The Nefarious Crew ✔️

CHAPTER 37

Chapter Thirty Seven
Bear Johnson

Nothing could have ever prepared me for the pain I have felt when I saw Raya lying on the ground, her own blood pooling around her in this thick red puddle.

When someone says their heart dropped, it usually means that they have received news they weren't prepared to hear, but when my heart dropped, it was because of fear. The not knowing whether or not she was breathing or not was getting to me.

I remember feeling that my face turned completely ashen, looking at her body lying on the ground, with the pool of blood forming around her lifeless frame.

My heart dropped right to the ground at the sight, and not even the excruciating pain in my shoulder could ever compare to how I felt when I saw her lifeless frame just lying there on the ground.

There was no victory smile after a completed mission. There was no high-five, or even a relieved hug that everyone was alright.

There was nothing.

Her face was completely pale, her eyelids were closed and unmoving, her breathing was slow and heavy, and her clothes were completely soaked with blood.

Our Raya was fighting for her life. She was always a fighter, but I could see how hard she was actually trying not to. She had a painful life growing up, and I know that she would never rest until she finds the guys who murdered her family, but she was also very tired. She was damn exhausted. She just wanted the fight to be over.

She just wants the pain to end.

And I was bloody selfish for wanting her to fight through this. For wanting to live.

She didn't owe any of us anything, but I can't help but feel that I owe her everything. I haven't exactly made the past few weeks for her bearable; giving her the cold shoulder every chance that I got, ignoring her when she spoke to me, and immediately looking away when she would capture my gaze.

I was horrible to her.

And now, looking at her lifeless frame with the unsteady rise and fall of her chest, I've wanted nothing more than to wish that it was me lying in her place instead.

I would turn back the time, let the machete slice through my skin, and let it be me lying there on the cold, hard ground. I would want me to look that lifeless and pale.

But grown men like me knew that there wasn't a thing as granted wishes. You can make a million wishes in a fountain or a well, but none of them would come true.

I cannot wish that her place was in mine instead. I can only wish for her recovery and hope that whoever granted wishes like that would grant me only this one wish.

Only this one wish.

Please. I thought. Please let her be okay. I cannot lose her. I cannot lose her.

"Fuck!" I yell, slamming my clenched fist against the wall. My knuckles immediately split and burned on contact with the wall, but I welcomed the pain.

Storm sits beside me on the floor, his face looking more ashen than mine did when I saw her lying on the floor in her own blood. He pulls his knees to his chest, and his eyes were red-rimmed and his hands were clenched and resting on his knees.

"She's going to be okay, brother." Storm says.

"Can you say that, but this time make it more believable?" I look at my knuckles, seeing blood trickling down the cuts. "Because, right now, you don't sound like you believe your own words, Storm."

Storm's head falls, and when he looks at me again, his eyes were filled with tears. "We just gotta believe that she's going to be okay, Bear." He says. "Because if we don't believe that she's going to be okay, we might as well just plan her funeral."

My head snaps his way. "Don't say things like that. She's going to be fine."

Storm then smiles. It was small, but it was there. "If you say it, it sounds more believable." He then places is hand on my shoulder, giving it a tight squeeze. "You're her best friend, Storm." He says. "And Raya will come back to us. Hell, she must come back to bite you in the ass for hugging her when she doesn't like to be touched."

I couldn't help but chuckle. I then shake my head. "I'm so fucking scared, man."

"How do you think he feels?" Storm jerks his chin toward Raya's bed, where Ezra was still seated beside, his forehead resting on the bed beside Raya's body. "Ezra hasn't moved from his spot in three days. He hasn't even eaten anything, either."

Storm was right. Whenever Storm tried to give him something to eat, he just shook his head. Ezra hasn't eaten in days, like Storm said, and it was starting to show. His cheeks were hollowed out, his eyes red-rimmed and distant. His lips were chapped, and he was still wearing the clothes from the night Raya was stabbed.

When Nikko tried to get him to shower, he shrugged his hands off and continued to stare at Raya's pale face and unsteady breathing, hoping that Raya would wake up.

It wasn't such a good idea to sit in the same clothes as the night when Raya has been stabbed, because when he would look down, he would see her blood on his shirt and pants, and it would remind him of that night, and what happened to her.

All of us coped differently, but Ezra's way of coping was very, very unhealthy.

I guess punching a fist through a wall wasn't a healthy coping mechanism either, but at least I was eating. I took a shower, at least. And I hydrate every hour, too.

Ezra hasn't had anything to eat or drink in three days. And counting.

If it wasn't for his shift in his seat, I would have declared him dead, too. He was a walking corpse, a zombie, and he would only come to life again if Raya wakes up.

"Do you think he loves her?" I ask Storm.

It was a stupid question, but I needed to have an answer to that question anyways.

"If he didn't love her, he wouldn't be sitting there right now." Storm says. "But," he slaps a hand over my shoulder, "he'll never love her more than you do, Bear."

I smile, looking at Storm as he got up from the ground.

"Try to talk some sense into him," he says, "he needs to eat, or he'll die too."

I nod.