Burn Like An Angel (Harrowdean Manor #2)

2. Lennox

CHAPTER 2

LENNOX

MONSTERS – FOREIGN AIR

“I’ve done the best I can. I’m not a doctor.”

A tired voice filters into my awakening consciousness. It sounds resigned. Perhaps a little defensive.

“Then what do we do?”

This one is flat, cold. Familiar. An iceberg carried to shore by my mind’s rolling waves.

“Hope this riot ends fast. He’s out of the woods for now.”

Their two voices overlap, a confusing tangle of sounds and worried tones that permeate my thick brain fog. I can’t drag my eyes open. Everything feels like it’s wrapped in fluffy cotton wool.

The drug-induced fog offers me a brief escape from recent horrors. But as I come around, the peace dissipates. Pain comes rushing back in to greet me like an unwelcome house guest.

“Have you seen outside?” The tired voice speaks again. “People are going wild. This isn’t ending any time soon.”

“Then I guess we’re all stuck here.”

“We don’t even have food!” This time, the second, colder voice sounds different—it’s suddenly infected with something. Roughening into a low growl, I can almost taste the underlying fear and anxiety that’s thawing the towering iceberg.

“Those patients outside will come looking soon enough.”

“Agreed.”

“Don’t agree with me, Langley.”

“I don’t exactly like it either.”

As the syrupy fog lifts further, I realise they aren’t whispering at all. The two opposing voices are deep in a heated argument, their bickering overlapping a cacophony of other sounds that are slowly filtering in.

Screaming. Shouting.

Breaking glass. Loud whoops.

“Guys,” a raspier voice interrupts them. “Quiet, both of you. They’re right outside.”

Banging. Smashing.

Excited hollers. More screams.

Trepidation slithers down my spine. I have no choice but to peel my heavy lids open. The light I anticipated to greet me never comes. Shadows and darkness douse my vision, broken by weak moonlight and blurry outlines.

“Xan,” I moan weakly.

There’s a shuffle, then a figure looms.

“Here, man. Don’t move.”

My tongue is glued to the roof of my mouth, a length of scratchy sandpaper that refuses to obey. I will my throat muscles to respond, swallowing repeatedly until I can form words.

“W-Where?”

“Medical wing,” Xander answers, holding a bottle to my lips. “You’ve been out of it for a while. Are you in pain?”

I greedily gulp down lukewarm water, my throat screaming too much to respond.

“He’s had the maximum dose,” someone else interjects.

“Do you even know what those drugs do?” Xander hisses back.

“I wouldn’t have injected him with them if I didn’t.”

A hand swipes down my arm, tracing a map on my skin. I recognise the rough pads of Raine’s violin-worn fingertips.

“Ignore them, Nox.” The shape of him sitting next to me becomes clearer as my vision settles. “How do you feel?”

Staring at their faces—Xander, Raine and for some reason, that piece of shit guard who’s way too friendly with Ripley—it takes a moment for my brain to catch up. I must’ve blacked out as we ran.

“Peachy,” I rasp. “How long was I out?”

“About… ten, eleven hours.” Xander stares at the clock locked behind a metal cage on the wall. “You were sedated while he treated your injuries.”

The he in question lingers behind Xander, arms folded across his built chest. Langley treated me? I hate that weird guy. He trails around after Ripley like a lost puppy begging for scraps of affection.

“Where is she?”

Xander narrows his dark-blue eyes on me. “What happened in that basement?”

Struggling weakly, I try to sit up in the hospital bed and fail. “Where. Is. She?”

“Lay still, for fuck’s sake.”

“Xan!”

The corner of his mouth twitches. “You should calm down.”

“I will when you tell me where Ripley is!”

“She’s in the bed next to yours,” Raine supplies wearily. “Don’t be a dick, Xan. Show him.”

Relinquishing, Xander shifts to show me the view. The other hospital bed is lit by some kind of emergency flashlight resting on its side on the trolley between us.

