she was to spend a week in bed to let her ribs and feet heal completely or she would just end up right back in the hospital.
Xander had left a few minutes before, going to grab a shower and a change of clothes for her to wear home.
"Gabe," she said, hanging her feet off the side of the bed. "Do you know Faith?"
"From Lam? Yeah," Gabe said, his brows drawing together. "Why?"
"Do you have her number?"
"Yeah..." Gabe said, drawing the word out.
"Dial her and hand me the phone," she said, pushing herself onto her feet, waving off K who reached out to help.
She took the phone, walking carefully to the bathroom and closing the door. "Hey Faith, it's Ellie. From the panic room," she said, sounding amused. "I have a favor to ask."
She sat in her room a few minutes later, still in her thin hospital gown, but with a lightweight blue robe covering it.
There were a lot of things Xander was willing to do. Things that crossed the letter of the law. Things that might even push the lines of morality. But there were some things she knew that he could never be a part of. And this was one.
Ellie never considered herself a particularly vengeful person. She hadn't lain awake at night thinking of ways to make Nick suffer for what he had done to her. Her main mindset for years had been survival. How she could hold onto her freedom. And her life.
That was what she was choosing to call what she was about to do: survival. It was the only way she could have a life. It was the only way she could stay in one place, put down roots and not have to look over her shoulder.
She looked down at the paper in her hand. On one side, it was just an address. That was all.
See, Nick would get in chatty moods after he cut her or hit her or did whatever he wanted to do to her. It was like the violence was cathartic to him, like it purged his anger, leaving in its place a sweet, gentle version of himself. And that Nick liked to talk to her about the life they were going to live once she felt better, once she got back to herself. He was going to bring her to a beach and let her get a tan. He was going to introduce her to all the new restaurants that had opened up in Trenton since she left.
And then he was going to take her to their new home.
He'd spent endless hours prattling on about the layout of the house, about the paint colors, about the size of the property, about the lake it overlooked.
She'd even gotten the address.
Thirteen Lily Bell Lane.
Ellie took a deep breath as she looked over the paper.
On the side that wasn't the address, she'd sketched out the floor plan, making sure to mark all the exits and hidden passways.
It was the only way.
"Gabe," she said when she heard footsteps in the hall, "you are going to want to leave. Right now," she said as they got closer.
"What? Why?"
"Because you don't want to be a part of this," she said as they finally turned into the room. Faith. And Vin.
Gabe's eyes widened, looking at her like she had lost her mind. But he sighed and walked out a moment later. K looked at her, his eyes knowing. He nodded, approving, knowing it was the only way. She got the sneaking suspicion that if she didn't turn to Vin, K would be the one to put things to a very permanent end. But she didn't want that on his shoulders.
K touched her arm then followed Gabe out into the hallway.
Even next to someone as powerful, as dangerous as Vin, Faith looked like fire and brimstone. Like hell on heels. She nodded at Ellie, offering her a strange smile.
"Miss Piotrowski," Vin said, coming into the room, closing the door behind him. "You wanted to see me?" She felt small with him in the room, shabby in her hospital gown and gift shop robe while he stood there in an immaculate three-piece black suit. His eyes were keen, taking in her injuries with an odd sort of detachment, but there was a wince when he finally got to her face.
Ellie took a deep breath, holding out the piece of paper toward him. He walked over, curious, and took it. She watched as he read it, his brows furrowing for a moment before recognition dawned on him.
He stepped back, tucking the note into his chest pocket, and looking up at her. "This will be... mutually beneficial," he said, nodding, and walked out of her room.
Faith stood there a minute and Ellie could feel her heart slamming in her chest, full of an overwhelming sense of guilt. "Tell me I did the right thing," she demanded of Faith.
Faith took a deep breath, walking over to Ellie and placing her hands on the bandages of her wrists. "You did what you needed to do to be free," she said, her eyes seeking Ellie's, trying to urge her to believe, "and that's always the right thing."