King (Endgame Book 1)

by Riley Ashby

  Combat Boots looked at me incredulously. Buried beneath the five-day-old stubble and greasy hair was a boy not much older than myself. This kid hadn’t come after us expecting a fight, just an easy mark. It was unlikely he had ever even fired a gun.

  “Shoot me and my friend over there finishes off your boyfriend.”

  Any pity I might have had for him evaporated.

  Time seemed to stop when I finally looked over at Ellery. He was doubled over at the waist, and at first, I thought Leather Jacket had punched him. And then, slowly, the assailant pulled his hand away. Slick red blood coated the blade that had been silver only a moment before. Ellery clapped his hand over the source of the blood.

  “Get out of here, Sophie.” I couldn’t even register his words. My ears filled with the sound of blood rushing from his body.

  Combat Boots was moving toward me. There was pressure on my arm, and I pulled the trigger of the gun without thinking. The sound echoed in the alleyway along with a piercing scream from Combat Boots.

  “You bitch! You shot me in the hand!”

  All the distracted parts of me collapsed into a single point of focus. If I didn’t manage this situation, both of us were going to die.

  I focused my attention on the man holding Ellery, speaking to the one bleeding in front of me. “And I’ll shoot your friend too if you don’t get the fuck away from us right now.”

  “How do you know I won’t kill your friend?” Leather Jacket talked a big game, but I could see this was a spur of the moment attack. They were young, probably out here looking for drugs and not intending to actually hurt anyone.

  “Because if you do, I will use every last cent of his considerable wealth to make the rest of your lives hell. Get out of here and I will leave you alone.”

  They considered the proposition for a moment, Combat Boots still keening over his hand. One of his fingers was on the pavement.

  “Fuck it, man, I have to get to the hospital.”

  “Now!” I barked, and they took off, but not before Leather Jacket shoved Ellery forward so his head hit the pavement with a crack. I didn’t think it would be enough to knock him out, but he didn’t move. Maybe he had lost too much blood.

  For the rest of my life I would wonder how things might have been different if I had stayed still a little bit longer. The adrenaline of the situation had worn off, and I was frozen in place, my eyes on Ellery. All I could think about was trying to remember how much blood the human body contained, how much you could lose before your life was in danger, and trying to figure out how much of his blood was on the ground already.

  It looked like a lot.

  Get a grip. Something bad was happening. I let myself take two breaths then dropped the gun and ran to Ellery’s shadowy form. I fell to my knees, my head on his chest. His heartbeat was frantic but strong. I searched for the source of the blood from his side. I couldn’t even see how wide it was for all the gore spilling across his slick skin faster than I could wipe it away, gushing forth with every beat of his heart.

  “Oh God.” Tears sprang to my eyes. No matter how angry I was at him, it all washed away. It didn’t matter when he was lying on the ground like this. There was so much blood, and it was all on the wrong side of his skin. He told me there was an explanation. He told me, and I didn’t listen, and now it didn’t matter because I would never be able to hear it. His eyelids kept fluttering up and down, and there was a deepening bruise on his forehead too. I was crying over him as I pressed my hands against his stomach, hoping to stanch the flow even a little.

  “Listen to me, Ellery,” I ground out between clenched teeth. “You have to hang on for a little bit. I’ll get you help.” I had no idea if he could hear me or not. When his eyelids fluttered open, the eyes staring back at me were blank and unseeing. Warm blood rushed over my fingers as I let up on the pressure, distracted, and I forced myself to focus. How was I going to go get help? I couldn’t leave him here, couldn’t even search for his phone among the hidden jacket pockets.

  And then, like a miracle, I became aware of a voice calling out. It was saying his name then mine.

  “Castel.” The word came out too soft. I was still staring at Ellery’s face, crying. I called again, louder. “Castel!”

  I didn’t look up or try to wipe away my tears as he came running down the alley toward us.

  “What happened?” he barked.