Deathly pale and hooked up to an IV, Ripley is huddled on her side, unconscious. Her hands are curled up to her chest. In her sleep, she looks like a vulnerable waif, not the ballbuster I’ve always loathed.

The panic barrelling through my nervous system eases the slightest amount. Thank fuck I don’t have the mental capacity to analyse that feeling too deeply right now. Or contemplate why I’m feeling it for her.

“Something to share?” Xander asks slyly.

With a huff, I sink deeper into the pillows. “Fuck off.”

“You seem awfully concerned.”

Ignoring him, I take stock of my body. Everything feels disjointed, like my limbs have been severed and reattached with makeshift stitches. The pain is a fierce, constant burn, despite whatever drugs I’ve been shot full of.

“Let me past, Xander. I need to check on him.”

Langley is in rough shape. His dark hair stands up in all directions, face streaked with blood and dirt, like he got rugby tackled and punched to shit. It’s a pleasing mental image.

I eye him warily. “Don’t touch me.”

“Easy,” he placates with a frown.

Raine lightly squeezes my arm. “Don’t be an ass, Nox.”

“He’s a goddamn guard!”

“Not strictly true.” Langley fiddles with the IV line trickling into my body. “And in lieu of an actual doctor, I’m your best shot right now. I’ve had medical training.”

“What training?” I stare at him.

Slender arms folded, Xander flicks his gaze back to the dickhead, a grimace twisting his thin lips. His platinum blonde hair is also a mess—shoved back, peppered with blood. In fact, he’s covered head to toe.

“Care to elaborate?” Xander asks icily. “We’ve been patient.”

Satisfied by his inspection of the IV, Langley turns his attention to me. “Just trust that I know what I’m doing right now.”

I bite back a sarcastic response, letting the man go to work checking me over. As my limbs wake up, there’s far too much pain wracking my body to protest any further.

“You’re lucky that was a flesh wound.” Langley nods towards the bandaged club resting across my chest where my left hand should be. “I can’t be certain without an x-ray, though.”

Looking down at the thick swathes of cotton, I internally wince at the memory of the drill digging into my hand, parting my flesh like butter. The entire limb feels completely numb, causing worry to flare up.

“Anaesthetic.” Langley seems to read my concern. “I flushed the wound with saline and stitched you up. It’ll hurt like a motherfucker soon enough.”

“Can’t wait,” I drawl.

“Someone beat the shit out of you,” he observes. “I can’t rule out internal bleeding, but that’s above my pay grade. You want to fill us in on what made that mess?”

He gestures to my bandaged club.

“Drill,” I supply.

“A… drill? Like a fucking power tool?”

“The electrocutions didn’t work.” I hiss at the pain that attempting to shrug causes. “I’m stubborn.”

“Fuck me.” He scowls.

Xander remains silent, observing our exchange. I can see the memories dancing in his twilight-hued eyes. This isn’t our first bout of torture. That’s probably why my sanity is still semi-intact.

“You’ll have a pretty scar on your face.” Langley cracks his neck, trying to regain his composure. “Just pray the wounds don’t get infected.”

Suppressing a shudder, I force back the memory of the steel-tipped whip slashing into my face, parting skin and flesh. The bitch pretending to be a guard didn’t have to go so hard, did she? The facial bandage feels huge and uncomfortable.

My gaze wanders back to the adjacent bed. “What about her?”

Ripley’s face is swollen and misshapen. Slithers of her badly bruised body are visible around the sheet she’s tangled up in. Her pale complexion makes the inked foliage on her arms stand out like dark thunderclouds.

With black-lined eye sockets, mottled purple bruises circling her throat and countless cuts and abrasions, she bears the evidence of all we endured beneath ground.

Bile burns the back of my throat as indignant rage threatens to take over. Those evil motherfuckers almost broke us. The pain-warped memories were real. It’s a small miracle that we survived at all, let alone escaped.

The memory of fleeing Craven’s house of horrors are blurred. Pain-laced fragments that no longer fit together in a neat patchwork.

