AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.”
He leans forward and his fingers trip along the I.V. tubing. “They give you anything good?”
“I didn’t come here to party, but I can ask the nurse if she’s got a needle to shove up your ass.”
There is no humor in his smile. “Part of me is almost impressed by the size of your balls. It’s really a waste.”
I could reach for the call button. If I scream loud enough, eventually a nurse or someone will come running.
But then I would have to explain what Drake is doing here, before he managed to do the same thing. The last thing I need is for him to shout my real name at whoever will listen as he gets dragged out of the building.
Of course, that doesn’t mean I’ve suddenly had a personality transplant.
I glare at him, even though he probably can’t see my face in the dark. “Just tell me what you want so I can get back to sleeping this off.”
“What do I want?” he muses. The glass face of his watch flashes in the dark as he silently leans forward. “Let’s start with some fucking truth for once, Evangeline Maria Pratt.”
He tosses a stack of papers onto my lap. The dim light is just enough to make out one of my old mugshots printed in runny black-and-white on the page.
I don’t need to turn the page to know I’ll see details of every speeding ticket and trespassing violation that I’ve ever received. It doesn’t take an idiot to figure out that my real name is probably printed on every single page.
There isn’t any getting out of this, not while I’m trapped in a hospital bed. My name echoes in the air between us, assaulting my ears despite the loaded silence.
He knows everything.
“Or I could just call the police and you can explain it to them.” Drake leans forward to pick up the clipboard left by the nurse. “I bet the doctors here will be more than a little confused when they pull up Olivia’s medical history and it doesn’t even come close to matching the girl using her name.”
It’s over.
My hands clench into fists under the sheet. “What do you want to know?”
“Where is she?”
I don’t have to ask who he means.
“My sister is comatose in Connecticut, like a tragic Sleeping Beauty trapped in her childhood bedroom. There’s a pretty decent chance that she won’t ever recover from what happened to her.” Harsh pain traces a jagged pattern up my spine, like I’m being dragged through cut glass. I force any emotion from my voice so he won’t hear how hard I’m trying to hold back a sob of anguish. It’s hard to tell how much of the pain is from my injuries and how much is only on the inside. “The first thing I wondered when I met you is if you were the person who put her there.”
Did I just imagine the clenching muscle in his jaw?
When he speaks again, there is no evidence of any emotional reaction in his voice. “Is that what brought you here? Revenge?”
“If something like that happened to your sister, wouldn’t you want the same thing?”
The metal links of his watch jingle together as he twitches, the sound giving him away. “We aren’t talking about me.”
“Yeah, right,” I reply, rolling my eyes. “We’re not talking about anything that matters, so I guess you’re not too far off.”
He doesn’t rise to the bait. “What exactly were you hoping to accomplish?”
We’re clearly past the point of dissembling, so I give him the truth. “Find the asshole who hurt my sister and make sure that he suffers more than she ever did.”
“That sounds more like a fantasy than a plan.”
I grit my teeth, more out of annoyance than pain this time. If I didn’t know for a fact that he could wipe the floor with me, I might be tempted to throw something at him.
It kills me that he’s right.
It also kills me that I’m stupid enough to catch feelings for the guy that I always knew was my enemy.
