Catching flashes of memory against the lack of color, I replied, “Alys got a phone call. I think it was Pygmy. She left…Jason came in…and that’s all. Will you fuckin’ tell me what’s goin’ on now?” I asked.

“You have alcohol poisoning,” Dad told me. “You’re still sick from it. I can’t believe…after your mother and everything…”

Guilt flooded me. No wonder he was pissed. “Dad…”

He shook his head. “It’s going to be okay though. Right? This…this was just a one-time thing. You were hurting because of X, and Kenna—”

“Is she all right?” I couldn’t help the panic in my voice.

“Yes and no,” replied Connor. “We need to talk to you, Phil. It’s important that you listen and do what needs to be done, or…”

“Or what?”

“Or we won’t let Kenna come back.”

“What?” I gasped in disbelief.

“Son…you hurt her. You were so far gone in the drink that you tossed her into a wall and busted her head wide open.”

“What?”

Connor looked grim. “She’s going to be fine, man. She was nearly scalped, and she lost a lot of blood, but she’s cleaned up, and she’s going to make a full recovery. But that’s not the only thing. If you want to have a relationship with my sister, I need to know that this shit ain’t ever gonna happen again. The only way I’ll believe you is if you go to rehab and get the help you need. Ten weeks. When you’re well enough to be discharged from the hospital, the guys and I will go with you straight to the center. Your dad already has one in mind.”

“It’s an upscale place for rich shits who keep fucking up,” Dad said, almost cheerfully. “The best care money can possibly buy. It’s like a retreat.”

I stared at both of them like they’d lost their fuckin’ minds.

“It’s not up for negotiation, man. If you don’t do this, I’ll tell Da it was your fault that his little girl was getting her head stitched up, and he’ll move mountains to make sure you never see her again.”

My jaw dropped.

Dad was nodding his head. “And I’ll help him.”

“What the fuck?”

If I wasn’t so fucked up, weak, and just plain fuckin’ sick, I’d be losing my fuckin’ shit all over this taupe room.

“Kenna and Alys are leaving. We’re sending them out of the country until you’re done,” said Connor.

“No! I can’t even see her?” I cried. Her Tattoo throbbed angrily. She doesn’t want this either!

“We let her say good-bye before you woke up. That was all we were willing to do,” Connor—fuckin’ traitor!—said.

“Philip, you need to get your shit together,” Dad said. “You’ve hurt yourself, you’ve hurt your family, and you’ve hurt Kenna, both physically and mentally. Enough is enough. She tried so hard to help you—”

“She’s my fuckin’ fiancée! We’re supposed to get married—”

“Two weeks from today actually,” said Connor softly. “How were the wedding plans coming along?”

Two weeks? Where the fuck did the time go?

“I can’t…I can’t not see her,” I told him. “I’ll fuckin’ go apeshit.”

“You can, and you will because you love her more than anything, and this is the only way you’ll ever have her in your life again. She agrees. You need to do this, Phil.”

She agreed to this? I thought wildly.

Kenna had said she wouldn’t leave. I remembered that. She’d made me promise not to either.

When the fuck was that?

“There’s something else,” Connor said quietly, shooting a glance at my dad.

“What?” I breathed, not sure I could take much more shit right now.

“Kenna was pregnant.”

A shocked charge of air ripped from my throat. Joy, so raw and powerful, exploded inside me. If I had been standing, I would’ve dropped to my knees.

Wait…

“Was?”

Connor nodded, and I felt sick.

“Did I…when she hit her head…”

“No, man. Three days ago. Kenna found you and Alys asleep on the couch—”

“What?” my dad barked.

“It was an accident!” I snapped. I was close to having a fuckin’ heart attack.

“It was, and Jason was sleeping on the couch with them. But Kenna was pissed enough to storm out of there anyway,” Connor said.

Dad calmed down.

“But she knew, man…” Then, Connor continued to explain the whole deal to me, everything she had gone through on her own…

“She wouldn’t tell you because she couldn’t get your hopes up, only to have to lose it anyway. With losing X, she thought it might be too much,” he finished softly.

She was probably right because I was bawling my fuckin’ eyes out as Connor told me all of this.

We’d made a baby. We’d created a life. She’d had a part of me inside her, and I didn’t even know. If I had opened my eyes, if I had quit bein’ so fuckin’ selfish, I would’ve seen that. I had felt it, that there was somethin’ different about her. She’d been carryin’ a piece of me…

“She wanted it,” Connor told me, making me sob even harder. “She called it her Little Zephyr—”

“FUCK!” I screamed. This isn’t happening! This shit—this is some fuckin’ diabolical fuckin’ shit right here!

Dad wrapped his huge arms around me and hugged me tight.

“Oh my God!” I cried, pressing the heels of my hands hard into my eyes. Bursts of colors and prisms of light shot around behind my lids. “Oh, fuck! Baby Girl…fuck!”

Through her pain, her loss, dealing with my shit, all the people she’s buried…she loves me so fuckin’ much that she held on to our Little Zephyr. She fuckin’ bled for it, for us. She’d carried it around in her for ten weeks, unable to destroy a piece of me…

How can I not give ten weeks for her?

“She wants…no, she needs you to do this, Phil,” said Connor. “She wants you to get well. She knows you need help, and she’s not the one who can heal you this time.”

“Okay,” I gasped, snotting and snorting.

Dad handed me some tissue, and I wiped my face.

“I’ll do it. I’ll do whatever it takes.”

“I wouldn’t expect anything less,” said the soulless ginger.

I’d ended up staying in the hospital for three days. After I was no longer fuckin’ toxic, I’d gone in for CT scans, and—thank fuck—I hadn’t done any more damage to my body. My bones were still fusing nicely, the cast had been replaced with a brace, and my blood work had shown that I hadn’t done permanent damage to my organs.

What hadn’t shown up on any of these tests was the damage that had been done to my soul. I was just defeated and wrecked on a level that I hadn’t known before. Without Kenna, my life made no sense.

When it was time to leave, Dad wheeled my ass out of the hospital to the black van where I met up with the guys and Sheri along with Siggie behind the wheel. The guys were all set to head to the airport where Dad’s friend with the private jet would fly us out straightaway.

Sheri was on the phone, and her eyes lit up when she saw me.

“Here he is,” she said to whoever was on the other end before shoving her phone in my face.

“Hello?” I asked, giving Sheri a raised eyebrow.

“Hey, babe,” came the most precious voice in the world through the phone, like a warm bit of magic.

“Baby Girl…” I breathed, my chest filling up with a healing hot tingle. “Oh God, Kenna, I miss you so fuckin’ much!” Fuck it. I was crying again.

Everyone had walked away, leaving me alone in the wheelchair.

“I miss you, too,” she replied, sounding like she was doing a bit of crying herself.

“Where are you? Can’t I see you before I head out? I need to see you, Baby Girl. I’m dying inside.”

“I’m at the airport—”

“We’re headin’ there now! I’ll come and—”

“My flight is boarding in about fifteen minutes. I wouldn’t be here when you arrived.”

“Where are you going?”

“I’m not allowed to tell you,” she replied. “I promised Connor and our parents. I think it’s probably for the best. I have some shit I need to work through, too—”