“Similar story.” Langley’s forehead wrinkles with concern. “She’s resting now, but her wrists are infected. You guys were chained up?”

“Shackled in a concrete cell.”

“You were together?” Xander asks sharply.

Not trusting myself to speak, I merely nod. His pale-blonde eyebrows are furrowed, likely attempting to piece events together. I’m sure no one expected to see Ripley dragging me of all people out of the basement.

Langley visibly swallows. “I’ve cleaned her wounds and hooked her up to IV antibiotics. She’ll recover. Now we wait.”

Raine hisses through clenched teeth, appearing angrier than I’ve ever seen him. “What happened, Nox?”

A bubble grows and lodges itself in my throat. We’ve dealt with this kind of evil before. In Priory Lane, I saw the devil’s face and lived to tell the tale. That gave me the strength to survive again.

But seeing Ripley, bare and battered as she fought to stay alive? Hearing her soft cries and whimpers while we clung to life? That did something to me. Something irreversible. Something far more crippling than their torture sessions. And I don’t know if I can fucking fix it.

“Trust me.” My voice is an aching rasp from all the screaming. “You don’t want to know.”

“Pretty sure we have a right to, though,” Raine argues, his slender shoulders fraught with tension. “You both disappeared!”

“How long were we gone?”

“A couple days,” Xander supplies.

Raine’s grip on my arm tightens once more. “We were worried sick.”

The panicked feeling is back. Breeding. Metastasising. In my head, I can hear Ripley’s cries ricocheting, ping-ponging around the internal cavities of my skull. My own pain doesn’t feature in the flashbacks—just hers.

Her body scrunched up, protecting itself from the battering water. Freezing-cold skin, snuggled into my chest, covered in gooseflesh. Her feeble whispers as she wrapped her fingers around the fleshy strings of my heart and ripped it clean out to keep it for herself.

If this is it… I just want you to know that I forgive you.

I didn’t deserve those words. Hell, I didn’t even know I wanted them. But now that she’s given me her forgiveness… Lord, fucking help me. It’s like an invisible dam has burst, and a torrent of guilt and self-loathing is spilling out.

Hatred has kept me safe. Protected. Immune. With that stripped away, I’m at risk of feeling things I’ve spent years trying not to feel. At least not for anyone but the family I chose in Priory Lane.

“Why didn’t Ripley just leave you down there?” Xander stares at me like he’s trying to figure something out.

“What?” I snap out of my musings.

“You tried to drown her alive, Nox.”

The guilt building inside me explodes, spewing in all directions like an erupting volcano. “I’m aware.”

“Then she used Noah to try to frame you.” He shakes his head. “But what I can’t figure out is why you’re both lying here, and she didn’t just leave you to rot or vice versa.”

Now leaning against the wall, Langley is tuned in to Xander’s interrogation. Raine’s golden-haired head is cocked, demonstrating his attention, latching onto every hitched breath and note of hesitation.

My scalp prickles, a hot flush of awkwardness washing over me. I’m not telling them shit. Not about this.

“That was… before.”

“Before what exactly?” Raine questions.

“Before everything.”

“Everything?” Xander repeats drily.

The truth swirls through my mind. I can’t explain. Not when I’ve barely wrapped my head around the whispered apologies we shared, the feel of her skin on mine, her soft lips and velvet tongue or bare breasts pressing into my chest…

“Nox!” Raine grips my arm, demanding an answer I can’t give. “Well?”

“Raine,” Xander cautions, reading something on my face.

“I have a right to know, Xan. She’s my… She’s… We… Fuck!” He pauses to blow out a frustrated breath. “Look, how can I help her if I don’t know what happened?”

“You can’t help,” I snap back. “Not with this.”

“I care about her. Far more than you do!”

Self-loathing quickly morphs into molten anger—the noxious fumes poisoning my thoughts. How dare he presume to know what I’m thinking or feeling? He doesn’t know shit about what we just survived.

“And?” I scoff.

