Broken Doll {ManxMan}

CHAPTER 24

It was near impossible to get my head around what had happened, but I tried my hardest to put everything together during the drive back to the rebellion. We'd failed horribly. No, not only did we fail our mission entirely by not getting Andrei Oliveira to agree to an alliance and sign the treaty, but we lost several good men in the process. Soldiers from the rebellion; Cormac. 

We never even got to talk. He never got to apologize to me, and I never got the chance to forgive him. He tried to protect me and died for his trouble, because he cared about me way too much, even though I would never have given him the love he wanted. He knew that, and he still died for me. How was I supposed to come to terms with that?

I was still shaking as I sat in the seat at the back of the car, Tobias next to me and Bryn on the far left, holding a folded cloth against Tobias' head to help stem the bleeding. We were both trying to keep him awake, despite the fact he was leaning heavily against me, slumped over so badly his head was on my shoulder, practically in my lap. Though his eyes were open, they were hazy, and I doubted the way I was raking my hand through his hair was helping to keep him awake. 

Klaus sat in the seat in front of us, just in front of me, with Diego stretched across the rest of the seat, eyes closed, his head in Klaus' lap. He didn't appear to be injured physically, but after seeing the way he reacted to Andrei, I wasn't surprised he was drained emotionally. He had an arm hanging over his face, covering his eyes, a frown on his lips. Klaus was raking his fingers back through Diego's hair, staring out the window to his right. I was convinced that the crazy man was in good hands with the former cop, so I kept my full attention on Tobias. 

I lifted my hand to pat his cheek when his eyes were slipping closed, and he grumbled a little as I chided him, my voice unsteady as I was still shaken up from Bay's sudden appearance, "You have to stay awake for a bit longer, Tobias," I urged, and Bryn pressed harder against his head, prompting my husband to hiss under his breath. 

"Keep talking to him," Bryn muttered to me, and I glanced up at him before looking back at Tobias, stroking his cheek with my thumb and wiping off the dry blood on his face. 

What was there to say to keep him awake? 

"I'm scared," I found myself whispering, setting my head against his, "Tobias... I'm so scared. This happened because of me, and... what if the rebellion is mad at me because their people were killed? We don't even have anything to show for it," I pinched my eyes closed, "De-Demi gave me a knife to protect myself with, but I was so paralyzed I forgot all about it. Seeing you get that angry... it's not like you. I was terrified...," my face was buried in his hair, whispering, "Why did this have to happen? Why did he have to show up? It's not fair." 

I felt a hand touch my arm and pulled my face away to see Tobias was clinging to my sleeve, in an attempt to comfort me it seemed. I smiled weakly and pressed my lips against his forehead, closing my eyes. 

"If you stay awake I'll play something for you, as soon as we get back to the rebellion and you're patched up. That black case, there's a violin in it... I'll play for you until you fall asleep, but till then, stay awake. Okay?" 

He hummed, like it was the only thing he could manage, and I held him tighter, glancing up towards the front, "Can you go faster? Please? I don't know how much longer he can stay awake," when there was no response I tried again, my voice shaky, "Plea-." 

"I heard you the first time, Abbott," Josie snapped, and the car picked up speed so abruptly my back was pressed into my seat. 

My eyes were wide at the bite in his tone, watching as Logan threw his arm to the side to smack Josie in the shoulder, hard, if the wince he gave was any indicator. Bryn was scowling at the front now, though he wiped the expression away to give me a nervous look, but I didn't meet his eye as I wrapped both my arms around Tobias, hiding my face in his hair.