  “There were some men. They tried to take or rob us … I don’t know. He got hurt.”

  “Where are they now?” He was looking around wildly, phone to his ear, barking about an ambulance.

  “I shot one of them,” I whispered. He almost dropped the phone.

  “You what? Where did you get a gun?”

  “One of them dropped it. They were very uncoordinated. They ran off.”

  He hung up the phone and fell to the ground next to me. “Let me see where he’s bleeding.”

  “No!” I cried out as he tried to remove my hands. “He’s bleeding too much.” My voice was a choked sob. I was losing it.

  Castel placed his hands over mine. “It’s just for a second. I need to understand what we’re dealing with.”

  I refused to move, believing I was holding the rest of the blood in his body by sheer force. If I moved my hands, I wouldn’t be able to stop it again. He would die. He would die right here, and the last thing I would have said to him would be that I didn’t need him. It didn’t matter that it was a lie. I would never get to tell him. I would be left here forever, kneeling in a pool of his blood, and he would think I hated him.

  Castel put his hand on my shoulder. “Sophie, trust me.”

  Shaking, I pulled back from the wound. A new rush of tears fell down my cheeks as his heartbeat pushed the blood forth.

  “Okay.” Castel had somehow removed his shirt without my noticing and was holding it against Ellery’s side. “You can hold it again.”

  I moved so quickly to hold him again our hands bumped.

  “Is he going to die?”

  Castel took my face in his hands even though they were wet with Ellery’s blood. “He’ll be okay. The ambulance will be here any second.”

  I nodded so hard my brain shook inside my skull. He had to be right. Ellery had to be okay.

  The wail of the ambulance filled my ears, and moments later Castel was prying my hands away from Ellery once again as the EMTs did their work.

  “Let me go with him,” I choked out, but the ambulance doors were already closing. I could feel Castel’s fingers digging into my arms. I hated him so much for keeping me back. “He needs me.” I couldn’t let him out of my sight. Not now. Not when he was so vulnerable. He was never vulnerable. He didn’t know how to protect himself.

  “You’ll be there when he wakes up, I swear it.” Castel’s voice in my ear betrayed his own worry.

  He rushed me to the car as the ambulance pulled away, and we broke the speed limit the entire way to the hospital.

  Everything was pain. Kryptonite flowed through me, and I couldn’t expel it. Any attempt at movement was met with blinding agony. There was pressure on my torso and on my hand. My eyes cracked open, and I saw slim fingers holding my own. The nails were white from how tightly the person was holding, but I could barely feel it.

  My finger twitched, and I heard a gasp. A shadow passed over me. Then it was all dark.

  *

  I could hear again. The words were a different language, unique to anything I had heard before and spoken underwater.

  Hands and more words. I recognized their frantic cadence, even if I couldn’t understand them. Something was different about the pressure on my stomach. It was sharper. But that hand was still on mine.

  *

  When I finally surfaced for good, I was in my room at home. I stared at the ceiling, taking note of the familiar imperfections in the paint I refused to correct because they gave me a focal point to stare at when I couldn’t fall asleep. I blinked a few times, trying to focus my gaze and understand how I c
ame to be here.

  I could feel another presence in the room with me. Ignoring the ache in my neck, I rolled my head to the side … and relaxed.

  Sophie was asleep in an armchair she had pulled up to the edge of my bed. Her knees were curled underneath her like when she was reading. Luke was at her feet, his head resting on the edge of the bed. As I made eye contact with him, his body began to wriggle in time with his tail.

  The events came back in slow waves. Sophie had talked to Josie. Josie had told her what I was doing with Chase. And Sophie … Sophie ran off. There were men in the alley, men who tried to take her, and I got in the way.

  I had to take a moment to soak in the full implications of what had happened. Having her walk away would have been hard enough, but seeing her in danger had almost killed me in a way that had nothing to do with my physical injuries.

  I thought she was going to leave me, but now she was here.

