GUN IN MY HAND

CHAPTER 63: LIFE-CHANGING

This chapter is dedicated to my talented friend @GemTheKoala who made an amazing cover for the story 🤩 You can find it in the Readers' Arts chapter at the beginning of the book 👀 Go check it out and tell me if you love it as much as I do! Thank you, Gem! 😘💕

'And in the morning, I'll be with you

But it will be a different kind

'Cause I'll be holding all the tickets

And you'll be owning all the fines'

Soft tickles on the tip of my fingers pulled me out of sleep like sparks guiding me out of a dark haze. I didn't remember where I was, nor who I was, but my body recognized this touch, the lightness spreading in my muscles still heavy with sleep, the warmth surging in my veins with a faster heart rate, and the tingles running until my dry lips.

I was still in a semi-conscious daze, and I kept my eyes closed in the hope of drawing it out for as long as I could. I had a feeling what was coming wouldn't be as sweet.

So I savored every tickle until the sourness in the back of my mouth, the fatigue in my limbs, and the pounding at the back of my head made my eyes shoot open.

I'd thrown up last night. We'd ridden all day and half of the night. The police were after me. I could have almost believed it was the remains of a nightmare when my eyes adjusted to the faint lighting, and the first thing I saw were long fingers softly grazing mine over my stomach.

There was something so ethereal about this. Maybe I was still dreaming? I didn't dare pinch myself or move, but I let my gaze wander to the figure kneeling by the bed.

He was brushing my skin with more softness than a feather, as if afraid to fully touch one of my fingers, yet at the same time, there was so much purpose in each of his caresses, tensing all his muscles until the angles of his jaw. Again, it was one of his contrasts I would never fully understand, like his gaze... 

Even if I couldn't glimpse it, I could feel the crystalline intensity as he was focusing on the mindless shapes he was tracing on my skin, more intently than if they were holding the answers to all the mysteries of the universe – at least, until he finally noticed my stare, and the same penetrating look was on my flushed freckles and my probably puffed eyes.

"Hi, Shooting star."

"Hi..." I croaked, trying to swallow when I realized how dry my throat was.

"How are you feeling?"

How was I feeling? I searched for the answer between the throbbing in my head, the sourness in the back of my mouth, and the memories coming back, and Blade surely saw it in my wince as he added, poking my belly,

"Your stomach?"

"Oh, um..." I glanced down at my stomach again, his fingers now intertwined with mine over my belly button, and all I felt under was warmth, the kind of warmth that dissolved the knots and filled the emptiness. It was the only part of my body that was... "Better."

I offered him a small smile, and he didn't ask more. Well, he didn't have to with his eyes piercing through every part of my body they were roaming.

"Here." He handed me a bottle of water as his gaze paused on my dry lips, and when he helped me straighten up and I gulped half of the bottle, more thirsty than I'd realized, I feared what he would find out if he dived his eyes in mine.