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“That’s because he wants something from you,” Ash spat out, his eyes flashing with anger. “He’s not a good guy, Sasha.”
“Why are you saying this now? What happened?”
A nurse walked by right then and disappeared into Donovan’s room. Ash took her by the arm and led her away from the door. He lowered his voice. “Listen, I shouldn’t be telling you this, but I need you to be safe. Okay? So if I tell you this, you’ll stay away from Donovan and let me do my job without worrying about you?”
She hesitated a beat, then nodded. “Okay.”
He took a breath and let it out in a slow exhale. “Okay. A group of hotshots fighting the fire uncovered a body on the mountain. It’s badly burned, and there’s no telling if we’ll get any DNA, but we strongly suspect it’s Darcy Cantrell.”
“Oh my God.” She lifted a trembling hand to her mouth. “You found her.”
chapter ten
As Sasha stepped out into the hall, Donovan closed his eyes and let the world slip out of focus. The pressure in his head was intense, and he saw it pounding with each pulse of blood behind his eyes. He sank back into the flattened pillows propped behind him, but that didn’t help. A wave of dizziness washed over him, and his stomach lurched.
Fuck. He was not going to be sick in front of Sasha.
He swallowed back the surge of bile and turned his gaze toward the door, careful not to move his head or look at the corner of the room.
Where was Sasha? She still hadn’t returned.
“She’s not coming back,” the hallucination said.
Jesus fucking Christ. He had to get a grip. “You’re not really there.”
In the months after his TBI, he’d had night terrors that seeped into his waking hours. Visions so real, he’d once attacked a guy in a bar because he thought the man was a terrorist wearing a bomb vest. He thought he was past it—it had been a long time since his last hallucination—but apparently, this concussion had triggered them again.
Darcy Cantrell was not standing in the corner of his hospital room. She’d been gone for a very long time.
Vanished.
Dead.
He took deep, even breaths, just like his therapist had taught him. But the more he tried to control his breathing, the more he felt himself slipping into a panic attack. Sweat beaded on his forehead, and his heart raced, banging around in the too-small confines of his chest. His fingers dug into the sheets by his hips.
“That won’t work, Van. It never works.” Darcy’s ghost scoffed as she moved into his line of sight. She looked exactly the same as the last time he saw her: dark hair up in a ponytail with her bangs swept to the side, big hoop earrings sparkling at her ears, a short gray denim vest over a black shirt, and a thick, studded black belt circling her hips. As always, when she appeared to him, she only wore one of her red canvas shoes. Her other foot was bare. “You can’t breathe me away. You’ll never get rid of me.”
“You’re not real. You’re just a figment of my fucked up brain. Not real. Not real.” Eyes squeezed shut, he repeated it to himself, over and over, until his breathing slowly returned to normal. He opened his eyes once again and scanned the room, taking note of every little detail in an attempt to ground himself in reality. The bland gray walls, the beeping machines, the sterile smell of disinfectant in the too-cold air.
And Darcy wasn’t here.
The sheets—too starched and white. The blanket—too thin and scratchy. The hospital gown—too stiff and rough against his raw, burned skin. The tape holding the IV in his hand itched.
And Darcy. Wasn’t. Here.
But Sasha should be. Where the hell was she?
A figure appeared in the doorway, long hair in a ponytail. The panic surged back, and he opened his mouth to scream at her—
No, not Darcy.
Just a nurse. He snapped his mouth shut and told himself to fucking relax. He’d gotten through this once. He could do it again.
The nurse took his vitals and made a big fuss over the fact he was awake, like popping his eyes open was an Olympic sport and he’d just won gold. He tolerated her poking and prodding with barely-restrained impatience.
Fuck, he hated hospitals.
When she finally left with the promise of bringing back a doctor, another figure stepped through the door.
