It was two entire days later when I finally got the green light from the doctor to see Theo. Gabriel and Allie were with me, but they both shook their heads when I gave them a questioning look.
“I’m not going in there to pat his shoulder and kumbaya like I actually give a shit.”
“But you’ve been coming by every day.”
Gabriel shifted uncomfortably. “Just keeping an eye on things.”
Allie gave me a quick hug. “I won’t be able to stop myself from putting Theo back into surgery,” she muttered. “I’ll just wait outside for you.”
The critical care unit was a large, clinical room fitted with monitoring screens and steadily beeping machines.
Theo lay in the hospital bed in the middle of the room, hooked up to several of those machines. The dark navy hospital shirt he wore had been unbuttoned to expose the bandages across his body, and the swathes of white were a painful reminder to me of how close he had come to death.
He wasn’t even out of the shadows yet. They hung in the air, mingling with the sterile smell of the hospital and cloying medicine.
Swallowing hard, I went over to his bed, gingerly pulling up a chair by his side.
Theo’s eyes were closed, and his face was unnaturally pale. The lights in the room had been turned down, making the shadows under his cheekbones stand out harshly.
I touched his hand, and he stirred.
“Karin,” he rasped, his amber eyes darting hazily.
“Shh, I’m here.” I quickly took his hand in mine. It was cold as ice, a vast difference from his usual warmth. “Did I wake you?”
“No.” He licked his dry lips. “Hurt?”
“I’m okay. I’m not hurt at all.” I smiled tremulously. “Shouldn’t you be asking about yourself?”
Theo shifted his head in a weak version of a shrug. He looked about the room like he had not expected to be here.
“The doctor said you have severe internal injuries, and you’ll need to be monitored.” I brushed my fingers over his bandages, forcing a smile. “You’ll feel horrible the next few days, but if there are no complications you’ll get better right after that.”
“So I’ll get worse first?” Theo closed his eyes. “Sounds like a cop-out...in case I keel over.”
My throat closed up. “Don’t talk like that. That’s not gonna happen.”
“Did the doctor say that?”
The doctor had refused to answer that question when I asked him. Tears started pricking at my eyes, and I stood up, intending to go to the window to hide them.
Theo’s hand found mine as I got up. “Don’t go.”
“I’m just letting in some light. The moon’s out today. You like that.”
“Stay.”
I was shaken by the raw need in his voice, and my own need to be near him.
“Okay,” I said softly, sinking back into the chair. “I’m not going anywhere, I’m right here.”
Theo visibly relaxed, but his hold on my hand didn’t loosen.
“Is there anything I can get you? Are your bandages too tight? Do you want me to stop talking so you can rest?”
“No.” He watched me solemnly, his eyes half-lidded from the effects of the medications. “Don’t cry,” he murmured. “I’m not worth your tears.”
I tried to hold them back as he lifted his hand and dabbed clumsily at my cheeks. “But you are. You kept me safe from the man.”
Theo’s jaw clenched at the reminder of the attack. “Who was it?”
“We don’t know yet. Ryland said he was caught near the scene last night. The police are interrogating him now, it’s a matter of time until he spills who hired him.” I held Theo’s hand against my cheek, trying to warm it up with my heat. “I hope it isn’t Estelle. If the police find out about her, it’ll get dangerous for all of you.”
“Not her. No motive.”
Theo was right. Estelle wouldn’t ruin her only hope of escaping New York. It was someone else who wanted him dead. Someone with enough money to hire a contract killer.
I paled at that thought. “Do you know anyone else who wants to hurt you?”
“List is… miles long. But perhaps… “ Theo paused to consider. “Get Ryland to check. Charles Presley.”
My mouth parted. “The man in the restaurant that day? The one you refused to sell to? But why would he do this?”
Theo smiled in satisfaction, vengeful even while fighting for his life. “Threatened him,” he said.
“What? Why?”
“He talked shit ‘bout you.”
I was stunned. “Theo, I don’t want you defending me if it means you end up hurt!”
Theo watched me through sleepy amber eyes. “You’re upset.”
“I’m terrified!” My throat was painfully tight. “You were bleeding out in my arms and I couldn’t do a single thing. I thought you were going to die.”
“‘Course not. Plan to milk it for all’s worth.”
“Don’t joke about that.”
Theo turned his head in a small shake. “Should’ve known better. I only…get you hurt.”
“That’s not true.”
“Stay with Ryland. Don’t go out alone until it’s over.” His hand tightened around mine. “Swear.”
“I swear,” I whispered. “Is there anything I can get you? Anything you need?”
A faint notch had already formed between Theo’s brows; the sedatives were taking effect again.
“No.” His shallow breaths evened as he fell back into slumber. “You’re all I need.”
I pressed his hand against my cheek, never wanting to let go. “Then I’ll stay.”
***
My body was on fire when I next awoke.
It was too fucking hot. My body felt only agony, a thousand red-hot needles pushing out from under my skin. There was a heavy fabric over me, and something tight winding around my chest and stomach.
I couldn’t fucking breathe.
I tried tearing the constrictions off, but my hands refused to cooperate. They brushed my torso weakly before falling to my side in a useless heap.
