“Dislocated shoulder, head trauma, lacerations throughout her body.” The man’s voice fades out before cutting back in, a harsh shout that travels up my spine.
“Goddammit, Rio, this isn’t a fucking hospital where I have the equipment I need. She could have internal bleeding right now, for all I know.”
“Come on, man, she was fine just a bit ago,” another answers, a note of concern in his tone. Rio’s companion, I think.
“Fine
? I have no way of knowing what kind of damage she took. It’s evident she hit her head. She could be hemorrhaging and potentially die in seconds. You gonna find me a CT scanner?” When he’s met with silence, a muttered, “Thought so,” follows.
Darkness licks at the edge of my consciousness, threatening to drag me back under. I moan, and probing fingers pry my eyes open. A bright light flashes in them, but I hardly notice.
“Miss, can you tell me what hurts?”
An older man replaces the light, his face crowding over me. His image is blurry, but I can make out tufts of gray hair, a bushy mustache, and pale blue eyes.
I part my lips, but my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth.
Jesus, what did they inject me with? Whatever it was, it’s making me disoriented and dizzy.
“I know you’re in a lot of pain right now, but I need you to tell me what hurts.”
Everything. Everything fucking hurts.
“My… shoulder,” I croak out finally. “My head.”
“Anywhere else? Your chest or stomach?”
“Back,” I gasp, remembering once more being dragged out of my car. My back feels as if it’s been shredded with a cheese grater.
“That all?” he presses.
I nod my head, the incessant questions exhausting. A million other places hurt, too, but my energy is depleted, and I’m so very tired.
“I’m going to put you under anesthesia and get you fixed up, okay?”
Clarity surfaces over my surroundings, and the man’s facial features sharpen. Along with another man standing behind him, who’s shifting on his feet and watching us.
Time to go to sleep, princess.
Dark bottomless eyes and a wicked grin-Rio. He’s the one who had dragged me out of the car. Flashes of that conversation elude me, but I know there was more to it. I can’t think past the relentless pounding in my skull.
Just as my eyes were beginning to focus, my vision blurs once more, and my eyelids grow heavy. I can’t fight the deep pull to just close my eyes.
I don’t want to fight it. Not when it’ll take me away from the pain.
Addie, baby, I need you to fight for me, okay? I need you to survive until I get to you.
“How badly is she damaged?”
The question stirs me out of the endless pit I’ve been drifting in, where only an illusion of Zade’s voice lives. It’s not real-his voice isn’t actually there. But it feels so real. So soothing, that I fight to stay where I can hear him.
“How badly do you think? You ran her off the road.”
Alongside the angry response is a swell of dull pain pulsing throughout my body. I hear a sigh, and then the older man continues.
“She’ll have a few scars along her back from the glass. You’re lucky they were fairly clean, so the scarring won’t be too terrible.”
“That’ll decrease her value,” a voice mutters, too low to discern who said it.
“Shut the fuck up, you’re getting paid regardless. The fuck you care for?”
“Uh, maybe because your dumbass mistake is risking my life
? Jesus, Rio, I knew she was banged up but not this bad.”
Whatever Rio was going to say, it’s cut off by the unfamiliar voice-the one who must be the doctor.
“She has thirty stitches between the two larger lacerations because she was dragged across sharp metal and glass. You couldn’t have expected that not to cause permanent damage,” he says, clearly taking Rio’s companion’s side.
“Goddammit,
Rio. You do realize that might be coming out of my fucking pocket, right? I asked for your help, not for you to fuck it all up for me.”
“How the fuck did you expect me to get her out, huh? Lift the car like I’m fucking Superman and roll it off so I can carry her out like some hero?” Rio spits.
My chest seizes. The roughness of his tone feels like scratching nails on a chalkboard. I’ve awoken to that damn voice too many times now. And each time is a stark reminder that I’ve been pulled down into a nightmare and haven’t found my way out yet.
“If you hadn’t hit the car so fucking hard, none of this would be happening, you piece of shit.”
“If you hadn’t been so fucking doped up and screaming in my ear, then you could’ve been the fucking driver like you were supposed to be.
“
“Gentlemen, let’s take a breather. She’s awake. Her blood pressure is rising.”
My breath stills, but I don’t bother pretending. Slowly, I open my eyes to see three men surrounding me, staring at me as if I’m a lab rat in an experiment.
A very fucking horrible experiment.
My eyes clash with a dark pair first. Nearly black and lifeless from the lack of warmth. Tattoos cover his light brown skin, the laurel leaves on either side of his throat snagging my attention first. He’s wearing a zipped-up leather jacket, but black ink swirls on his hands and up to each of his fingers, indicating he’s most likely covered in them. He has sharp angular features, arched thick brows, along with a scar cutting through the side of his closely cropped black hair, completing his near-feral appearance. He’d be attractive if he didn’t look like he’d rather see me dead.
My gaze moves to the man next to him; he’s grungy-looking with scabs on his face from apparent drug use. A mop of greasy hair covered by a backward ball cap, a dirty wife-beater, and pants too big. I recognize him as the other man who kidnapped me.
Finally, I look over to the third man-who I assume to be a doctor. Gray hair, blue eyes, a bushy mustache, and wrinkles disturbing the otherwise smooth expression on his face. His stare is softer, matching the tenor in which he speaks. But something is off about him. A deep, penetrating vibe that I can’t quite place.
I look away, a cold tremor settling deep in the marrow of my bones. The dull, throbbing pain is growing sharper but still not nearly as potent compared to when I awoke in that van. Whatever painkillers they pumped into my system must be fading, and I’m not above begging for more.
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.