Total pages in book: 67
Estimated words: 63915 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 320(@200wpm)___ 256(@250wpm)___ 213(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 63915 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 320(@200wpm)___ 256(@250wpm)___ 213(@300wpm)
I try. My eyelids feel glued. I peel them anyway.
Light. Not the cold white of a hospital, not the dim blink of a motel lamp. Softer. Lamps with shades. A fan whirring. The smell of clean cotton and lemon, not bleach. The ceiling is plain, no stains that look like moths. A framed photo on the far wall of a coastline at dusk. The air moves like it knows me.
I turn my head and nearly cry because it’s him. Tommy is there, sitting on the edge of the bed, elbows on his knees like he’s been there a while. He looks like he’s been in a fight with purpled knuckles, a healing split on his lip, a hollowness under the eyes I put there — but his gaze is steady and so full of me I have to look away.
I can’t. But then I look back.
“Hey, Tiny,” he says with a soft smile.
My mouth opens. No sound. He reaches for a cup with a straw and slips a hand behind my shoulder like I’m made of glass, lifting me an inch. “Small sips,” he murmurs, guiding the straw to my lip. Water hits my tongue and I almost sob. It tastes like pure heaven. I swallow and the little animal in my throat quiets enough to let me breathe.
“Where—?” My voice croaks like a door hinge. “Where am I?”
“Duplex on the compound,” he explains. “You slept through the ride back. We spent the last night at a crash pad. Doc said you were good to move, we came back to Haywood’s Landing. You’re safe.”
I try to nod, but the room tilts, then rights itself. The warm voice belongs to a woman with dark hair that has purple highlights at her temples and the kind of eyes that make you tell the truth even when you didn’t mean to. Doc Kelly, I remember her from before, when Ezra shot me.
“Hi,” I whisper. My tongue feels thick.
She checks my pulse, my pupils, the line of my arms. The tug in my elbow crook tells me there’s an IV — fluids, maybe vitamins. I don’t look too closely. I can’t, not yet. “You’re dehydrated,” she explains. “Undernourished. Just giving you fluids and minerals. You have to detox. Your vitals are holding steady. You’re going to feel like hell for a while, and that’s normal. I’m going to keep you as comfortable as I can without giving your system anything it doesn’t need.”
No narcotics. The truth lands like a soft stone: heavy, not cruel. I meet her gaze and she nods like she heard the thought announce itself in my head. “I know,” she replies. “You asked for no opioids the last time I treated you. I remember. I honor that. We’ll use adjuncts where we can. Fluids. Meds for nausea. Magnesium. B vitamins. Comfort measures. It’s not going to be pretty. But you’ve got family.”
Family. The word is too big and too warm and I don’t think I deserve it. My eyes well and I blink hard because if I start crying I’m not sure I’ll stop.
“How long?” I ask, barely more than a breath.
“You’ve been here nine hours,” Doc says. “In and out the last thirty-two hours while we made sure you were stable and then transport here. We started fluids. We’re monitoring you. You’re in a safe place. The next seventy-two hours are going to be a climb. Little by little. We’ll help you put footholds where the rock feels slick.”
I nod and it feels like I’m nodding with my whole body. The climb is a picture I can hold. It’s better than a fall.
Tommy hasn’t moved his eyes from my face. He’s cataloging me — not like a handler, not like a stranger, not like a judge. Like a man memorizing a prayer. There’s a pulse in his jaw that says he’s grinding his teeth to keep from saying something too big for the room.
I turn my hand over, palm up, offering. He takes it like it’s fragile and also indestructible, both truths at once. His thumb strokes the back of my knuckles, slow and steady like the man.
“Thank you,” I whisper, and it’s not enough syllables for what he did, for what he is, for the fact that I am breathing in a bed that smells like laundry soap and safety.
“Always,” he says. It’s not heroic, not grand. Just a thing a man says when the decision was made long before the question.
Doc moves with competent quiet. Blood pressure cuff hug, cool stethoscope against my chest, notes in a tidy handheld notebook. “Head Case is going to come in and sit with you in a bit,” she says. “We do short groundings. One minute at a time. We won’t turn this into therapy. That comes later. These next hours are about your body and your breath.”