Oh, hey! How do you feel today?” asks a chirpy female voice I don’t recognize.

My head hurts, and I had a weird dream about a strangely violent family Christmas skit, but I don’t think she’d care about the second bit.

Besides . . . where am I?

I blink a few times and squint as I look around the bright, white room. There’s a row of windows along the wall through which the blinding sunlight streams in. Whoever runs this place must be a morning person.

A TV hangs on the wall, airing some daytime soap opera.

The woman who greeted me is standing by my bed. She’s probably a morning person. Besides her blue scrubs, she’s also wearing an overly cheerful smile. The name tag on her chest says “Miranda.”

“Is this a hospital?” I ask.

“Yes,” she says, her long brown hair cascading down her back as she does something with the bag of IV liquid hanging by my bed.

She’s probably in her mid-thirties. She’s pretty. Judging from the big grin on her face, I’m probably not about to die—unless that’s what she always looks like.

“What happened to me?”

“You came in here with a gunshot wound last night,” she says. “But you should be feeling okay now. Does anything hurt?”

“Yeah. My head.” I shift to face her, but a sharp pain in my chest stops me from moving. With a grimace, I add, “And my chest.”

“Yeah. Unfortunately, it’ll take a while for that to stop hurting, but the worst part is over now.” She stoops to take a closer look at me. “The doctor wanted me to let him know when you wake up, so I’ll go and get him now, okay?”

“Okay.”

I squeeze my eyes shut, hoping it’ll help with the headache. But with no vision to distract me, I can feel the throbbing in my head even more intensely.

All at once, the memories of what happened flood back into my brain.

Damon. His place. Pizza. The towel bar as a weapon. Sex—kinky sex. Losing my virginity. The two men. The drive and my escape attempt. Damon scooping me up into his arms. Dark, abandoned houses. Ceramic tile. My dad walking in. The red dot on Damon’s leather jacket. Breaking free.

Then . . . darkness. And the car ride during which I kept thinking back to my childhood.

I got shot. By one of my dad’s men. Whoever he is, I’ve probably seen him around the house. Most likely, we’ve talked too.

The doctor comes into my room and interrupts my thoughts with his questions. He tells me my dad is at the cafeteria downstairs and is coming right away.

Oh, God. How am I going to face him after everything I’ve done? All these problems . . . I’ve brought them upon myself, all because I wanted to spend time with Damon.

And yet . . . I don’t know. I need time to process this.

“How are you feeling?” Dad asks when he bursts into a room.

“I’m okay, Dad. The doctor and the nurse both told me I’ll live.”

Dad pulls a plastic chair closer to the bed and takes a seat. He grabs my hand. “I was so worried. I thought I was going to lose you.”

“I’m sorry, Dad.”

“Don’t do that to me again. This is why you need your bodyguards at all times,” Dad says, staring into my eyes.

I look away. I don’t feel like I’m ready to agree to anything yet. “Where’s Damon?”

Dad’s grip on my hand tightens. “He’s the one responsible for this. I don’t want to talk about him.”

“Dad, you didn’t . . .” My knees weaken at the horrible thought in my head, but I have to ask the question. “He’s okay, isn’t he?”

Please tell me he’s alive.

“Yes.” Dad lets out a deep sigh. “You jumped in front of him to take the bullet for him. I couldn’t have . . . done that . . . after what you did for him.”

“Did you say anything to the cops?”

“Of course not.” Dad sounds almost offended. He’s always had an uneasy relationship with the cops. He’d sooner bleed to death that call 911 asking for help.

I don’t know how it’s possible that the cops aren’t notified after the hospital admitted a patient with a gunshot wound, but my dad has his ways, and I’ve given up asking him about the details.

“So he’s . . . free?” I ask, my heart racing with worry. I know my dad’s fully capable of locking Damon up in some damp, dark basement equipped with medieval, torture tools.

“Yes. Don’t worry about him. He’s fine. I’m worried about you, honey.”

He changes the subject to the more practical things, like how the hospital staff plans to treat me, how long I’m going to stay here, and when my mom will fly back into town to see me.

I’m glad my dad’s concerned about me. Really, I am.

But questions about Damon swirl in my head and refuse to leave. I know I can’t ask my dad about him.

He’s alive, and he’s free. That’s all I need to know. I hope he’s in his apartment right now, eating pizza and hitting his sandbag, maybe at the same time.

* * *

Two weeks later . . .

It’s almost time for the hospital to discharge me. Just another day, and I’ll be out of here.

I’ll be living in the outside world where I can finally get my hands on a phone and reach Damon. Or not. I don’t know. I haven’t decided yet.

For all the free time that I’ve had, just lying in my hospital bed, I still can’t sort out my thoughts and feelings.

Maybe it’s my hospital room that’s the problem. That’s why for the past few days I’ve been walking the halls. It gets lonely all by myself in there, and it’s nice to see people. Some of the nurses recognize me by now.

Alexa at the nurses’ station waves at me. I give her a smile and go back to my thoughts.

I hate Damon for misleading me, even if it was by omission, about what he was planning to do to my dad. He set a trap for my dad.

At the same time, my dad . . . Well, he did unthinkable things to Damon’s family too.

Damon was using me. And I almost lost my life protecting him—even though when I jumped in front of him, I assumed my dad’s man wasn’t going to shoot me.

I was a fool.

After all those things, I still want to believe what we shared was real.

How stupid am I? Maybe it’s time to forget about him already. I’ve been here for two whole weeks, and he hasn’t been here to visit me once.

I peek inside the staff break room.

“Wow, Miranda,” I say to the nurse who greeted me when I woke up on my first morning here. “That’s a lot of flowers.”

She stares at me like she’s seeing a ghost. Her eyes widen.

“What’s wrong?” I ask.

“Oh. Uh, nothing.” Miranda smiles but there’s something off about it.

“Can I come in? The flowers are so pretty.”

“Sure.” Despite what she says, she appears reluctant.

I walk inside the break room and touch the flowers, leaning down and sniffing their scents. They’re all roses and there’s at least a dozen huge bouquets of them—red, yellow, blue, and white.

“They’re yours,” Miranda blurts out.

“Huh?” I turn to look at her.

She fidgets with her fingers, then hurries to the door and closes it. “I’m not supposed to tell you this, so please don’t tell anyone I told you.” She looks around at the flowers. “We were supposed to throw them away, but nobody could do it.”

“Why would you throw them away?” I ask. Something weird is going on. I wonder if my dad has anything to do with this. He probably does.

“We were told to hide them from you,” she says. “But I can’t do it anymore.”

“It’s okay. You can tell me. I won’t tell anyone,” I say gently.

“He’s been coming every day. The guy who brought you here to the hospital with your dad. The one who gave you his blood,” Miranda blurts out quickly like she’s afraid she’ll change her mind but can’t stand the guilt anymore. “He’s been bringing flowers every day even though he’s never allowed to see you.”

Damon.

“Hold up. He gave me his blood?” I ask.

“I can’t say any more.” Miranda glances around like she’s afraid someone’s going to burst in here and forcibly separate us. She pulls out a drawer and hands me a stack of envelopes. “Here. Don’t let anyone see them.”