The Pretty Psycho (St. Vasili’s Academy #2)

4. Adrian

4

ADRIAN

Patience wasn't one of my strong suits, and the longer I kept sitting in this fucking sterile hospital room, the less of it I had.

Sleep evaded me, as it usually did, but even if I wanted to sleep I couldn't erase the images of Vega tied down in that fucking cave, bloodied and bruised, apologizing for something she had no control over. And the more I stared at her immobile body, lying in the hospital bed right in front of me, the more I wanted to get out and smash something.

Anything.

I just needed to destroy something, someone, and maybe then I'd be able to sit still and wait for my sleeping princess to wake up.

The rational side of me knew she was only sleeping, resting, but no matter how many times the doctors assured me that she needed this, that she was dehydrated, beaten, fucking raped, I wanted those pretty eyes of hers open. I wanted her to look at me. I wanted her to fight with me, because even her anger was more welcome than this silence enveloping us as the machines attached to her beeped, telling me she was alive.

But I knew that those fuckers attached to her were only telling us what her physical state was like. Mentally… I didn't even want to fucking think about it. I refused to think about the horrors she must have endured down there, waiting for us to save her.

Did she know I would come for her? Did she even have any hope left as the fucker who took her stole all the brightness from her eyes, because the moment I found her I knew that even the rare glimpses of light she carried when she came to the Academy would be gone. He took the innocence I could still see in her, robbing her of the one thing that gave me hope she would be able to be strong enough for the two of us.

My fists clenched as I rested my elbows on my knees, looking at her as though moving my eyes away would rob me of a single moment. And I didn't want to miss those eyes opening. I didn't want to miss those lips parting and saying my name.

She mumbled incoherently in her sleep, saying my name over and over again, and each time it felt like another knife lodging itself in my heart, because I knew that on some level this was my fault. If I had fought harder, if I had stopped her from leaving, none of this would've happened.

The left side of her face was bruised, swollen with that ugly cut over her cheek. She looked so small, so fucking fragile, nothing like the girl that basically told me to go fuck myself. She was completely swallowed by the sheets draped over her, covering her from head to toe.

Two days had felt like an eternity in this hospital, and no matter how many times Yolanda, Jax, and Dante tried telling me to go to the Academy and get some rest, I couldn't move from here. Arseniy could barely stand to look at me, and I didn't blame him. I wouldn't have been surprised if he had punched me the moment he came to the hospital. But I guess there was something to be said about the state I was in, because he took one good look at me and simply shook his head. His eyes then landing on the sleeping beauty and all these machines I had an urge to rip apart, because I blamed even them for keeping her under.

Anger was something I was familiar with. It was my best friend, my worst enemy, my salvation, and my destruction, but these emotions, these feelings swirling in the pit of my stomach, had nothing to do with anger. It was a despair that ran through my veins as I sat here, helpless to do anything but wait.

And I was tired of waiting.

I wasn't a religious person, but for her I prayed. I begged God or whatever entity there was to save her, to heal her, to help her get over this ordeal, because I knew there was no me without her. Maybe it was a selfish prayer, one filled with fear, longing, and regrets rooted in a need so deep I had no idea what to do with myself most of the time, but it was a prayer nevertheless.

"I need you to be okay, Bambi," I rasped, hating how weak my voice sounded. Hating how there was nothing I could do to erase the days and nights she was tortured. The legs of my chair scraped over the floor as I pulled it closer to her bed, taking her unbandaged hand in mine. "I need you to be fucking okay because I don't want to live without you."

My lips trembled as I lowered my head down, pressing them to her hand. Her skin was cold, too fucking cold, and my eyes landed on the monitor showing her steady heartbeat. But the machines weren't enough to appease the beast clawing at my insides, needing to get out, needing to see his partner smiling, arguing, fighting.

The beast claimed her before I ever could and I never stood a chance against that determined look in her eyes or the snarky remarks that often rolled off of her tongue.

Now I know why men like me avoided falling in love. Now I know why the greatest warriors of our time fell apart when the one they loved was taken from them, because I have no idea what I would've done if we hadn't found her two days ago or if we were too late.

The bitter November sun started breaking through the window behind me, alerting me of a new day, of a new hope, but even the sunrays weren't enough to calm me down. People often mourn those who leave, or those who are sick, but now I understood that the pain so very rarely lies in the hearts of those that are mourned. It lived inside the souls of mourners, because they had to continue living their lives as if a part of their heart wasn't missing.

Maybe it wasn't quite the same, because Vega was still here, but it was still possible, missing a person even while they still lived. And I missed her more than anything else in my life. I needed her with every fiber of my being and I wasn't going to lie to myself or her anymore.

