I did not want drugs.
The nerve pain in my hip, though. It was a spiked blade that had got worse and worse over the past few months. Time had done nothing to dull it, and frustration rattled me. I leaned over the counter, resting my head on my folded arms, trying to calm my breathing.
Ranger rubbed my back. “You should take something for it.”
I did not answer him. What was the point? I could not take anything—nothing that would work. It was my penance to suffer and I had to live with it.
“No, you don’t.”
Startled, I raised my head.
Ranger glared, belligerence flaring in his black gaze. “You don’t have to live with it. Opiates aren’t the only drugs in the fucking world.”
“Fine. Give me some aspirin, Asher. All will be fixed.”
Sarcasm, deep and true. He already knew over the counter pain medication would not touch the nerve pain that had such a stranglehold over me right now. Jake had told him. Probably Folk and Locke too. Andhe knewI could never again take anything stronger—that the reason the pills he’d needed for his head were locked away in someone else’s house still held true.
I straightened up, needing out of a conversation with no destination.
Ranger blocked me. “It’s the same for Folk. He gave me something you can take.”
“No.”
“Why do you want to suffer for the sake of it?”
“You think I want this?”
Ranger curved his long body around me, caging me in place unless I shoved him away. “I think you’ve spent so long taking care of me and my bashed in head, you’ve forgotten how to live without your own fucking pain.”
“Who told you that? Folk? Or Saint?”
Rangergrowled, ripping his body from mine, and strode away.
I missed him instantly, regretting the words that spilled out of me instead of the truth. It was foolish to deny I’d been worried about him since he’d sustained such a serious head injury. That watching him lay Rocco to rest with his Crow brothers had shamed me for not giving more thought to how he’d grieved for his fallen friend. It did not matter that he’d told mehehad not given it much thought either until Saint had retrieved Rocco’s ashes. Ranger deserved better from me.
He deserves better than this.
I wrenched my body into motion and followed the tug in my heart to our bed, where he lay with an arm over his eyes, his foot tapping a rhythm that matched the one filtering from the speakers.
He’d left space for me.
I filled it, pressing my face into his ribcage. “I am sorry.”
“Shh, Vik. It’s okay.”
It wasn’t. I could not live with this pain knowing it was hurting more than just me. I could not live with this pain regardless and I forced myself to look at him. “I don’t know if I can swallow a pill.”
Ranger let his arm drop, wariness threatening the tenacity that never quit. “It’s not a pill.”
My brain did not compute an alternative.
Ranger reached into his pocket and withdrew a small bottle and pack of syringes.
I reared back.
He caught me. Not speaking.Knowingwhat I saw, what I smelled, as our dark living space became somewhere else—somewhere thick with the scent of mud and bleach, with despair, and a pain far worse than I would ever feel in my bones now.
The sheets on the bed rustled. It was so loud. My heart thumped an erratic rhythm, even though I had received intravenous medicine since those black days and nights. Probably injections too, though I did not remember.