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She ushers me through the hospital with its bright lighting and vinyl floors to a waiting area. “You can wait in here.”
“Thanks.” I lift a hand to shove it through my hair and get a glimpse of the blood staining my palm. Shit. It’s all over my shirt too. I’m covered in it. “Uh, could you point me to a bathroom?”
“In there.” She indicates an entrance close by.
“Thanks.” I stride away from her. Enter the bathroom. My hands shake. They’ve been shaking the whole time. I can’t get them to stop. Ivy’s blood is caked on my palms, the grooves barely visible under the rust.
Water shoots into the basin when I press the button that turns on the taps. I pump the dispenser until a glop of pearly soap floats in my hand then set about scrubbing until the water runs clear.
Finally clean, I drag a hand through my hair. It’s the normalcy of the movement when there are blood stains spread across my white shirt that gets to me. I grip the countertop as my vision tunnels. My lungs are burning and I can’t fucking breathe. I can’t catch my breath. I can’t stop the shake in my hands from travelling up my arms and into my chest. I almost lost her tonight. I might still lose her. And I have no clue how I’m supposed to keep going if it might be without her.
I stand there for long moments, struggling to breathe while my heart races like it wants to come out of my chest. For all the bad things that my brothers and I went through with mom when we were growing up, none of them made me feel like I do tonight. It feels like I’m having a heart attack.
I eventually find the strength to take off my jacket and rip my shirt over my head. I don’t even try to save it; instead I discard it in the trash, put my jacket back on, and head out to the waiting room where there are cops waiting to talk to me.
I don’t know exactly how long they question me about Ivy before they decide they have enough information.
I also have no clue how much time has passed since they wheeled Ivy through those big doors and out of my sight. But I am sick of these same white walls and the way the bottom of my shoes squeak on the rubbery floor. Every minute seems to last an hour.
I’m lost without Ivy. Restless. Adrenaline is still coursing through my veins as I pace a room that feels more like a prison than a waiting room.
It’s the same waiting room that Ivy practically carried me into when we’d first met. She’d been dressed like a Disney princess, and I’d been shot in the ass. Idiot I was back then, I had no way of knowing that one shy girl could turn my world upside down and inside out.
That I’d be obsessed with the mystery of her. That I’d hunt her down no matter what I had to do to make that happen. That I’d fall so fast and so deeply in love with her that the idea of life without her feels like a life spent in purgatory.
Arms across my chest, I walk to the other end of the waiting room. I can’t stand it. Everything that matters to me hangs in the balance and I can’t breathe.
I can’t stop thinking about the way I found her. How cool her skin was. How pale and broken she looked lying on the floor in Narnia. All that blood. The strong scent of rust hanging in the air. Not even the astringent sting of the hospital’s antiseptic can drown out the memory.
My stomach heaves. Bile burns the back of my throat.
My phone rings.Riot.I ignore it as a doctor comes into the waiting area. He calls out a name. Not mine.
I swallow convulsively as pins and needles roll over my whole body. Does that mean she’s going to be okay? Or that she isn’t? God, let it be the former. Plastic creaks under my ass when my knees buckle and I drop into the nearest chair.
A young woman who had been holding a sleeping toddler on her lap stands and adjusts the boy’s weight to her hip as she follows the doctor into an alcove.
I clasp my hands between knees that I can’t keep from bouncing. Hang my head. No news is good news, right? “Come on, man. Keep it together.”
I switch positions. Stretch out my legs, clasp my hands behind my head. There’s no relief to be had. Not as long as Ivy is in surgery and I can’t get to her. How long has it been now?
I glance at the gold watch on my wrist as I climb to my feet. It’s been hours since I left that party in Malibu. Hours since I found her. How long will it take for them to finish working on her? How long until I can draw a breath through these too tight lungs?
Another doctor walks into the area and I’m on my feet and barreling toward him before he has a chance to get away. “Ivy Love? I need to know what’s happening. Is she okay?”
He stares at me with compassion in his gaze.
I start to choke up. “Tell me.”
“Mister…?”
“Maddox. Rogue. I’m her…” We broke up. I initiated it. Does that mean I’m nothing to her now? “I brought her in. Is she okay?”
“So you’re not family?”
“She doesn’t have any,” I mutter. None that I’d let near her, at any rate. Except Adira. And where the hell is he anyway? All my calls have gone to voicemail.
“I’m sorry. I can’t tell you anything.” He turns his back on me.