I was tired of games, of pretenses, of going through life with half of my soul missing because she stole it. It took one look, one fucking touch, and I was irrevocably hers, even if I didn't know it at the time.

She calmed the parts of me I didn't even know were turbulent. She gave me peace in a lifetime of war, and if she didn't want me she would just have to get used to me being her shadow, because I was never letting her go.

The door slowly opened, illuminating the room with a soft glow trickling in from the hallway, only to reveal Arseniy and Dimitri standing there, both of them wearing similar looks on their faces.

Concern.

Despair.

Anger.

I understood all three of them, yet I had no idea which one was which any longer. I had no idea if this thing bursting in my chest was sadness, fear, anger, pain, or simply despair. I had no idea if this nightmare I was living in would ever stop. But it had to.

It fucking had to.

"Anything?" Dimitri asked as they slowly came in, closing the door behind them.

"No," I mumbled, my eyes returning back to Vega's sleeping form. Every nerve ending in my body wanted to kick them out, to leave us here all alone in this little cocoon where I could pretend she didn't hate me and that the moment she opened those bright eyes she would look for me.

But I couldn't kick them out because they had every right to be here. Maybe even more than me.

Arseniy came into focus, stopping on the other side of Vega's bed, looking down at me as if he was seeing me for the first time in his life. Maybe he was, at least in this state.

As much as I hated admitting it, Vega was my one weakness. My Achilles’ heel, but I would choose her in every single one of my lives even if it meant dying for just an ounce of that fire she carried within her bones.

The sound of tapping on a phone pulled my attention back to best friend, my brother, and I frowned as he showed whatever he had typed to Dimitri.

"What is it?"

"He says you look like shit." Dimitri chuckled quietly, looking straight at me. "I gotta say, he's not wrong."

My back straightened, my eyes narrowing at the two of them just as I lifted my hand, flipping them both off. "You don't look like Miss America yourself, but here you are."

"Hey." Dimitri feigned being insulted as Arseniy tried to hide the smile behind his hand. "At least I am freshly showered. Vega is probably choosing to keep her eyes closed because she doesn't want to deal with your stench."

"Fucker," I grumbled, but I couldn't stop the smile playing at the corners of my lips, the first one in days. "I took a shower three hours ago."

"Hmm." He shrugged. "Could've fooled me."

"You know what?" I stood up, hating the clench in my chest as my hand left hers, but I knew it wasn't healthy just sitting and waiting. "Why don't you make yourself useful and bring me some coffee, huh? That way at least I won't have to look at your ugly faces this early in the morning."

Arseniy rolled his eyes, but I didn't miss the amused look in them when they landed on me. Dimitri looked between the two of us, slowly taking a step back toward the door as the man I'd known the longest looked at me with equal parts sadness and anger, and I understood why.

I fucked up.

"I'm sorry," I whispered, barely able to look at him. "You have no idea how sorry I am, Arseniy. You have no—" But instead of the grumble he so often used whenever he wasn't happy, or the scowl I expected to see, he pulled me into a hug, wrapping his arms around me, and until the dam inside of me broke, I had no idea how much I needed it. How much I craved the touch from another human being.

"I need her to wake up, man," I murmured, tightening my arms around him. "I can't… I don't want to live without her."

"We know," Dimitri answered from behind us. "We know, Adrian."

My throat clogged as I detangled myself from one of my best friends, looking at the face that reminded me so much of the girl sleeping not too far away from us. I had no idea how I'd missed it when I first met her, but the two of them had the same sharp features, the same nose, the same shaped eyebrows.

I guess I was too blinded to see it because I didn't want to.

"Are we good?" I asked, needing to hear it, or at least see it. I halfway expected Dimitri to tell me to go fuck myself, even after all the lighthearted banter that just happened, but when Arseniy nodded, smiling softly, it felt as if a weight finally fell off of my shoulders.

Before Dante, before Jax, Arseniy was the first person that understood why I behaved the way I did. He was the first person to pull me out of the dark pit of despair. He was the first person to shake me, to put me back together, and I guess it was destiny that his sister would be the one to finish the job.

His hand landed on my shoulder, squeezing lightly, and that one simple gesture was enough to tell me things between us weren't as irreparable as I first thought.

"Come on," Dimitri said, opening the door slowly. "We will get you some coffee and some breakfast. Let us know if anything changes. The doctors have mentioned she might be waking up today, so?—"

"I'll let you know. Don't worry."

Arseniy simply nodded and moved around me, following Dimitri outside and leaving me alone again with Vega.

The sun was shining brighter now, illuminating her face with the soft glow, and just like over the last couple of days, I took a seat on her left side, taking her hand in mine, looking at her as if I could wake her up by the sheer will of my being.

