Silent Desires (Shattered Silence Duet Book 1)
Silent Desires: Chapter 48

Seeing this tiny, broken girl constantly passing out is killing me. I only want her to be safe and happy, and we can’t even manage that in our own home.

Between me, Jasper, and Atlas, she doesn’t move an inch when she loses consciousness in our arms. Then we hear our phones chime all at the same time.

“Let’s clean the wound while she’s unconscious, so it’s less painful,” Ben says, shifting into doctor mode. He’s not a doctor, but he’s smart and often plays medic for all our non-life-threatening injuries.

Jasper scoops her up and sits in a kitchen chair with her in his lap. I help position her injured arm on the table and step back to let Ben work.

Pulling out my phone, I read the message she managed to send before passing out.

“Why is she apologizing?” I ask.

“What?”

“Right before she passed out, she texted us saying I’m sorry. Why is she apologizing?’

“Because she lied,” Jasper says, staring at her arm. Well, yeah, it was obvious to all seven of us that this injury wasn’t from falling, but I have no idea what caused it. It doesn’t look like a knife wound, we’d seen a few of those over the years. This was a circular shape, like a little hole. Although it looked infected so it was hard to tell what the original injury looked like.

I wonder how long she’s had it. Have I touched her arm and caused her pain without even knowing? Didn’t she seem to be in pain when Tucker hugged her the other day? Bullocks! How long has she been hiding this from us? We could have helped days ago.

After a few minutes, Ben comes in with a handful of supplies. He places a towel under her arm and starts cleaning the wound.

“Shit. It’s badly infected,” he says, grimacing as he works. “I think this could be what caused her fever.”

“That’s bad. It means the infection’s in her bloodstream. Shouldn’t we take her to the hospital?” I look around at the guys to gauge their thoughts.

“They’ll contact her mother,” Dom states, his eyes fixed on her unmoving form. “There’s no way she wants a hospital record of Mina. It could have bad repercussions.”

“This isn’t bad?” Atlas snaps angrily. “She can’t go back there.”

“She’s under eighteen,” I say, sounding like a broken record, even to my own ears.

“I don’t care!” he yells. “This has to stop.”

“Nothing has changed, Atlas,” Dom says, pacing the room in agitation. “Either her mother is helping hide her from someone worse, in which case, she’ll take Mina and run, and we’ll never see her again. Or her mother is the killer and—”

“And that means Mina is in danger in that home, and she can’t go back there,” Atlas quietly yells, not wanting to wake her.

“What do you think will happen if we keep her here and don’t let her go home?” he asks Atlas calmly.

“She’ll finally be safe.”

“What do you think her mother will do? She’ll go to the police and tell them her daughter’s missing. It will take them all of five minutes at the school before they know she’s been hanging out with the twins and they end up on our doorstep.”

“I’ll hide her,” Atlas says, like it’s the easiest thing in the world.

“Fuck, Atlas, I get it. I do! But they’ll figure it out, and if we go to them and show them the injury, I don’t think it will be enough, not yet.”

“We need to get Mina to tell us what’s going on,” I state, making them turn their frustrated gazes to me. “It’s all well and good saying what we want to happen, but it’s up to Mina. We ask her if she wants to stay here, even just for tonight, so we can help figure this out. Maybe simply knowing we’re going to be here for her will help her open up to us.”

The room falls silent after that. None of us want her to go back, but we’re all afraid of making things worse. When Ben finishes cleaning her wound, we move her to the living room. She leans against Atlas and we all take seats around them, afraid to let her out of our sight.

After a while, Mina stirs, and her eyes slowly blinking open. She gazes around at our concerned filled faces and I witness the moment she remembers what happened. Shame fills her gaze as she tries to sit up.

Atlas murmurs a soft, “no,” holding her tightly to his chest. His arm is draped across her side, and she winces. Instantly, he lets go, concern flashing across his face as he helps her sit up.

“Do you have other injuries?” he asks, gently tilting her face toward him. Mina makes a motion, signaling that she wants to type.

“Here,” Ben says, passing her the phone.

She takes it, her eyes flicking to the screen before her face fills with panic and fear, and she bolts upright, urgency radiating from her. She types quickly, our phone pinging with the message.

Mina: I have to go home.

I glance at her, as do the others, all unsure of what to say. We wanted a chance to talk about this, to tell her she could stay here.

She presses on, typing again, and this time clutching the phone to her chest after pressing send.

Mina: Can you take me home please?

“Mina,” I say tentatively, sitting forward to be closer to her. Her worried eyes meet mine and I can feel the urgency in her. “You know, if it’s not safe to go home, you can stay here, with us? Even just for tonight.”

She stares at me for a moment and I see a wave of emotion roll through her, surprise, hope, worry and fear. Finally, her eyes drop and she shakes her head.

“Okay, but I want you to think about it. If you need somewhere safe to stay, you’re always welcome here.” She nods, standing and moving to the door.

Atlas follows her, but worry keeps me glued to my seat. My chest tightens as I watch them leave. The silence in the room is heavy, filled with unspoken pain. As the rest of my brothers rise to accompany them out, I follow, needing to glimpse her one last time.

Dom moves in front of her as she reaches for the door. He tilts her chin up as he asks, “promise me you’ll be okay tonight? That you can go home and just sleep until morning?”

She nods, her response hesitant but sincere. He stares at her for a moment, clearly seeking for the truth before he nods back.

Atlas takes his place as he looks down at her. “You text me anytime, day or night, you hear me? I will always be there for you. You just have to ask for help.”

His words are quiet but firm, and when he squeezes her hand, something in her seems to ease. She gives him a smile before waving goodbye to the rest of us.

The door closes with a thump and the six of us stand there staring at it until slowly, one at a time, we turn away and head for our rooms, nobody wanting to talk about what happened and what we were potentially sending her home to.