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Chapter thirty-three
Daphne
Hefinallyslept.
After telling me about what had to be the worst day of his life, Silas slid back into what appeared to be a deep sleep, but I was wired and wide awake.
My heart broke for him, for everything he must have been through that day, never mind all the other experiences he must have had while he was on active duty, and I hated the fact that I didn’t know how to help him. Didn’t know how to offer him some peace so that he could finally rest easy.
Laying there, in the semi-dark of the hospital room, Silas held me to him as he slept, and I knew that I had been right all along; Silas and I were meant to be together.
What has seemed like a silly schoolgirl crush had developed into infatuation and was now full-blown love.
The forever kind.
Because there was no way around the fact that Silas was my forever, and now that he had told me he felt the same way, there would be nothing that would ever separate us again.
I was still snuggled up to him, listening to his steady, even breathing, when a nurse entered the room, stopping short when she saw my empty bed. She twisted around, looking frantically for her missing patient, and I smiled sheepishly when she saw me doubled up in Silas’s bed.
“Miss Pennington,” she chided softly, her frown more obligatory than truly angry. “You should be resting.”
“I am,” I whispered, a sly smile on my face.
“In your own bed,” she said with a tilt of her head in that direction. “After all, Mr. Harrison needs his rest, too.”
I didn’t tell her that he hadn’t been resting well before I joined him in his bed, nor that for the last few hours, he had been sleeping so soundly that he’d barely moved.
Instead, I simply nodded, slowly extracting myself from Silas’s grip, and made my way over to my own bed once again, feeling cold and lonely, even with him right across the way.
“I get it,” she said kindly as she checked my vitals. “Going through something traumatic together creates a bond that not many people can understand.”
I hummed in agreement, grateful for her compassion.
“But, try to stay in your own bed, alright.” She pulled the blanket up and tucked me in gently, a move I didn’t remember my own mother ever making.
The thought didn’t hurt as much as it maybe should have. I was starting to see that my mother simply wasn’t wired to be a mother. After all, of all the people who had been to visit me in the hospital, she hadn’t been one of them.
“Alright,” said the nice nurse, patting my hand when she was done tucking me in. “Someone will be by in a few minutes to take you for one more scan.”
“A scan of what?” I asked.
“Your head. It’s a CT scan.”
“I didn’t hit my head,” I responded.
The nurse frowned, looking down at my chart again. This hospital was pretty snazzy, with all the information digitized and on tablets at each patient’s bedside.
“It says that you were to be sent for a head CT, just as a precaution.” Placing the tablet back in its designated location at my bedside, she smiled. “Sometimes, it’s just better to be safe rather than sorry.”
With that, she made her way out of my room and on to her next charge. It wasn’t long at all before the door opened again, and an orderly in baggy scrubs was entering the room with a wheelchair, pulling it up next to my bed. The orderly didn’t say anything; he never even looked at me, really, with his mask in place and the little matching hat thing, he was like some kind of hospital ninja, standing there waiting impatiently before gesturing for me to sit.
Rolling my eyes at his terrible bedside manner, I climbed out of my bed and made my way over to the chair, my socked feet feeling chilly against the cold metal footrests. I was barely settled against the back before the abrasive guy grabbed the thing by the handles and took off, steering me out of the room and toward the nearest elevator. On our way out of the room, I caught a glimpse of the security guard Stone had stationed outside our door, phone in hand, as he sat there, watching me go by.
When we were in the elevator, the orderly pressed the button for the basement, and I frowned. I hadn’t noticed which floor imaging was on, but the basement seemed like a crappy place to store such an important department. Wasn’t that where they kept the morgue and stuff?
Or was that only on TV?
The elevator dinged, opening onto a deserted hallway, and we made our way down the corridor toward a set of closed doors. Grumpy orderly guy then produced a staff badge, pressing it against the panel beside the door and waiting for the light to turn green.
It didn’t.
When it blinked red, he tried again, holding the card there longer before removing it.
That was why I was able to get a better look at the identification card.
That was why I noticed that the face on the card was that of a pretty blonde woman, and not a man at all.
Feeling my blood turn to ice, I realized that I was once again in serious trouble. Looking around as surreptitiously as I could, I scanned the area, desperate for another person—a nurse or a janitor—someone I could call out to, get their attention long enough to get some help.
But there was no one.
Wherever we were in the hospital, it was like a ghost town, making me wonder if it was really the morgue after all.
“Where are you taking me?” I finally asked, spinning around to see the mask had been removed and I was now staring at the grinning face of Spaz. “Why can’t you just leave me alone?”
“Sorry, girlie,” he hissed, moving faster now that his cover had been blown. “The rules are simple: no witnesses.”
“I’ve already told the FBI everything I knew, and that wasn’t enough for them to even have any idea who you were. I don’t even know your name.”
I was stalling. Again. But I knew if I tried to get away now, he’d be on me in a second because there was nowhere to go but straight back up this hallway. So I had to keep him talking until I could figure something out.
“Maybe you don’t, but your buddy Duke sure knows who I am.”
“Duke?” I asked, wondering where he had gotten to.
“Yeah, you know. The one you didn’t kill,” Spaz snarled. “Don’t know what you did to turn him to your side.” The look he gave me said that he had his own ideas of what I could have offered Duke to make him walk away from their crew. He’d never believe that it wasn’t me at all; Duke left because he couldn’t stand to see the horrible things they were doing any more.
“Don’t worry, though. We’ll take care of him soon enough.”
We had finally reached the end of the hallway, the door there looking heavy and thick with a big exit sign glowing above it. Grabbing me by the arm, Spaz yanked me out of the chair and slammed the door open with his hip, hauling me out of the hospital after him.
It was still dark, the sun not yet risen, but the streets of Manhattan were always busy, no matter what time of day it was. However, the door we had exited through led to an alley, and there was only one vehicle parked in front of me at the moment.
One I recognized.
