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She lifted her hand to her head, the words drowning into each other as she felt herself sway.
“Angel, baby . . .” Duke was kneeling beside her, his hands on the buttons of the shirt. “Let’s get this off, then we’re going to get you on the bed so Ethan can do what he does best.”
“Fix me?” She frowned.
That was Ethan’s favorite saying. That was what he did best, fix Angel and keep her on her feet.
“Nothing needs fixed, sweetheart.” He eased the shirt from her shoulders, bracing her weight as he did.
She couldn’t hold herself up.
She felt odd . . . disconnected.
“Duke.” She tried to reach for him, but missed him somehow. “Duke, what’s wrong with me?”
“Adrenaline rush added to the infection, Angel. You were already weak and running low, now you’re crashing. You remember the crash, right?” Ethan sounded so reasonable.
“Come on, let’s get you in the bed.”
Someone else was speaking; she could hear them. Something about a blanket under her . . . A woman’s voice . . . A memory, a need she’d never been able to conquer.
“Momma?” She grimaced. Fear tore through her. She couldn’t seem to hold on to the memory that she didn’t have a momma. “Duke. What the fuck’s wrong with me?”
She stared up at him, feeling the prick of something in her arm and rolling her head to Ethan.
“It’s okay, little sister,” he promised. “We got this, right?”
They had what?
What did they have?
“Allergy to penicillin when she was a baby . . . Be careful of the antibiotic. . . .” She heard the voice again, soft, soothing. That voice she always searched for when she had been sick as a child.
She stared at Duke where he sat next to her, one hand brushing her hair back.
She could still hear that woman’s voice advising Ethan on antibiotics and it was scaring the shit out of her.
She licked her suddenly dry lips, watching Duke desperately.
“Am I hallucinating?” she whispered, feeling whatever drug Ethan had pushed into her system taking hold of her. “I keep hearing her.”
“Hearing who, baby?” His gaze flicked to Ethan then back to her. “Who do you hear?”
“I keep hearing Momma.” Were those tears she felt in her eyes, one rolling down her cheek? “I hear her. . . .”
She had to close her eyes, just for a minute. They were so heavy. But when she opened them again, she knew she was dreaming.
“I’m here, BeeBee,” her mother whispered as she wiped the moisture from Angel’s cheek. “I’m right here.”
Why was she there?
Why . . . ?
Ethan and his damned drugs.
Her eyes drifted closed again, that darkness she couldn’t stop or control easing over her.
It was a dream. Just a dream . . .