  Panic overcame me for an entirely different reason. I needed to touch her everywhere and ensure she wasn’t hurt. Whatever I was going through was secondary to her well-being. Luke nuzzled my extended hand as my fingertips grazed Sophie’s knee.

  Her eyes fluttered open, and she met my gaze. She smiled dreamily, like she didn’t realize she was awake. In that moment, it could have been any other morning.

  “Hi,” I whispered.

  She shot to a sitting position.

  “Oh my God. You’re awake. Are you in pain? Can you understand me?”

  She shuffled closer to me, reached out to touch me. I grabbed her fingers. She didn’t pull away.

  “Ellery, can you hear me?”

  I swallowed and nodded. The movement sent my head swimming. “Water.”

  She leaped off the chair and picked up a cup resting on my nightstand. I forced my head to turn toward her as she held a straw to my lips. I made to grab the glass, but she pulled it out of my reach.

  “Let me help you. You’re weak.”

  I scowled, but she shoved the straw between my parched lips. “Now is not the time to be proud. I’ll ask the doctor to sedate you again if you don’t let me help.”

  I wanted to protest, but the water on my tongue was life giving. I had been thirsty before, but now that I tasted it, I could drink forever. I gulped greedily and moaned when she withdrew the glass.

  “You shouldn’t overdo it. Hold on, I need to tell Dr. Halloway that you’re up.”

  I tried to tell her not to go, but she ran off before I could force the words out. I tried to take stock without moving my head. There was an IV in my arm, which I removed immediately. The pinch was nothing compared to the burning that racked my torso.

  The next person who entered my vision was not who I had hoped.

  “It’s a relief to see you awake, Ellery.” Dr. Halloway was smiling, but the tension around his eyes belied his worry. “You were pretty banged up. You’re lucky Sophia got you back here as quick as she did.”

  I looked to the side and could just see her at the edge of my vision, biting her thumbnail nervously.

  “Stop that,” I rasped. She dropped her hand immediately, and I tried to smile. She didn’t look amused.

  “Do you want to sit?”

  I looked back to the doctor. “Obviously.” What kind of question was that?

  He raised an eyebrow but gave no other reply. He turned to Sophie instead, beckoning her to help him. The mattress shifted as she climbed across it then slid her hands under my shoulder. Halloway took his same position on the other side. On the count of three, they shifted my torso upward.

  The pain was unbearable. I screamed as the wound in my side twisted, feeling the stabbing agony all over again. There was a fire in my belly trying to work its way out.

  “We’re not doing this,” Sophie said, pulling back.

  “Sit me up,” I growled through gritted teeth. “Now.”

  “Perhaps it would be better …” Halloway ignored me, looking to her for his cues.

  “I’m going to sit,” I snapped, and no more was said. This time, I bit my tongue hard enough to taste blood as I was moved to a sitting position. Sophie kneeled in front of me, biting her lower lip and looking troubled. Her fingers flew over me as if searching for new wounds.

  “You got lucky,” Halloway said. He pushed down the sheet that was covering my bare chest, revealing an angry black line of stitches across my stomach. “It was more of a slash than a stab, so it wasn’t as deep as it could have been. Missed all the major organs.”

  “Bled a lot, though.”

  Sophie’s voice was cracked like glass. My heart broke at the tears in her eyes.

  I took several moments to collect myself. I wanted to throw up the small amount of water I had just swallowed. Even breathing hurt. Sophie placed the palm of her hand flat against my heart.

  When I regained my composure, I turned back to Halloway.

  “What’s wrong with her?”

  There was a beat of confused silence. “What?”

  I couldn’t look away from her for too long. My head hurt with every movement, but I had to keep my eyes on her. “You were limping. Why?”

  That thumbnail flew to her mouth again, but she didn’t bite down. “It’s not a big deal.”

  “Dammit, Sophie.” I drove my fist into the mattress. Bad move. Apparently my shoulder was connected to the stitches somehow. “Just answer me.” She still looked uncertain. I tried to soften my voice. “Please.” It stung me that I couldn’t examine her myself and make this all go away. The least she could do was be honest with me.