I heard a soothing murmur by me, but my first instinct was to struggle. I threw my arm out with all the strength I had left, shoving against a soft weight. Sharp pain lanced through my side at the movement, and I heard a woman exclaim the same time I yelled in agony.
“Did he tear his stitches?” A voice from my dreams, anxious but clear as a windchime.
Unfamiliar hands touching my body. “No, but he needs to keep still or he will. We can do it—”
“No, please let me. He just needs to know it’s me.” The voice was drawing closer, a feminine, familiar sound I couldn’t quite place. It calmed me instantly.
“Shh… It’s okay,” the woman murmured. A cool hand smoothed my damp hair back from my forehead. “I’m right here. You’ll feel better in just a bit.”
My mouth felt stuffed with wool. I wanted to struggle but I couldn’t find the strength to lift a finger. Where the hell was I?
I parted my mouth. “Hot.”
A slim tube gently touched my lips, and a tiny stream of cool water dripped into my mouth. I swallowed gratefully, the water absorbing into the sides of my parched mouth and tongue instantly.
“More,” I rasped.
Another stream of water, and then another, then the tube was taken away. I wanted to protest, but a cool towel touched my forehead soon after, taking some of the heat with it. I groaned in relief as the soft fabric dabbed gently, soothing my burning forehead, my neck, my face.
I had never felt anything so good in my life as this simple towel and the gentle hand that was holding it. The woman made soft sounds of encouragement as she worked on me, bringing relief with her every touch. My fingers twitched at my sides, wanting to hold onto her so she could never leave me.
Before I could beg her to stay, darkness claimed me again.
This time I was back in Barclay, in the common room the night the three senior boys took a blade to me and carved their names into my skin like I was an animal that they owned.
I could feel the knife piercing my flesh, but it wasn’t just the pain that was killing me; it was the shame. In that moment I wished they’d simply plunge the knife into me and be done with it.
But they didn’t. They took their time about it, letting the blade twist, digging into my flesh again and again and marking my body with their names. I bellowed and thrashed until my arm pulled from the socket, but I was only one against three.
I lay in my dormitory room after, blindly taking in the stone ceilings above my bed, the patterns of the gray slabs that I had memorized over the years.
It was the beginning of winter. A storm fell outside the arched windows in turrets, but my body felt like it was being held down in burning oil.
My wound had turned infected. The veins on my stomach were a deep dark red, tracing under my skin like poisoned streams in my body, delivering the blackened blood to my heart with every beat. My body was wracked with feverish tremors, but still I refused to go to the nurses’. I couldn’t have anyone know of the shame etched on my skin.
The pain was killing me, but it didn’t stop me from doing what I needed to do. I bit down on my leather belt, dug my fingers into my wound and ripped it open.
Then I poured salt into the raw flesh to destroy it. Anything that it wouldn’t form in their names.
As I fell back in agony I prayed for the pain to end, but there was no one there who could hear me. I was alone.
Help me.
A soft hand touched my forehead gently, shocking me with its coolness. I opened my eyes but saw no one with me.
“I’m here,” that voice whispered, the ghost who haunted my dreams every night.
“Who?”
“Karin.”
I didn’t recognize the name, but I knew it meant something to me. She was someone important, but she hadn’t come into my timeline yet, bringing with her the only times in my life I could forget the pain.
“Don’t go,” I tried to say, but no sound left my lips.
“I’m right here.” The cool towel touched my forehead and cheek again, taking the burning heat away. My panic eased as the woman kept soothing my overheated skin with the damp towel, murmuring gently to me.
I didn’t know how many hours passed, or how many days, but in that time I re-lived the nightmare in the common room a hundred times over. I found myself on my knees again and again, wrenched back by my hair and neck, the blade digging into my flesh.
“Stop,” I pleaded hoarsely, but it never stopped. I always ended up beaten and carved up, shaking with fever throes and clawing desperately at my skin.
But every time I was sure I would die of the burning pain, there was that soothing voice again, pure and clear, pulling me back from the darkness.
I began to crave that voice. When she was near, the nightmares were kept at bay, and the darkness seemed further away. I came to rely on that voice like a lifeline. I needed to see her, the person who was holding the flames of hell back for me. I needed her more than air itself.
I cracked my eyes open one day.
My vision was glazed, and I saw only vibrant hair and a vague glimpse of lovely features, but I already knew she was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.
She smoothed my hair from my forehead, cooling me with the towel again, whispering her soft words to me. An angel with hair like fire, saving me from the flames.
“Heaven?” I rasped. That didn’t make sense. Heaven wasn’t where I would end up after the sins I’d committed.
“Just me,” the angel whispered. “Keep hanging in there. Stay with me.”
I wanted to give her anything she asked. I would have gladly given my life if she would have it, but I was so fucking exhausted from the dreams. I didn’t think I had it in me to go through another one of them again.
“Don’t go,” she whispered, saying familiar words dredged from somewhere in my past. “Stay with me. Please stay with me.”
I want to.
But her words reminded me of a worse nightmare, one that I had forced myself to lock away for a decade.
I’d never been able to confront those faces, but it seemed that the nightmare had grown tired of waiting.
It was here for me.