“What’s your name?”

“Can you tell me how many fingers you see?”

“Follow the light…”

So many different demands, and I was tired of all of them. The next time they told me to follow that bloody light they shone in my eyes, I was going to tell them to follow the light, right after I shoved it up their asses.

I must have said it out loud, because somebody laughed. “I know, honey. It’s miserable having a light that bright blasted in your eyes when you’ve got a concussion, but we have to make sure everything’s okay in that head of yours.”

“It’s not,” I said quite clearly.

Then I closed my eyes and went back to sleep. I wanted to find Jacen again. I’d been dreaming about him earlier. Dreaming that he was there, but when I opened my eyes, he wasn’t there, so I knew it had only been a dream.

That made me kind of sad.

And thinking that made me feel pretty dumb, because how corny was that?

* * *

Everything hurt.

I’d woken up in bad shape before, but not like this. Not since that last time...I pushed that thought aside. I felt like I’d been stepped on by a giant trying to tap dance—and doing it very badly.

Groaning, I reached up to rub at my eyes, but even that faint movement was enough to send agony rushing through me.

“Feels like shit, doesn’t it?”

That familiar voice, familiar tone, had me tensing.

Kaleb.

Slowly, I lowered my hand, looking around until I saw him. He stood by a window in a room I didn’t know, but was easy enough to place. The smell of antiseptic, the paper-thin gown I wore, all of it combined with how awful I felt was enough to paint the story.

I was in the hospital.

“What’s…”

That was all I got out before memory came rushing back.

Daytin.

The crack house.

The guy I’d hit with the bottle.

Who’d stabbed me with...I reached up to rub at my chest and I felt where the needle had gone in. It was covered with a bandage and my heart bumped against my hand as panic started to well inside me. Again. I’d had that poison inside me again.

But this time you know it’s poison…that’s good, the calm voice inside me said. That’s a start. Now calm down.

“What day is it?” I asked, and I was surprised that I actually sounded calm.

“What, did you hit it so hard you lost that much time?” Kaleb asked caustically.

My heart fell. “What?”

But he’d turned away and wasn’t even looking at me. “We can’t keep doing this, Camry. You know I love you. You’re my baby sister and there won’t ever come a day when I don’t love and adore you. But I’ve got my own family now and I need to think about them, put them first.”

A sick feeling filled my stomach. I wanted him to look at me, but he was still staring outside ,and there was a knot in my throat that was just too big for me to speak around.

Forcing my stiff legs to move, I swung them over the edge of the bed.

Finally, he glanced at me. “You should be still, take it easy. Apparently, you smacked your head and you’ve got a concussion. The nurses keep coming in to wake you up and ask you your name. The last time they did it, you told them to fuck off. Mum would be disappointed.” This time he looked at me straight on.

Now I really felt sick.

“Kaleb, I went out looking for Daytin last night,” I said, my lips numb, my body turning cold.

But he shook his head. “I know about the heroin, Camry. And it doesn’t matter anymore. I won’t keep doing this. Even if you get clean again, I don’t think I can trust you. Not now, not a year from now…hell, maybe if you’re clean a good five or ten years, we can talk. But for now…I just needed to make sure you were awake enough to hear me say to stay away from me and my family.”

If he’d punched me, it would have hurt less.

“Kaleb, listen,” I said, my voice thick. “You don’t understand. It didn’t happen how you think.”

The small wound under my gown pulsed and throbbed like a brand, and I wondered if he’d believe me if I showed him.

Instead, I held out my arms. “I mean, look…there’s nothing there. I wasn’t shooting up, I swear. I’m not doing drugs.”

“Then explain the overdose of heroin in your system,” he said, finally looking at me, his expression stony, unforgiving. “Explain why your car looks like it’s been smashed around by a wrecking ball. What, did somebody hit you and before they took off, they pumped you full of your drug of choice?”

“What do mean my car’s smashed around?” I asked.

I loved that car. He’d given it to me when I completed the rehab program at the clinic. It was my baby. And not just because of what it was, but because of what it represented. What it had represented. That he forgave me. Trusted me.

“It’s fucked up to hell, Camry,” he snapped. “Here I was thinking it meant something to you, and apparently you were out driving it when you were high. So, no…the car doesn’t mean shit, your life doesn’t mean shit, nobody else’s life means shit either. Fuck, Cam, how selfish can you be?!”

Now tears sprung to my eyes, but I blinked them back. If I’d been driving, I shouldn’t have been, so he was right to yell at me there. But I did know a few things about last night. I hadn’t been shooting up.

And I had a vague memory of needing to get out of the house where I’d found Daytin. Hadn’t I asked her to drive me?

I couldn’t remember, though.

Maybe I’d imagined it.

“You can’t even make up a decent lie, can you?” he said, sounding disgusted.

“That’s because I don’t plan to lie,” I shot back, some anger bleeding through into the pain. “Look, I found Daytin at a crack house. Some—”

“You went to a fucking crack house?!” he said, his voice lethal. “After everything we went through to get you safe, get you clean? Keeping you out of jail. Moving across the country. Getting you through school. All this shit, have you even thought about what it could mean for the clinic? Have you thought about what this could do to Piety’s family?”

“What about what it did to me?” I shouted, my temper snapping as my heart broke.

