“Come on, Edie. Hydrate. You’ll feel better.”
Hydrate.He said that to me in the car, right before... before what? Did we crash? It had to have been a crash.
Wait.
Did he just call me Edie? He never calls me Edie. Edie is for special emotional breakdown occasions, like when I didn’t get through to the final round of my auditions.
Edie is kid glove territory.
Edie is “she’s going to cry until she pukes over a bad breakup” territory.
Something is wrong, really, really fucking wrong.
My gut sinks as his face softens with sympathy. He has cuts and bruises all down one side of his face. Dark circles underline his eyes, and he looks so damn pale. We aren’t hugging kind of friends. Well, I am, but he’s prickly, so I generally respect his boundaries and keep my distance.
Right now, though, I want to reach out to comfort him, even though I’m the one in the hospital bed. He looks... broken.
After three small sips of blissfully cool liquid, I try again. “What happened?”
Apollo’s brows pull together like he’s afraid I’m going to freak out and lose my shit if he tells me what happened.
“Pollo?”
He hates when I call him chicken, when anyone calls him chicken. His scowl darkens, his nostrils flare, and he sighs. “We were in a car accident.”
His admission isn’t as much of a surprise as it could have been. I’ve pieced a few bits of the jigsaw back together. And if I let myself remember, I can feel the impact, hear the smashing of glass, the crushing of metal, and smell blood. I think it was mine.
I lift a tentative hand to touch my head but stop when I see the cast. It’s bad enough that my arm is wrapped up, but my dominant arm? Ugh. This is going to create problems. Like wiping my ass. Or rubbing one out. Guess I’m gonna need new toys.
I almost laugh. Almost. I don’t know why that’s where my head went, but it is. Let’s blame the drugs.
Switching to my other hand, relief seeps into my muscles. It’s not in a cast. I can handle a broken arm. My hand drifts to my head. Quietly assessing my injuries, I let my fingers wander through my hair, confirming that I, too, have head and facial injuries like Apollo does, probably some impressive bruising as well.
I suck in a fractured breath. From the length of the cut in my scalp, mine’s worse.
But that doesn’t explain why I’m in this room, this bed. Do they want to keep me under observation for concussion? Or my arm? Or... Oh... no. No, no, no, no, no. Nausea sweeps through me like a wildfire, my stomach lurching at the sight part of me has been avoiding.
While my fingers keep tracing the damage to my head and face, my eyes scrape over the elevated cast my leg is in.
Panic seizes my entire body as I focus my attention on Apollo. There’s a dull throbbing back in my head, and it’s as though making eye contact with my leg reminded it that it should hurt too.
A sharp pain shoots into my chest, and I’m not sure if it’s real or if it’s the abject terror of what he’s about to say coursing through my veins. My eyes widen.
“Apollo?” My hoarse voice is barely a whisper.
His eyes never leave mine.“Sí.”
“How bad is it?” My jaw trembles, and hot tears are already spilling down my cheeks. We both know the implication of an injury to my leg. How bad the break is will determine how long I have to recover, how long I have to rest and not dance. Areallybad break could impact my entire future. Even a minor one could derail my plans. I don’t have time to watch my classmates surpass me from the sidelines.
His knuckle slides under my chin, sending a shiver skating across my face. “Try not to panic. A nurse or doctor should be here soon to talk to you, to tell you about your injuries.”
“No.” I smack his arm away from me, my stomach bubbling. I don’t want his comfort, his warm, smooth hands caressing me like I’m fragile. I want the truth. “Just tell me.”
He sighs, catches Artemis’s eye in the corner of the room. He has been so quiet I didn’t even know he was there. Yet I’m not surprised. As much as Apollo and I are like siblings, nothing comes close to the twin bond he shares with his brother. When Apollo hurts, Artemis hurts as well.
Artemis looks much better than Apollo—his clothes aren’t wrinkled, he’s clean shaven, and despite the frown creasing his face, he looks well rested. At his nod, something unknots in my chest.
If I’m getting bad news, I’d rather it be from someone who really cares about me than a stranger who cares for me because it’s their job.
