Total pages in book: 156
Estimated words: 160192 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 801(@200wpm)___ 641(@250wpm)___ 534(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 160192 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 801(@200wpm)___ 641(@250wpm)___ 534(@300wpm)
“No?” Jared asked in a low voice. “Are you sure you want to tell me no?”
No. She wasn’t sure of that at all.
“How qualified is he to do this?” she asked Jared in a low voice, eyeing North consideringly.
“I have some experience with stabbing people with needles,” North replied dryly.
“Not helping,” Jared told him. “He knows what he’s doing. Is that what you’re worried about? The needle?”
The needle.
North with a needle.
Stabbing her.
“Because you already have the line in your arm. He’s just hooking it up,” Jared reassured her.
She stared down at her arm. She couldn’t see anything because of the bandage, but it didn’t make her feel much better.
She’d been tempted to rip the bandage off in the shower, but hadn’t wanted to hurt herself.
“My mother used to inject herself with drugs. Sometimes, she’d stick the needles in me after. I was like a fucking pin cushion to her.”
“What?” Jared whispered. “She injected you with drugs?”
“No, she wouldn’t waste her drugs. She’d do it after. I still don’t like needles. I don’t want to see it in my arm.”
Suddenly, Jared moved so he was sitting on the bed. He lifted her onto his lap, holding her tight.
It should have made her panic. The feeling of not being able to get away.
Instead, she felt her unease melt slightly.
“We would never inject you with something against your will,” Jared told her.
She shot a look at North. “We?”
“Now that I know what happened to you, I won’t do that against your will again. And I would kill anyone who did,” North vowed.
Okay.
That was more than she’d expected from him.
Far, far more.
“But you need this,” Jared told her. “This is about your health.”
“We’re not forcing her,” North said.
She blinked at him in surprise. She was shocked he cared that much.
Or, at all.
“No, we won’t force you. But you need to start drinking more electrolyte drinks.” Jared reached for his phone.
Yuck.
She didn’t like those sorts of drinks either.
Was she being silly? Yeah, probably. The needle was already in and she didn’t have to look.
“Do it,” she said, holding out her arm. It was trembling, but she kept it there.
She could do this.
She had been through far worse.
North took hold of her wrist more gently than she expected him to. “Are you certain?”
“Please just do it before I chicken out.” If this got rid of her thumping headache and dizziness, it was worth it, right?
“But don’t stop holding me,” she told Jared. “And maybe distract me.”
“All right,” Jared said as North gently pulled off the bandage. “Tell me, have you ever had a Daddy?”
North cursed quietly as Angie stiffened.
Really?
That’s how Jared chose to distract her? By distressing her further?
“What . . . what do you mean? I have a father.”
“Your sperm donor wasn’t a father,” Jared spat out. “He was a fucking asshole who deserved a long, slow death.”
North started hooking up the IV.
“Then why did you ask me that?” she asked.
“You know why. You’re a Little, aren’t you?”
She swallowed. “Right. I figured you had to know.”
“I had my suspicions when I found you in the closet years ago,” Jared told her. “But you were also slipping in and out of Little space while ill.”
Angie glanced at them both. “Sorry for my behavior.”
She spoke in a stiff, formal voice that North hated.
“Never apologize for your needs, for who you are,” North told her.
She gaped at him in clear surprise.
He didn’t know why he’d said that. She was getting to him and he hated that.
He was supposed to be stepping out of this life. Away from Jared.
Away from her.
Not that she mattered. She was nothing to him.
Right. Keep telling yourself that.
“North is right,” Jared told her. “Never apologize for who you are.”
North studied them together. They looked so right. He’d made the correct decision.
Now Jared just had to get on board.
“I’m not a Little anymore. And I’ve never had a Daddy. I don’t want one either.”
All lies.
He hated the lies that came from her even as he realized it made him a hypocrite.
After making sure the IV was working properly, he moved away from the bed.
It was time to leave the two of them alone. Her gaze shot to him and he could see the confusion on her face.
“I have things to do.” Turning, he stalked out of the room and leaned against the wall. Shaking, he drew out his phone and sent a message through his secured app. The one that he buried deep in his phone.
N: We need to meet.
There was no reply straight away. Not that he expected there to be. But he needed answers.
And he needed them now.
The Collective might have rescued him from an orphanage and given him the skills he needed to survive.
But he had paid his debt to them.
No more dancing on the end of their strings.
25
Angie stared after North as he left.