Recover: Book 2 of the Magic Mutations Series | ✓

72: Red and Raw

As we pulled up at the hotel, I quickly shrugged off my jacket and draped it around her.

Her mouth didn't open as her dull, vacant eyes looked up to mine. But I could see the 'why' shrouding her expression.

"You... might scare some people with the amount of... blood," I struggled to get the words out, wary if she'd break again.

But she merely numbly nodded, slipped her arms through the sleeves, and unbuckled herself.

The gentle hum of the elevator was as loud as the crowd of a stadium as we ever so slowly made our way up to our floor. The whole time, Olivia stared blankly ahead, the life drained from her as though she had died back in that living room too.

I wanted to reach for her.

Hold her.

Tell her the pain would pass...

But it was too soon. It wasn't my place. It wasn't right to Ben...

After what felt like an eternity of her staring at the metal doors and me at her expressionless face, finally the elevator came to a halt, dinging open.

Ollie stepped out first, and rather than questioning this time, I quickly clamped down on her shoulders, stopping her in her tracks.

And before she could even ask, I turned her around, nudging her away from their room and towards mine.

"What are you doing?" she said, the most emotion I had heard to her voice since the living room... though this time her tone was underpinned by notes of unease. Like my room was the last place she'd like to be.

Trying to not read further into it than I already had, I said back, "You shouldn't be alone tonight... I'll pack up his things so you don't have to look at them until you're ready."

Her shoulders whimpered under my grip, the tension rolling out of her as she almost sighed in relief—though that may be too much emotion. She had gone back to the silence, the vacancy, the nothingness... it was a more favourable state than feeling the ferocious agony of the broken bond.

After unlocking the door to my room, I gently nudged it open, stepping aside for her to go in first.

But her eyes slowly drifted up my body. And the moment our gazes met, she unfolded. Bottom lip quivering, eyes immediately gushing with tears, she stepped forward, throwing her arms around me as she heaved her pain into my chest.

She was in no state to focus on her magic. So not only did I hear her pain, but I felt it as she sent waves of electrical currents through me that rhythmically tied with each wail. Regardless, I wound my arms around her, pulling her into the room so that she'd be able to have her privacy from onlookers in the hallway, ignoring the throbbing in my side the whole while.

"I've got you, Ollie," I whispered into her hair, not even sure if she could hear me. "We will get through this."

A part of me hoped she couldn't hear me at that moment.

Because I knew I lacked conviction to that final promise.

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It took a while, but once the tears turned to a trickle, I gently pried her away from me to tuck a lock of hair behind her ear.

"I'm going to go get your things," I said, deciding to leave the implication of what else I'd be doing in the unsaid, "But you have a shower while I'm gone, okay? I'll be back before you know it."

She didn't say anything in response. She had gone back to being the lifeless Ollie from before. Nonetheless, I took her reprieve as my one invitation I'd probably get to run off.