Chapter 30
The heavy scent of antiseptics and fading florals hits me just before the pain. When I swallow, my throat’s raw. Like I’ve chained smoked three packs of cigarettes while downing a bottle of bourbon. But it’s nothing compared to the splitting pain in my side when I try to move.
A monitor beeps. Sheets rustle, and someone grabs my hand.
“No, no, don’t move.” A feminine voice cuts through the thick fog of my brain.
“It hurts,” I complain and am immediately punished for trying to talk by the ache in my jaw.
“Dante.” The memory of what happened crashes back to me. The kicks. The hits.
The blood.
“It’s okay,” Kara says. It’s Kara’s voice I’m hearing.
I blink my eyes—or rather, my eye—open and find her sitting on my bed with me, holding my hand and smiling down at me with a weird grin. My other eye refuses to budge.
“My eye.” I try to bend my arm to feel if it’s swollen, but my arm doesn’t want to cooperate any more than my eyelid.
“It’s swollen, don’t touch it. Just leave your hands down, honey.” She pats my hand.
“Hurts,” I mutter and try again to move, but the pain ricochets through my chest, knocking the air from me.
“I know, sweetheart.” She smooths her hand across my cheek. “It will get better. You’ll get better.”
“I’m getting the doctor.” Another voice, softer, gentler says.
“No.” I lift my hand to stop her, but she’s already gone. Throwing the curtain aside to get to the door. Through the window, I see her standing at a nurse’s station, waving her arm toward my room.
She looks like Kara, too.
“Who is that?” I try again to lift my hand so I can point, but still it’s stuck on the bed.
“It’s Kara, sweetheart.” Kara tells me, but she’s wrong.
“No it’s not.” I wince then close my eyes to the pain.
“Yes it is. It’s Kara.” She insists.
“It’s all right.” Another voice, this one from the doorway I think. I want to open my eyes to see, but they’re so heavy, and I’m so tired.
And there’s still so much pain. Why does it hurt so much. If I’m in the hospital, shouldn’t there be medicine for the pain?
“Focus your eyes here. This might be a little bright,” the voice says just before the light of a dozen suns is shone into my eye.
I moan and pull away, but the light merely sweeps to my other eye. And then there’s more pain as whoever is torturing me forces my eyelids apart.
“Pupils look good.” The light finally goes away.
“Didn’t feel good,” I say, but I’m not sure they hear me because several voices start talking at once. “I want to go home.”
“No, you have to stay in the bed.” A strong hand presses against my shoulder. “Stay still.”
“Tommy.”
“He’s fine.” The voice gets more stern. “You need to stay in bed.”
“Kara, stop bossing me.”
“When you stop being so stubborn, I will. Please, honey, just lie down and stop moving around so much.”
I nod, but it’s because of how much the pain increases when I try to sit up that I lie back down. It’s blinding, how quickly it comes on and how sharp it is.
“Where’s Kaz?” I question.
There’s no answer.
I try to look around the room, but my vision is blurry. The tall man in white has a shadow, or are there two of them? I can’t tell.
“Kara. Where’s Kaz?” I demand.
A monitor beeps then an alarm rings. They all start talking again above me. Words like surgery, blood loss, fever are thrown around. But no one will answer where Kaz is.
“My throat.” I grab Kara’s hand.
“Her throat hurts.” She relays to the doctor.
“That’s from the breathing tube during the procedure. It should get better in the next day or so. Sienna, you have broken ribs, which is why it probably hurts when you take a deep breath.” He puts on his stethoscope. “Which, unfortunately, I need you to do so I can hear your lungs.”
He’s right about the deep breath. A brand new pain shoots through me.
“We’re going to give her something a little stronger for the pain, and I’m going to have the pulmonologist come take a look. She’s still having trouble getting a good breath.”
“No, I’m not,” I say. It hurts, but I can breathe fine.
It’s this fog in my brain bothering me the most. I can barely see them, and everything they say gets jumbled up.
“Where’s Kaz?” I try to scream, but still they go on talking.
“A few more days is most likely. We can slow the sedative tomorrow, but for now the more rest she gets, the better.”
“Wait.” I grab Kara’s hand. “What procedure? Did I have surgery?”
The doctor’s eyes swing to Kara.
“What is it?” I groan when I move too fast and a pain shoots through my chest.
“You needed surgery, honey. Your ribs caused some damage, and the doctors needed to help you,” Kara says softly.
“I’m going to do a quick abdominal exam. I’m just going to press on your stomach, so I can feel your uterus.” The man in white presses down on my stomach, and I groan.
“You’re hurting her.” A deep voice accuses the man in white. It sounds angry. Threatening.
“I’m checking to be certain her uterus is healing.”
“Uterus? Kara, what happened?”
“Honey, you were pregnant,” Kara says softly.
The words don’t fit. They slide over me like oil; I can’t grab onto them.
I wasn’t pregnant. I couldn’t have been.
I would have known.
The man in white keeps talking, but all I can hear is my heartbeat raging in my ears.
I was pregnant.
“Is that why Kaz left?” I turn my head so I can see Kara again.
“Sweetheart, don’t worry about any of that right now.”
“Home. I need to go home.”
“He’s…not at home, honey.” Kara’s voice is firm, like she’s urging me to understand her.
I close my eyes as the tears threaten to fall.
“I don’t—” I clear my throat and try again. “I need to go home.”
“Stay down.” That strong hand is back.
I roll my head away from Kara. She’s not cooperating. She’s supposed to be my best friend, she should be helping me get up, helping me get out of here and go home. But she’s forcing me to stay here where the lights are too bright, the pain is unbearable, and someone let a fog machine go wild.
“…check in again in a few hours…get some rest…” the doctor’s voice trails away.
The bed dips, like someone is sitting with me.
“He hates me,” I whisper.
“No.”
“He always will.” Tears fill my eyes and spill over. I’m unable to stop them. “I lost his baby.”
“No, Sienna.” A stronger denial this time.
“Should have let me die.” I drag in a shake breath. “Revenge would have been complete.”
“…she’s tired…she doesn’t mean that…Sienna, just rest…”
“Kara, you should take me home.”
“Go to sleep.”
“Kaz.” I whisper his name as I drift back off to sleep.
Maybe my brain will wipe all of this away, and I’ll wake up and find none of this happened. I’ll be home with Tommy and Melody, and Kaz will be off at one of his meetings.
Then tonight when he comes home, he’ll make me feel good. He’ll make my body sing for him the only way he can.
Maybe one day, he’ll forget that I’m a DeAngelo.
Maybe then he’ll love me.
The room is dark when I wake again. The shades are pulled down on the window, and in the corner of the room, a man sits in a chair. With the curtain pulled halfway around my bed, he’s cast in a shadow. But I can sense the anger.
It’s palpable, his rage.
My heart stutters. Maybe Kaz sent him.
Maybe he wants to finally complete his revenge.
The man gets up from the chair and walks toward my bed.
“Just make it fast.” My throat still aches when I talk.
“What?”
“When you kill me. Make it fast.”
I’m shrouded in his shadow as he gets closer to my bed.
I close my eyes and wait for the end.