“And whatever game you’re playing, stop. You can’t keep me from being with Ripley.”

“That’s not what I’m doing,” I quickly deny. “Well… anymore.”

“Then what is this?” he challenges fiercely. “You despise her. What’s changed?”

The pressure inside me boils over, a foaming, caged beast snapping through my veins as it breaks free.

“Everything!”

My voice carries, seeming to ricochet in the medical wing’s gloom. Glaring at Raine like he can see the warning on my face, I breathe heavily, a tight ball of tension burgeoning in my chest.

“Take your hand off me.”

Raine gapes at me, the borrowed aviators sliding down his nose. I watch his shock filter into defiance—mouth creasing, fists balling, his shoulders squared like I’m challenging his claim or some dumb shit.

“This conversation isn’t over,” he warns in a low tone. “Hurt her again and I’ll kick your ass, blind or not.”

Adjusting his sunglasses, Raine moves over to Ripley’s bed. I watch him run his hands over the thin mattress, feeling for a spot to perch next to her. His hand moves to rest on top of her lifeless one.

My stomach clenches.

Get your fucking hands off her.

I swallow the words begging to spill out, imprisoning them instead in an imaginary steel box. Of course, he gets the right to touch her. I sure as hell don’t. Not after all I’ve done.

The awkward silence is broken by the sound of more glass smashing outside the medical wing. Hoots and screams float through the windows, permeating the heavy air.

I glance at Xander, his attention now focused outside. “What’s going on out there?”

He shrugs. “They’ve been securing the institute for a few hours. Barricading, bolting doors. The front gate’s been chained shut to hold the authorities back.”

Langley sighs, his attention focused on the bag of fluids hanging above me. “That isn’t gonna keep management from sending a tactical unit in to retake control. There will be casualties.”

“Are we safe in here?” I wince at another wave of pain.

“As safe as anywhere. You’re both hooked up to IV antibiotics and need to rest. We can’t risk moving yet.”

“I’m perfectly fine.”

With an eye roll, Langley finishes fussing over me. “You look it.”

“Once the fatigue and hunger set in, the novelty of rebellion will wear off,” Xander inserts. “Sides will form. They’ll soon forget the enemy and turn on each other.”

“Well… shit,” I deadpan.

If Incendia were planning on sending in the cavalry to stamp out any resistance and retake control of Harrowdean, they would’ve done so by now. We must have enough hostages to stop them from storming the place.

We’re on our own.

And I can’t lift a damn finger.

“We should all get cleaned up,” Langley suggests. “Then we’ll make a plan.”

“Help me up.”

He shoots me a scathing look. “Fuck off, Lennox.”

“What’s your problem?”

“My goodwill only extends so far when it comes to assholes.”

“Mind telling me what exactly I’ve done?” I ask caustically.

“Where should I begin?”

Temper flaring, I glower at the prickly son of a bitch. “By all means, from the top.”

“Believe me, there aren’t enough hours in the day to cover all the reasons why you deserved to be dragged into that basement. Ripley should’ve left you there to rot.”

“Then why help me?” I fire back.

His gaze briefly strays to Ripley before he looks away. “I’m not here for you.”

Turning away, he moves to pick through a cupboard of medical supplies on the opposite side of the room. Xander turns away from the window, frowning at Langley before he looks around the empty wing.

“They must keep spare clothes here for discharged patients.”

“You could use some yourself.” I jerk my chin, indicating his bloodied state.

Xander plucks the hem of his soiled shirt with a look of distaste. “He did bleed rather a lot.”

“Who, exactly?”

“Davis,” he answers casually.

I stare at my best friend, mouth hanging wide open. “Davis?”

“Yes. He’s dead.”

Xander drops the shirt hem then resumes scanning the medical wing. He doesn’t spare my stunned expression a second glance.

“Did he say Davis?” Raine whispers from the other bed. “Like… Warden Davis?”

“You know any other Davis in here?”

“Fucking hell. He has to be kidding.”

