Chapter 63: Chapter 63

CASSANDRA BATES

EVERYTHING HURT.

Physically, emotionally, mentally, I wasn’t doing okay even as the doc assessed me for the hundredth time in the night.

Seating at the edge of the bed, trying to piece everything together, I was on the verge of insanity and knowing that Icarus was somewhere in this massive hospital trying to hold onto dear life because of me devastated the hell out of me.

The doc offered me a wan smile, all I could do was pretend that I wasn’t going mad when the truth of the matter was, I was. Indeed, going mad.

“Everything looks fine, Ms. Bates given your um…earlier predicament. A few scratches here and there, nothing major enough to affect the baby. I would recommend a few ointments for the-“

I had already tuned him out the minute I heard a word I didn’t think would ever be directed at me.

Reality came crushing in and with it so was confusion and happiness and anxiety and everything a person like me who’d just been kidnapped and slapped with a dose of heartbreak could feel.

“B-baby?”

I asked. The word foreign against my lips. My hands, the ones that were still shaking and covered in Icarus’ blood scrambled all the way to my tummy.

The doc’s eyes went an inch wider, realization dawning on him the way it did on me.

“Apologies, I thought that you already knew since you are already … well, three weeks pregnant”

“Are you sure?”

I exhaled headily, tears springing to my eyes and choking me.

A b—baby? A baby!

“Positive, Ms. Bates. I’m assuming your husband doesn’t know either?”

My smile faded.

“Husband?” I asked more delirious and overwhelmed than ever.

“The man who’s outside and refuses to get a check up until he knows you are fine”

Kade.

The right thing would have been to run outside and give him the news but this was the same man who had driven me away and insinuated he was attracted to me out of sex.

The same man who had spewed nonsense that drove me out to the cliff, into the waves and to the sharks, my heart hadn’t recovered yet.

He didn’t mean anything. He was hurt. He was trying to push me away but hurt or not, love was not insulting me, love was not hurting me because he held the power, love was not treating me like shit and making me feel like less of a human being.

I was done with Kade Hawkins. No matter how much I loved him. No matter how big of a piece of my heart he held in his palms.

I gave him my heart, he broke it, there was no fixing that.

“He’s not my husband”, I said all malice and pain etched in my voice.

The doc uttered an uncomfortable ‘ooh’ and before he left the little checkup room I was in, I urged him to keep the news of my pregnancy between us.

A few seconds later, Kade stormed in, dressed in the usual all black.

He crossed the room in three strides, standing in front of me, taking my body into his like I was a precious jewel he thought he’d lose.

And when he hugged me, when the warmth of his body met mine, when his scent clogged my senses all I could smell was him, a whirlpool of another fresh pair of tears stung my eyes.

He kissed the top of my head. I wanted to kiss him too.

His heart hammered against my boobs. My heart was too broken to match his rhythm.

He pulled away from me, his eyes all dull and out of color, distress written over his face but a small smile lingered on his lips as he muttered,

“Thank God you are fine, Red…sorry fuck for my—for Lucas, for everything he did. Tell me you are fine, Red. You being fine is the only thing that matters to me right now”

His huge palms were around my cheeks, wiping my tears. I swallowed past the pain answering him groggily,

“I’m fine”

I wasn’t.

“H-how’s Ice?”

His hands twitched, his muscles going taut. He was trying not to seem affected but God knew he loved Icarus like a brother.

No matter what, it would always be Icarus and Kade, brothers till death and I got in the way of that.

“The doctors are still doing everything they can. They say the chances of…him surviving are narrow—”

“He’ll survive. I know he will”

“I hope so Red. I really hope so”

Then awkward silence fell between us, where it was just his warm eyes checking every inch of me, trying to confirm I was okay despite what I had told him.

“Jace is outside. Your family too, they all want to see if you are fine”, he wiped a strand of hair from my face tucking it behind my ear.

He made everything hard.

He didn’t get to look at me with those eyes after everything he had said to me that night.

He didn’t get to pretend everything was fine when he had smashed my heart into a million pieces it was a surprise I was still breathing.

No, he didn’t get to do that.

“I’m fine and tired. I don’t—I don’t want to see them, any of them”

“Whatever you want, Red. No one’s pressuring you into anything. You want to rest? I’ll take you home and you can see them—”

“No!”

I pulled away from him, fiddling with the shirt KADE gave me after they rescued me from Lucas Hawkins.

The shirt that was covering my dress underneath that had been torn to shreds by Lucas Hawkins, that bastard!

“H—He touched me. Lucas, he touched- “

“I know”, Kade interjected with a scowl sharp enough to eviscerate everything in our surrounding.

“No”, I nodded standing a few feet away from him, “No, you don’t know. No, you don’t know the fear that ate me up when I felt his hands on my skin, when I felt his fist collide with my face, when I passed out and felt his hand trail up my thigh.

I thought he would—he would rape me! But you know when the real fear began, Kade? When he whispered in my ear that once you and Jace were gone, I would be his.

The real fear began when I felt like laughing at the irony that you were already gone from my life so I was already his by default. I was already Lucas’ little plaything because the men he thought loved me wanted nothing to do with me.

I understand Jace’s hatred though. I took away everything from him but you? The last thing I expected was your hatred Kade. The last thing I expected was your words to crucify me and leave me for dead because that’s how I felt.

I felt alone without you. I still feel alone and broken and used and disgusted by myself and I don’t wanna feel that—I don’t ever want anyone to feel how this feels because it’s terrible.

I don’t want to be near you, I don’t want to see you, I don’t want to keep my love for you in my heart any longer because you were right. Men like you know how to use things and discard things.

Men like you use women like me only when it’s convenient for them. I guess our love was a little fairytale I conjured in my mind huh?”

I repeated the very same words he had uttered to me that night. The same words that made me look like a naïve teenage girl pining after a man again.

He reached out to me about to say something but I was already out of the little room we were in, in a dash.

And when I spotted my family in the waiting room, I tiredly walked out of that fucking hospital silently to a life where it was just me, my baby and my broken heart.

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APOLOGIES FOR NOT UPDATING FOR SO LONG, SCHOOL HAS BEEN A BITCH BUT I’M BACK, READY TO FINISH THE BOOK.

THANKS FOR READING, FLIP, SCROLL UMM TURN? TO THE NEXT PAGE BECAUSE YES I MIGHT BE DOING TRIPLE UPDATES TODAY.

THANKS FOR READING AND VOTING AND COMMENTING. MEANWHILE AS I UPDATE THIS BOOK, YOU MIGHT WANT TO CHECK OUT MY OTHER FINISHED BOOK ‘Submitting to my Alpha Bodyguard (FLAMES AND MIA’S STORY)