"You know," I chuckled, "I didn't want to like you. As a matter of fact, I hated you, Bambi. I hated what you represented. I hated the secrets you had, but most of all, I hated how you made me feel. I hated that I've managed to go through my life with my heart encased in stone, or whatever was left of it, and the moment I saw you on that train it was as if that organ finally woke up. There was nothing else, no one else. I only saw you." I took a deep breath, lowering my head down on the bed right next to her hip, looking up at her face. "I wanted to take you, to hide you, to run away with you, but I knew I couldn't. I knew I had a job to do. I had a plan, and that plan didn't have you in it. But you've managed to do what no one else ever could," I murmured. "You snuck inside, burrowing yourself deep within my bones, creating a home behind my ribs, in my heart, and I know, I just fucking know, that we were meant to be."

My eyes slowly closed, the sweet pull of a dream calling my name, creating a lullaby in the cacophony of the pinging machines around us. I was falling, drowning in the darkness, when the sound I was desperately waiting for pulled me back into reality.

Vega whimpered just as her hand in mine twitched.

I shot up from my seat, looking down at her with wide eyes, both elated and worried when her eyes widened, filling with tears as she looked up at me.

"A-Adrian?" It was a raspy question on her lips, but it sounded like the sweetest song to my ears. She started lifting herself up, her eyes taking in her surroundings, when panic washed over her features and her hands started pushing against the sheets covering her. "No, no, no."

"Vega, stop it. Vega."

"Please, no," she cried out as my fingers wrapped around her wrists, stopping her from hurting herself. "Please don't hurt me. Please." Her tear-filled eyes locked with mine, shattering my heart all over again at the pure fear I could see in them. "Don't hurt me."

"Never, Bambi." My voice was barely above whisper. "I could never hurt you."

Her chest rose and fell with rapid breaths, while her lower lip trembled. She was killing me. Killing. Me. And I had no idea what to do to calm her. To show her she was safe, that no one was coming for her.

The biggest monster was already in this room with her, and I would rather cut my veins open than hurt her.

I didn't think, didn't even stop to take off my shoes, before climbing into the bed with her, smiling softly at her wide eyes following my every move.

"You're safe now, Vega," I murmured, positioning myself next to her, almost falling off of the bed. "I won't let anyone hurt you. I'm here, baby girl. I'm here."

She turned toward me, her body slowly relaxing as her IV-free hand slowly pressed over my chest, feeling my rapid heart underneath her fingers. I pushed my right arm underneath her, pulling her closer, needing her touch, to know that she was okay.

"You're in the hospital, Bambi. You're with me."

She looked up at me, the bruising around her left eye destroying the calmness I was trying to cling to, when the dam broke, flooding over, letting her tears fall down her cheeks as her body shook, moving me and the bed along with her.

"H-He," she hiccuped. "Oh my God, Adrian."

"Shhhh," I soothed her, tightening my hold on her, hoping she could take my strength and use it. I would give her anything just to erase the sadness clinging to her like a second skin. "I got you. I fucking got you."

"I-I can't b-believe he d-did this. I… I'm so sorry." Fuck. FUCK.

My eyes closed, unable to bear the brunt of the emotions flowing from her to me. She was apologizing. To me. Fucking fuck. I wanted to ask who it was. I wanted to know whose name I should carve on the tombstone I was about to prepare, but I couldn’t.

Not right now.

Not when she was in this state.

"This wasn't your fault, baby. None of this is your fault."

"I-I tried f-fighting," she sobbed. "I tried."

"I know," I mumbled, pressing my lips to her hair. "I know you did, because you're strong. You're the strongest person I know. You're my little warrior, Bambi, and you will survive this."

She had to survive this. She. Had. To.

The sound of her crying filled the room, her sorrow enveloping us, pulling us into the darkness, but I didn't dare move. I didn't dare say another thing, letting her cry it all out. Letting her exorcize the demons fighting inside of her. I couldn't even imagine what she felt right now.

I couldn't imagine what thoughts raced through her head, but I'd be here even if it killed me. I'd be here to help her through it, no matter what, because this wasn't about me. As much as her pain killed me, this wasn't about my feelings. What I felt, my anger, my sorrow, none of it mattered, because it was nothing compared to the devastation racking her body.

So I held her tighter and loved her harder as she let out all the pain she felt, allowing me to be here with her. And as her sobs quieted and her body stopped shaking, she looked up at me, breaking me with the determined look on her face.

"This changes nothing, Adrian." Her voice was steady, strong, and I knew she was nowhere near done fighting me.

But she should've known that I was nowhere near ready to let her go. She should've known that dancing with the darkness meant that said darkness would want to keep her forever.

Her eyes fluttered closed, her head resting on my chest, and as her breathing evened, telling me she fell asleep again, I pressed my cheek to the top of her head, smiling. "This changes everything, Bambi."