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Not good. Not even okay. Justbetter.
It hurts as I sit up, and I look over and see Eve asleep next to me. Her face is even more swollen than before. Purple bruises with green around the edges cover her cheek and the skin around her eye.
Still, she is beautiful.
I want to reach out and brush her hair behind her ear, but I don’t want to wake her. Not yet. If I did, she would stop me from doing what I’m about to do.
Shoving away my fear of the pain, I swing both my legs off the bed and set my feet on the floor.
It comes like a train speeding towards me, slamming into my chest all at once. Pain explodes inside of me, hot and pulsating.
But then it recedes.
I squeeze my eyes shut and wait as it becomes a dull roar in the back of my mind.
When I stand up, the pain comes again, but the pressure of my foot against the floor seems to stabilize it in a way. It sharpens the pain so it is relegated to just my right leg, making it marginally more bearable.
When I take a step, however, my vision goes black around the edges.
Immediately, I shift my weight to my good leg.
Will I have a limp? Like Joel Foli? In a sick way, it seems ironic.
But a limp is the least of my worries now. Getting out of here alive seems like priority number one.
With every step, I feel more capable. The pain doesn’t ease at all, but I grow more accustomed to it. Rather than being surprised by each wave, I’m able to anticipate it, grit my teeth, and move through it.
Not quickly, mind you, but I can do it.
“What are you doing?”
Eve’s voice catches me off guard, and it is lucky I’m near the wall because I have to throw out an arm to keep myself from falling over.
Eve is out of bed and at my side in a second. “You should not be walking around. Why didn’t you wake me up?”
She took the robe off earlier, leaving her in nothing but a black lacy bra and matching panties. Under other circumstances, I would already have her pinned against the wall, the lacy scraps flying through the air.
I lean down, ignoring the blast of pain brought on by the position, and kiss her forehead. “Because I knew you wouldn’t let me walk around.”
“You need to be resting,” she says.
“I have been. Now, I need to get stronger.”
She shakes her head. “It’s too soon.”
“We don’t have time.”
I can tell by the furrow of her brow she wants to argue, but she can’t. She knows I’m right. Neither of us knows how much longer we have before Edgar or any of the guards come back for us.
I turn to walk back towards the bed and see two water bottles and a hunk of bread sitting on the metal operating tray. “Do you want a drink?”
The water is room temperature and covered in condensation, so I know it was left a while ago.
When I try to hand it to Eve, she hesitates. “What’s wrong?”
“At the ranch,” she says. “The Morrisons’ house. They gave me water but it was drugged. It knocked me out. They held me down and forced it down my throat.”
I file that away as another reason why I’m going to rip Rian Morrison limb from limb.
