My hands are still shaking when I ask. “Then what?”
“You collapsed before we reached my car. I was going to take you straight to the hospital, but luckily, Mia called our medic out to come to treat you. He performed CPR on you right there in the parking lot.”
Something cool drips down my spine. “What…do you mean?”
“You died, Isabella. Twice.”
His words are like a stone smashing through glass bottles. Each rattles the earth as they shatter to the floor.
No. I can’t believe it, I won’t believe it.
She said it would incapacitate him, notkillhim.
But it had almost killed me.
How could she? Howcouldshe?
The tears fall freely. Because I’m angry and I’m terrified. Because Teo switched the glasses and betrayed me, even though I was going to do the same thing to him. Because my mother told me no one would get hurt.
And yet here I am, in a hospital bed.
As my tears fall, Teo doesn’t move. Like some kind of frozen guardian, he waits for me to finish, perfectly content to wait and watch forever.
I don’t know how long it takes until I have my breathing under control again.
“Where am I?”
He blinks as if waking up from a wide-eyed slumber. “Safe.”
“Teo.”
“I can’t tell you.”
“You did this to me. I deserve to know.”
“You’re somewhere no one will hurt you again.”
His words are shockingly bleak and entirely unexpected. I glance down at the handcuff. “Did you do this?”
“It was a precaution.”
“So I’m trapped here.”
“Yes.”
I blanch at this revelation, suddenly feeling that dizziness returning with full force. “Well, you can’t just…I guess while I get better, but…when I’m fine, you’re going to have to…my brother, he will…I have to get out of here. You can’t keep me.”
“Yes, I can.”
“I’m not yours to keep!”
This, after everything else, is what makes him step further into the room. His face is expressionless as he approaches the bed, clasping the bottom bar with both his hands and leaning into it as if it is the only thing holding him up.
“Tell me honestly,” he whispers. “Did you know what you put in that drink?”
The wiser, smarter part of me who values self-preservation screams at me to lie. But I can’t force the words out.
“No. No, no. I swear. She said she said…it was only meant to…” I clasp my hand over my mouth as the sobs rack through me again.
