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But the bad news had to be coming.
I could see it in his eyes and hear it in his voice.
“We lost you a couple times, but you came back. You started breathing on your own after the first day and were able to be taken off the ventilator soon after that. Since then, we’ve just been waiting forthis.”
“How long?” The words clawed up my throat as I watched the way he was studying me, seeming to expect something, even as he continued.
“Minor cuts and scrapes. Broken ribs and collarbone—which you’re probably feeling. Severe concussion. But.. .you’re lucky.”
“How long?” I repeated.
“Since the accident?” he asked in clarification, but I just watched him, unable to nod or move. “Less than seventy-two hours.” He lowered the clipboard and drew in a steeling breath. “And you’ll probably be here for about that much longer.”
I waited for what he wasn’t telling me, but he just turned toward the door when it started cracking open and held up a hand to stop whoever was on the other side.
“We’ll have some more tests to run, Mr. Grayson,” he went on, “but I’ll allow your family in here in the meantime. However, the best thing you can do for yourself is to rest.”
My gaze shifted to the door.
Worry and anxiousness twisted through me as I wondered if she’d be there. As my mind raced back to the hand that had slipped into mine and the lips that had pressed to my forehead.
I tried remembering the voice of the girl who’d been speaking to me. Tried connecting it to the voice I knew.
But then my parents were spilling into the room, and my mom was a fucking mess. And for a second, my full attention was on her. On the way she was looking at me as if she’d been afraid she’d never get the opportunity again.
But only for a second.
Because the doctor was pulling them aside, revealing my sister and her boyfriend. And my sister looked...
An uneasy laugh worked from my lungs, sending another shock of that pain through me. “Did you cut your hair?” I asked, then shot a quick glance to the doctor before focusing on my sister again as I lifted a hand to my head.
To the dull headache forming there.
To vainly attempt to steady the way it felt like the entire room shifted for a split second.
“What?” Breanna asked, the word part laughter and part sob as she and Konrad came to stand near the side of my bed. “That’s seriously the first thing you say after you escape death? You freaking punk.”
I guessed when she put it like that...
Then again, the first words I’d spoken had been about Harper. Because I needed to see her. To talk to her. To fix everything I’d inadvertently fucked up.
“You just...you look.. .” Different. She looked different.
Not just her hair. Everything about her.
But before I could ask again how long it’d been since the accident—or how and where Harper was—a slender hand slipped into mine, pulling my gaze to the other side of the bed.
But just as the slightest hint of relief began washing over me, confusion blasted through me when I saw the stranger standing there.
“Who the hell are you?” I asked as I jerked my hand away.
Her expression shifted into a stunned sort of horror, but I just looked to my sister again when her soft gasp slammed into me with the force of a sledgehammer.
“Chase,” Bree whispered, my name a mixture of disapproval, dread, and worry.
“Where’s Harper?”
Bree’s mouth had been opened to keep talking, but at my question, her head shifted back and she looked at the other people filling the room until my panicked, “Where the fuck is Harper?” bled free.
