Chapter 47 Amber
Amber
Standing in the bright light of the hospital feels weird after months of seclusion.
Even if I wasn't conscious for all of it, there was the captivity, the isolation, and us hiding from the world.
The only time we've left the house since Cal and I have been together was to be married and when we were playing the game.
.. that night at the party and the night we killed.
I threw on the first thing I could find when the paramedics took over, which is why I'm standing here in a robe that's too short, still covered in his blood.
Karina brought me something from her closet, but I refuse to leave long enough to shower. What if the surgeon comes out the minute I turn away?
She sits on my other side, rather than on Dex's, which is just as well, as he sits for thirty seconds at a time before getting up to pace, raking his hands through his hair, clenching his fists.
I'm vaguely aware of her presence as she rubs my back, making small circles between my shoulders with her palm.
She talks, maybe even sings, but I don't hear anything she says.
I'm drowning, and I'm pissed.
I feel cheated, betrayed.
He told me he was going to let me go back to being his little doll. He put me to sleep, and then he tried to fucking kill himself.
Why?
It doesn't make sense. Unless he meant for me to die too, it doesn't make sense that he would kill himself and leave me all alone. It doesn't make sense that he would do it in my arms, at my side, but not kill me as well.
"Rosie?"
The name isn't what draws me out of my head. It's the voice. A voice I haven't heard in months. A voice I thought I'd never hear again.
I look up from my blood-caked hands, bewildered. I wonder, for a second, whether I did die after all. Maybe this whole thing has been the hell I deserve for what I've done.
But I refuse to believe he'd be here in hell with me.
"Parker?"
"Jesus." He chokes, and his eyes are full of tears. "Rosie? It's really you?"
"Parker?"
I feel faint.
I'm hallucinating. I have to be. But I stand anyway, stepping toward him. It's just one step, and I go down to my knees when I realize my legs won't support me. He drops to his knees too, and I see the pain on his face before he pulls me into a hug.
And I fall apart.
I fall apart in a way I haven't fallen apart since I was sixteen and realizing for the first time how fucking depraved the world is.
I fall apart in a way I didn't think I knew how to anymore because I've spent so long making myself numb.
I fall apart in a way that I hope to never fucking fall apart again.
If we're not alone in this waiting room, I haven't noticed. If anyone is watching us like we're fucking insane, I don't care.
My heart has been shattered and put back together, and now it's shattered again.
Seeing my brother, alive and well, should be enough to put it back together again, but it's not. It's not nearly enough. Not when I just realized I'm in love with a man who bought me. It's not Stockholm syndrome, not empathy or chemicals in my brain, or hormones from a good fuck.
It's love... something I didn't recognize because I've only ever had one other person in my life worthy of it.
I'm in love with Callum Kensington, and he tried to kill himself.
He may have succeeded.
It feels like it's been hours since we got here and they wheeled him away from us.
"What's going on?" Parker demands, pulling away just enough that he can see my face. "What are we doing here?"
It's a question I should be asking.
I thought he was dead.
I was so sure.
Dex scrubs a hand over his face like he can unwrite the anxiety carved there on his furrowed brow and frowning lips. "Cal called and asked me to pick him up and bring him to his place. I didn't know why, but I assume it was because he wanted you to have someone when you woke up."
"How did he find you?" I ask, turning my attention back to Parker. "How are you alive? What happened to you?"
His mouth opens, and I see him debating which question to answer first. "After we were separated, I ended up on a work farm.
They kept us busy with hard labor, isolated from the world.
I escaped one night... used the scythe to attack one of the guards, stole his keys, and didn't stop until I ran out of gas.
That was a week ago. I've been trying to find you, but I didn't know where to start.
Your husband found me first. You're married?
" He laughs, disbelief in the air and every inch of his face. "How?"
I can't even begin to explain what's happened since I saw him last... not without sounding crazy. And if I sound crazy, he may just drag me off to the mental health ward, which is admittedly where I'll need to be if Cal doesn't make it through.
If he doesn't survive this, I don't know if I will either.
"Why would he do this?" I choke, clenching Parker's shirt. "I don't understand."
Dex takes a step toward me, and when I look up at him, I realize we're still on the ground. He offers me a hand, which I take.
"I found this when the paramedics took over and you went to get dressed. It was next to the needle."
"Needle?" Parker asks, standing as he eyes me in concern.
I don't answer him. I can't, because I'm too focused on what Dex hands me.
I recognize the small slip of paper.
It's tattered, crumpled, and covered in traces of blood now. But it's the one I made when Cal asked me to write down the names of the men who have hurt me. I only had two names there. Other men have hurt me, but none in the same way. None in the heinous way he was asking about.
Eric Giante and Isaac Jenko.
Jenko is crossed out in red pen, one thin, decisive slash.
Eric's name is crossed through in a black pen. There's a small question mark at the end.
But that's not what draws my attention.
What draws my attention is the name that is squeezed in beneath the others, written in block letters different from my own in the same red pen, crossed through in black.
Callum Kensington.