Watching Xander pick around the room, searching for clothing, the punch line never comes. He doesn’t crack a smile or yell gotcha! For each second that trickles past, the dread blooming in my chest grows wings and takes flight.

“I don’t think he is,” I grumble.

“The warden, Nox?” Raine hisses in disbelief. “Xander… he… he wouldn’t do that, would he?”

Honestly, there’s no limit to the fucked up shit that Xander would do. He’s just a hell of a lot quieter about it than the rest of us. That’s how his evil so often goes undetected.

Ducking his head inside a tall cabinet, he pulls out a handful of second-hand clothes from a labelled laundry sack. Xander begins searching for the right sizes.

“I’m not kidding,” he clips out.

A conflicting maelstrom rushes through my mind—disbelief, shock, fear. But for the life of me, I can’t summon the humanity to pity the dead warden. As long as Xander isn’t at risk, I’m glad he’s dead.

“Was it an accident?” Raine inquires hesitantly.

Xander laughs under his breath. “Most certainly not.”

Watching the colour drain from Raine’s face, I refocus on Xander. “What happened?”

He yanks out a bundle of tangled clothing. “We had words.”

“And?”

“And none of his were what I wanted to hear.”

Dipping back into the bag to search for more suitable clothing, he halts as his eyes stray to Ripley. The man who doesn’t bat an eye while telling us he killed the fucking warden now appears… uncertain.

What in the ever-loving fuck?

“He wouldn’t tell me where you were.” Xander’s throat undulates as he quickly looks away. “Where either of you were.”

“Were you seen?” I grit out.

“Of course not. The riot took care of that.”

“Where…?” Raine pauses, swallowing audibly. “Where is he?”

Attention focused on sorting the clothing, Xander holds up an oversized t-shirt, seeming to consider the size. I watch his eyes flit back to Ripley’s unconscious form, comparing her size to the shirt he holds.

“Office,” he replies.

Nodding robotically, Raine now looks a little green. “So… he won’t be found for a while.”

“I suppose not.”

Raine’s been with us for long enough to know how Xander’s bizarre mind operates. The boundaries of human emotion that fail to apply to him. Yet he’s never quite accepted or even understood it.

Xander doesn’t care. Not in the way normal humans do. He’s destroyed his own ability to do exactly that. I’ve often wondered what he feels for us—his surrogate family. It can’t be love. He isn’t capable of that.

I didn’t think I was either, but I’m fooling myself if I think I shared my body heat to stop Ripley from dying of hypothermia just for the company in hell. And I’ve deluded myself enough in the past.

That’s how I lost everything.

I won’t lose it all again.

We broke each other, and for good reason. But those reasons feel irrelevant now in the cold light of day. If it wasn’t for her, I’d still be rotting in that basement, shackled and bleeding out in a padded cell.

Sinking into the hospital pillows, fatigue and weakness crash over me. I have enough energy left to turn my head to the side, giving me a direct view of the adjacent bed.

Raine’s hand is still clasped over Ripley’s limp one, his head tilted back as he contemplates. I can’t help but stare at them. The familiarity. The intimacy. His palpable fear and clear devotion to her.

What I’m not prepared for is the piping-hot burst of emotion that stabs into me, over and over in a relentless assault on my damaged sanity. It isn’t anger. That I can recognise, utilise, control .

It’s… jealousy.

Well, fuck.

I’m jealous of Raine, sitting there like a goddamn guardian angel, holding the hand of the bitch who saved my life. He’s earned her trust. Her love. Her vulnerability. That’s why he gets to touch her and I don’t.

That realisation only magnifies the feeling tenfold until I’m choking on the barbed wire lodged in my throat, taking the razor-sharp edges deep into my oesophagus and letting them shred apart my insides.

I want to shove him aside and take his place at her side. Ripley would certainly reject me. Deathbed forgiveness doesn’t mean she’s ready for all the thoughts running through my mind. I need to play this safe.

She’s given me a second chance.

Now I have to earn her forgiveness.