  She hesitated then shifted her foot out in front of me. Even underneath the bandage that swathed her ankle, I could see it was swollen and bruised. “I twisted my ankle diving for the gun.”

  I groaned.

  “She had some scrapes too,” Dr. Halloway interjected. “I gave her a tetanus shot.”

  “Do you see?” I asked her. I tried my best to look reproachful; it was difficult when I could feel every beat of my heart pulsing through my temples. “If you hadn’t run off, this wouldn’t have happened.”

  “Oh shut up,” she said. My jaw dropped. Halloway’s eyebrows flew off his forehead. “I never would have run off if you hadn’t lied to me so egregiously.”

  A new pressure was building in my head, pure rage this time. I tried to tamp it down. I didn’t want to feel that way toward her, not when we had almost been separated so permanently.

  I tried to change the subject. “How long was I under?”

  She frowned and covered her mouth. This was going to be bad. “Three days.”

  I nearly screamed again. “God dammit.” My fist slammed into the mattress again, heedless of the pain. “God fucking dammit.”

  No one breathed.

  “I’ll give you two a few minutes,” the doctor said and left the room.

  I took some time to focus on Sophie. Her whole body was tense and angled toward me. She wasn’t angry; her eyes were brimming with tears. I felt myself soften. It must have taken so much out of her to watch over me these past few days.

  “Sophie …” I reached out to touch her cheek, and she erupted into tears. She grabbed my hand with both of hers and pressed her face into my palm.

  “You were in so much pain, Ellery.”

  Her distress was so raw, so clear. It hurt more than my wound. The pores of my skin opened to soak in her tears, trying to absorb some of that pain. Her breath came in shuddering gasps.

  “I wanted to wake you up, but every time you came out of sedation you were screaming and thrashing. You kept ripping open your stitches. It sounded like you were dying.”

  I thumbed my touch across her cheeks. “I didn’t die. I’m right here.”

  “I didn’t know that then!” She sat but didn’t let go of my hand. “I thought you were gone. Your heartbeat was pouring out into the street, and I didn’t know how to stop it.”

  I couldn’t find any words, so I moved my hand to her shoulder and tugged her toward me. I meant to simply pull her aga
inst my side, but she threw her leg over and straddled me, burying her face in my chest with her hands linked behind my neck. She was so careful to hold herself above me and not put any weight on my injured side.

  “I was frozen for the longest time. I couldn’t move. I thought you had bled out in those moments. When the ambulance finally came, you had lost so much blood that you were blue.” Her hands stroked my cheeks as tears poured across her own. Every drop was like a knife to my heart. “I didn’t know how to make you warm again. You looked so cold.”

  She wiped her cheeks with little success. I put her face between my hands, trying to pull her soul out with my eyes.

  “You stayed with me.”

  “I couldn’t leave you.” Her voice was strangled. “But I’m so fucking mad at you, Ellery.”

  I nodded as vigorously as I could. I wanted to impress upon her how seriously I was taking this. “I will explain to you. I promise.”

  She bit her lip. She wasn’t convinced, but she nodded all the same. Our foreheads pressed together.

  “How did I get back here?”

  When she spoke again, her voice was thick. She sniffed. “Castel convinced the hospital after they got you stable. I thought you’d lose it if you woke up there.”

  “You thought right.” I kissed her, but she pulled away too soon. She couldn’t breathe through her nose. “I’m proud of you. You did a good job.” I took a deep breath. “I shouldn’t have yelled at you.”

  She nodded in agreement but didn’t gloat over my apology. “Castel did business things. I didn’t want to touch it.”

  “I’m sure he did fine. Is he here?”

  She nodded. “Do you want to talk to him?”

  “In a little bit. Just stay here with me for a while.”

  “Okay.”

  We were quiet for some time. I brushed the tears from her cheeks until they stopped falling.