Fractured Hearts (Shattered Lives, Book Three) Read Online Free Page B

“But what, Elaina? But what?!” Gunther yelled. “Do you want to help him or not?”
    “I do, but I don’t want him to go on a rampage. You don’t know what he’s like. I hate when he rages because he hurts himself every time. The last really horrendous rage, he broke his hand, then re-broke it after another one. I’ve found him with a gun to his temple.” She sagged and her knees began to give out. “I can’t do this anymore,” she cried, her hands covering her face.
    Hearing her obvious despair, Gunther rushed to her before she hit the floor. “Then we need to put a stop to it. I will take care of it, even if I have to tie him up and hold him down. Once we get him dry, maybe I can whip him back into shape. He’s gone soft in the belly.”
    “Yeah, he has. He always took such pride in his physique, but he hasn’t even done a single crunch lately. I just don’t want him to be upset with me. I can’t handle that right now. I can’t lose anyone else, especially him.”
    “Then pretend you have no idea what I’m doing. Let him take his anger out on me. I can handle him. You just support him.”
    Turning away from Elaina, Gunther stormed to the door. She watched him push it open and disappear. “Shit.” She turned around and dragged her ass back to their room.

    Opening my eyes, I found myself resting my sweaty head on the cool tile floor in the loo. Unsure about how I got from Point A to Point B, I was praying to the porcelain god that my epic “vomit-fest” would end soon. There was nothing left to give. How many times would my body do the evacuation dance before it would say, “Oh, yeah, you’re empty”?
    My gauge read empty. Nada. Zero. Finished. Fucking beyond E.
    Being a clean freak, the toilet, along with everything else, was spotless at all times; otherwise, I would have never rested against it.
    In contemplation, I lay on floor for a few minutes. I felt like I was destroying everything…myself and Elaina included. I loved her more than anything and there I was, killing her right along with me. My pain was turning into her pain, and the abuse I induced upon myself was also abusing her.
    “Fuck me,” I mumbled. Lifting my head, I rubbed my forehead with my arm.
    The door to our room opened, then another wave of belly-clenching fun hit. Let the heaving commence.
    “Henry?” Squinting, trying to shut out the light and focus on one Elaina at a time, I looked up at her in the doorway. She had a bottle of water in one hand. Or maybe it was three. I couldn’t be too sure. “Hey, lover.”
    “Hey…,” I choked out. “How did I get to our room? I was…” I coughed.
    “You stumbled in and lay down.”
    “I did? I thought…” I looked down at my nearly naked, puffy body, disgusted at what I saw. “And I stripped?”
    “Yeah. That looks to be the case.”
    “I’m sorry,” I muttered, wiping the excessive drool off of my lips with the back of my hand, unsure of why I was apologizing. I didn’t deserve her forgiveness.
    “Gunther found Silas…just in case you were wondering.”
    “Huh?”
    “Silas went missing, remember? Josie told you.”
    “Shit. Right.” How could I have forgotten something so important?
    “He’s fine…in case you were curious.”
    The inflection in her voice told me she was pissed, but hurt at the same time. “That’s good,” I mumbled in relief.
    “It’s going to be okay, lover.”
    Despite Elaina’s words, the devastation rolled off of her. Shaking my head, I crawled over to her and she ran her fingers through my dirty hair. The emotions were becoming too cumbersome for me to contain.
    It was me who was killing everything we had. Pressing my face to her jeaned thighs, I mumbled, “I need to clean up my act, don’t I?”
    “Yeah. Yeah, you do. You can’t lead like this. And we can’t continue on this path of self-destruction because you aren’t just destroying you. You’re destroying me. But worst of all, you’re destroying us .”
    “I