I adored Piety. Really, I did. I loved my sister-in-law, and she loved me more than I deserved, but to be so concerned about what her family might think that he wouldn’t even listen to me, wouldn’t let me explain...

“I went to help a friend and some bastard was on top of her, practically raping her! So I hit him. He hit me back, and we got into a fight. He stabbed a syringe into my chest,” I said, tears burning my eyes. He had to believe me, he had to.

For a long, hard moment, he stared at me.

Hope fluttered.

“I guess I was wrong.”

Air blasted out of me as I learned to breathe again.

“I guess you still can come up with a decent lie.”

I stared at him as hope shattered into a million pieces.

Shaking his head, he turned for the door and headed toward it. “If you can’t stay sober and clean, stay honest, after everything we’ve done for you, then just don’t come around anymore. Just stay away from us, Camry. I won’t let you hurt my family.”

His family.

Which apparently no longer meant me.

I watched him go, knowing that nothing I said or did would make a difference.

Because it was too little, too late.

* * *

“There’s nothing wrong with it that I can see, but the antibiotics you’re on will kill any infection that might be trying to grow there,” Dr. James said, easing the bandage back into place over the jagged, ugly mark between my breasts.

When they’d asked what had happened, I’d given them the short version, then finished with a caustic, “Believe me if you want, I don’t care.”

“Why wouldn’t I believe you?” Dr. James asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Because my brother doesn’t.”

The nurse eyed me oddly for a moment, then after a look from the doctor, she excused herself.

Dr. James folded his hands over one bent knee and watched me for a long moment. “You’re a recovering addict, aren’t you, Mrs. Hastings?”

“It’s Miss.,” I corrected him. “And yes.”

“Recovering. That means…” He shrugged. “Yes, I believe you. I’ve never seen a junkie shoot up by stabbing themselves in the chest. You came in with that needle still attached to your clothes. In the chaos, your husband didn’t see it.”

“My…” I blinked at him, confused. Then, waving that off, I asked, “The needle…it was on my clothes? Can you test it?”

He smiled. “Already sent it out. There was blood in the syringe that matches your blood type, but there was dried blood on it—and you—that I don’t think matches based on your injuries. It’s likely it belongs to your attacker. We’ll have results within a day or so, both of the blood types, as well as if there’s anything we need to treat. We’ll be putting you on a round of anti-virals just in case.”

“Great.” Making a face, I looked away.

“I take it you’re familiar with them.”

Swallowing, I nodded. “I had to take them when I went into rehab. I…um…” Face flaming, I forced myself to explain, to own my mistakes. “I turned tricks for a while in Las Vegas. I always made sure they wore condoms, but that doesn’t necessarily mean anything. I was high half the time. I was clean when I went into rehab, but the doctors said it would be a good idea.”

“Indeed it was.” His face softened. “You’re a lucky girl, it would seem, Miss Hastings.”

“I don’t feel very lucky,” I whispered.

“You’ve dodged a couple of very ugly bullets. Let’s see if your luck holds up.” He got up and started toward the door. But then he stopped and came back to me, resting a hand on my shoulder. “Not everybody who tries to turn their life around succeeds. So far, you’re doing an admirable job. Maybe your brother doesn’t believe you now, but you two will find a way back to each other. You’ve got other people in your life who love you. That means something.”

* * *

The jeans I found in the closet were too big. So was the shirt, and the bra was one of the oldest, most beat-up I owned. The panties, at least, were decent. And everything was clean, which was all that mattered.

After a shower, in which the nurse interrupted and fussed at me over, I still wasn’t feeling anywhere remotely human, but I knew I couldn’t stay here any longer. Not without thinking too much about everything, and that wouldn’t be good for me.

The doctor had talked about people who loved me, and while I knew Piety loved me, and maybe Astra did too, I couldn’t go against what Kaleb wanted. I’d fucked up their lives enough. But I didn’t have to do this alone.

I’d lain in the bed for almost two hours after that conversation with the doctor, haunted by fragments of dreams where Jacen held me, shouted at me, demanded answers, then just rocked me, stroked my hair.

I wanted to see him.

Maybe Kaleb didn’t believe in me, but Jacen did, and right now, I needed that desperately.

Plus, he must have been worried sick about me.

I’d left my phone back at the apartment, not wanting Kaleb to track me with it, so I had no way of calling him unless I wanted to call the club, and I didn’t want to have that sort of conversation over the phone. I’d waited too long to call him at the hotel. He’d already be at the club, rehearsing for tonight’s show.

I knew it’d be easier to get into the club if I went home and changed, but I was going to hope some of the notoriety I’d picked up lately would play in my favor.

“I can’t tell enough, Miss Hastings, that this is a bad idea.”

The nurse stood there with prescriptions in hand, tapping one foot on the floor. “I’ve talked to the admitting doctor and Dr. James. The admitting doctor refused to write any discharge orders, but Dr. James didn’t want you leaving without antibiotics or antivirals, so I’ve got prescriptions for that and a stronger form of ibuprofen.” She paused. “But no narcotics. He wouldn’t prescribe any.”

“I don’t want any narcotics,” I said tiredly. I wasn’t going to risk going down that rabbit hole again. Holding out my hand, I waited for her to turn the precious little slips of paper over.

After another moment of scrutiny, she finally did.

Then, to my surprise, she reached out and patted my shoulder. “Please be careful.”

What did it say that a stranger cared more than my own brother?