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Chapter Five – Tank
The nurse pushes the meal cart in my direction, and I grab a tray for Skyla: oatmeal along with fruit, yogurt, and some green Jell-O. I know I’m not going to win any popularity contests for forcing her to eat, but that’s just tough shit. She needs it, and so does the baby she’s carrying. Jesus, I can’t believe it had been just a few days since I refused to allow them to turn off her life support. In fact, I can’t believe any of the shit that’s come out over the last few days. Which is why I’m trying to keep my temper at bay. Skyla has enough to deal with. I can’t even begin to imagine what it must be like for her to process what’s happened over these past weeks.
I can see Skyla is feigning sleep when I walk in, but she’s going to have to try a lot harder to avoid me or the meal. Or both.
I place the tray on the rolling table at the end of the bed and peel the cellophane back from the plastic container. The smell of oatmeal fills the air, and Skyla inhales deeply through her nose. I know it has to be hard for her to eat with the morning sickness and all, but I have to make sure she’s building up her strength.
“You have to eat. The baby needs it.”
She squeezes her eyes tighter, and I hold back a laugh despite the fact I’m pissed at her. I’m sure she’ll eat because she’s fiercely protective of her baby, but I also expect some resistance because she’s damn stubborn and seems to be looking for a fight.
“I know you’re awake. That machine they have attached to you shows your heartbeat, y’know.”
She sighs and sits up, then turns to the mirror over the sink, and I can tell she’s shocked by what she sees. Her fingers fly to her hair, which hasn’t been washed since she’s been in here, and although it doesn’t look bad, I know it has to feel grimy after everything that went down in the warehouse. I make a mental note to talk to Courtney about getting someone to help her shower if the good doctor hasn’t thought of that already. I see her take in her eyes, swollen and red-rimmed from all the crying she’s done and watch as she pushes down her tears again.
For the last few days, any time anyone has come in to see Skyla, she’s had to relive the whole warehouse fuck up, and it’s been wearing on her. So much so that eventually Courtney refused to let anyone in, and I’ve been happy to enforce that rule. The only person I’d allowed in besides the staff was Jensen. Tyler hadn’t been happy with that at all, and it was entertaining to watch him lose his shit over it, but if I’m honest, I respected the hell out of the guy for how protective he is over Skyla. It was obvious he loved her wholeheartedly, and they had a strong friendship.
One of the drawbacks of being someone’s security detail is that they have no privacy, and you get to hear stuff you really don’t want to. I heard Skyla tell Courtney and Tyler that she’d woken up in the trunk of Mary’s car and that she’d been knocked out again, only to wake up in a cell with Trent watching her. Skyla tearfully admitted that she’d felt immense relief at finding Trent, but that relief had turned to fear when she realized he wasn’t the same guy she knew before the kidnapping.
Apparently, he’d gone from being tied up and forced to take the serum to willingly injecting himself. The things he’d said and done to Skyla under the serum’s influence made me want to punch him in the throat every time I saw him, but the docs all said he had four times the amount of the serum in his system and when it all came down to it—and he found out Skyla was pregnant—he managed to break through the drug haze and save her and Jensen’s life by killing Reed.
It had taken Jensen a while to trust Trent with Skyla, and I don’t blame the guy. I watched Trent like a hawk when he was with her, but the guy seemed genuinely fucked up about what he did to her. I bet he’d never in a million years have thought he was capable of hurting the woman he’d spent three years loving.
If I hadn’t seen Jackson lose his shit on the raid because of the serum, I would doubt that someone as wholesome as Trent could turn into such a monster and then change back. But having seen for myself what the serum could do and having also heard about the kid who’d become catatonic during the lab trials, I just ended up feeling sorry for the guy.
For all of them.
Skyla rubs her tired eyes and pulls the table closer. I reach over and open a packet of sugar, sprinkling the contents over the oatmeal.
“Milk?” I ask.
Skyla wrinkles her nose, and I reach for the milk anyway.
“I can do that myself.”
Without answering her, I hand her the milk.
“You know, when Courtney said no one was allowed in my room, I’m pretty sure she wasn’t talking about the staff.”
I feel my back go up. Doesn’t she realize Mary is still out there? That she’s still in danger? My temper spikes a notch when I think about how all this could’ve been avoided if she hadn’t given me the slip.
I need to breathe. I pick up the spoon and stir the milk and sugar into the gooey beige mess.
“That chair you’ve been sitting on can’t be very comfortable?” Skyla says by way of a question.
“It’s better than a trench.”
“Yeah, but is it better than the recliner in the corner?” She indicates it with her head.
I look at the leather seat, then back at the bowl, which I push toward her. “Doubt it.” Scrunching the cellophane in my hand, I lob it at the wastebasket next to Skyla’s bed while I make my way to the door. The clear plastic touches the corner of the basket, and I watch it silently fall inside.
“You’re mad at me,” Skyla announces.
I stop and turn to face her, folding my arms across my chest as I look at the bruises on her face and the bandage on her wrist. Skyla reflexively rubs the bandage, trying to hide it.
“It’s not my place to be mad at you.”
“But you are anyway, right?”
