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The doctor’s features harden. “As long as it needs to take, Aspen. We need to make sure the cast is on properly and that the bone is lined up.”
I can only nod because if I speak, all that’s going to come out is more worries.
The doctor walks out of the room, leaving me alone with my thoughts, and I press my back against the hospital bed and stare up at the ceiling, doing my best to take a couple of calming breaths so I don’t hyperventilate.
My thoughts drift to Quinton, and I wonder how he’s doing, if he’s in pain? I should worry about myself, but I can’t help but care, can’t help but wonder if he’s okay? He saved my life. It’s the human thing to do.
The nurse walks into the room, and I spot the syringe in her hand. My entire body tenses.
“Relax, sweetheart, it’s going to be fine,” she says as she injects the clear liquid into my IV.
My chest heaves with the effort to calm myself as a strange sensation of warmth envelopes my body. I rest back against the thin mattress once more, my muscles relaxing as the medicine takes effect. I’m vaguely aware of the nurse leaving again.
The exhaustion from the crash and being out in the wilderness catches up with me almost instantly when combined with the medicine she administered. I try my best to keep my eyes open, to avoid falling asleep in a school where everyone hates me, and I don’t have the protection of my four dorm room walls, but I can’t.
Soon my eyes drift closed, and I drown in the sensation of sleep. I try to swim to the surface, but there is no evading the darkness, and soon I’m dragged down into the depths.
* * *
The next timeI wake up, my mouth is dry, and my leg is aching. I groan and blink my eyes open slowly. For a half a second, I’m disoriented by the room. It’s like I never left the place I fell asleep, but when I look down at my leg, I see the cast and know that can’t be possible. The door to my room is ajar, but there isn’t a doctor or nurse in sight.
The red call light button is clipped to my pillow, and I stare at it, wondering if I should pull it or not. The thought slips out of my mind when my heavy eyes drift closed again, and sleep threatens to pull me under.
I’m almost asleep once more when I feel the strange sensation of being watched. I blink my eyes back open, though it takes some serious concentration. I’m not sure what I expected to see when I got my eyes to open fully, but it wasn’t Xander Rossi.
In a millisecond, I go from sleepy to wide awake and afraid. I shove up into a sitting position and look down at the red call light.
Would anyone save me?
“If you’re thinking of calling for the nurse or doctor, don’t bother. They won’t be able to save you from me.”
I’m not sure how I get my mouth to work, but I do. “What do you want?” The words come out in a croak.
I stare at the man who helped to ruin my life. My father caused a lot of the issues, but Xander didn’t help matters when it came time to pin it all on my father.
Even with his graying hair and older age, he doesn’t look less threatening. It’s obvious he still works out, and his features, though weathered, are still that of a man in his prime.
One might even say he was handsome if you were into dating an older man. I can’t see him as anything but the man who has the power to break me into a million tiny pieces.
Xander’s face goes from penetrating steel to mocking in the blink of my eyes. “I’m sure I don’t have to repeat myself, but it seems you are hard of hearing, so I’ll warn you one last time…” He moves like a snake slithering through the grass, each step brings him closer, and I don’t realize until the moment he’s standing beside the bed that I’m shaking. My throat constricts around nothing, and I feel the urge to get up and run, but where would I go? How would I run? I’d never escape this man with a broken leg.
My hand moves to the call light button, and I grip it like my life depends on it. Xander smiles, full on smiles, like a lion staring at you right before he sinks his teeth into your flesh to rip you apart.
“Go on, push the button. See who comes running…”
“You… you can’t be in here!” My lips tremble, and I squeak out the words, “Get out!”
Even after said no one would come to my rescue, I still press the call light button, hoping and praying that someone will prove him wrong.
“Stupid girl,” he growls, looking down at the lit button.
He moves so quickly, I don’t have time to think before his fingers wrap around my arm, and a thumb digs painfully into one of my bruises. I bite the inside of my cheek as I clench my teeth together.
Don’t cry. Don’t cry.
I can’t show him any more weakness, but fear rattles me. No one has come running into the room, proving his theory correct. When his gaze collides with mine again, a terrified shiver ripples down my spine.
His eyes brim with liquid rage, and it takes everything inside me to continue to meet his gaze. To look away would be defeat and as scared as I am, there is still a part of me that refuses to let this man win, to let any of them win.
