Chapter 30
Chapter
Thirty
HARPER
M y eyes fly open as the scent of ammonia fills my nostrils. I jolt upright from the mattress beneath me. The bright light assaults my senses and makes my head pound.
Wait.
Mattress and bright lights?
I look around and immediately begin to weep when I see Mom sitting on the bed beside me. My bed. In her house. They found me.
A fuzzy memory of hard hands on my body and then the greenest eyes on the planet floats around inside my brain. An unfamiliar man looks down at me with a frown as he looks at my forehead.
“Harper, this is Dr. Meier. He’s here to check you out and make sure we don’t need to take you to the hospital.”
“I don’t need a hospital.”
“I’ll be the judge of that,” he says, not unkindly.
He goes through the usual concussion checks. Unsurprisingly I have one. He checks my ribs and suspects that in the best case I have bruised ribs, in the worst I have fractured some of them. The rest of me is basically fine, just cuts and bruises. He sets up an IV to run a bag of fluids for dehydration and gives me a liquid painkiller and antibiotic through that for the time being.
“I’m sending a few pain and antibiotic prescriptions to the twenty-four-hour pharmacy. Make sure she eats with them. Otherwise, she’s probably okay and won’t need the hospital.” He looks over me. “I have to ask this, though, do you need a rape kit?”
Mom sucks air through her teeth and then presses her lips together. I watch as her eyes gloss over and then shake my head.
“I don’t. Had the guys been ten minutes later, I would have needed one, though.”
Relief rushes through me at the realization that I’m safe. That nightmare is over, but I don’t know what happened to the guy who took me, or who he was going to sell me to. We watch as the doctor packs up his medical bag and leaves with instructions to call him if anything changes or the drugs don’t work.
As soon as he closes the door behind him, Mom slides onto the bed and wraps her arms around me. “I’m so glad you’re okay. I was so scared.” She kisses my temple, the one not cut.
“I’m sorry for pushing you into the water.”
She goes still. “So that was on purpose.”
“Yeah. I knew you’d be able to make it to shore, but it’d be too much trouble for him to go back and get you.”
“And you stabbed him in the eye with the shell?”
“How did you know that?”
“We didn’t for sure. Banks found the shell on the jetty. We hoped that it was the guy’s blood and not yours, but we couldn’t be sure.”
“It was his. I tried to take out his eye.”
“Where did you learn to do that?”
“Cyrus. He said there’s three places to aim, eyes, nose, and between the legs.”
“I’m glad you have those boys.”
“Me too.” The memory of her telling me she’s pregnant filters back into my mind. “How are you? Is the baby okay?”
“I’m fine, we both are.”
“Is that good news? Since it could be Scott’s?”
She draws back, shock on her face. “Honey, no. It can’t be his. I’m only nine weeks.”
“Oh.” I lean back against the pillows in relief. “Thank fuck.”
Her eyebrows raise at my use of fuck, but I can’t bring myself to care.
“So it’s either Cillian or Felix’s baby?”
“How did you know?”
“Declan walked past the den the other night.”
“Oh my.” Her cheeks flush. “That’s embarrassing.”
“Don’t worry about it. He didn’t see much, just enough to understand the gist of what was happening. It was actually kind of funny to him so shocked.” A laugh bubbles up from my chest, but I wince in pain.
The door opens, and the guys trickle in one by one. Even Felix steps just inside the door. Emerson walks over to check my IV and look at the bag to make sure the drip is working. Mom looks at all of them and back to me.
“I’ll give you some privacy.” She kisses my cheek and then stands. Felix closes the door quietly behind him.
As soon as they’re out, I look at the four men standing around my bed. Each of them wears a similar expression of worry. No one speaks, how do you even start a conversation after what I just went through?
“What did Dr. Meier say?” Declan finally breaks the silence.
“Not much. I have a concussion, I’m dehydrated, and I probably have a few broken ribs. But I’ll survive.”
“He doesn’t think you need to go to the hospital?” Banks asks.
“No.” I reach for his hand, linking our fingers. “I wouldn’t want to go anyway.”
I don’t want to be anywhere they can’t be. It probably wouldn’t go over well to insist my four boyfriends be allowed to spend the night with me in my hospital room. I don’t want to fall asleep without all of them close tonight.
“Okay.”
“I do want to take a shower before I fall asleep, though.” I look over to Emerson. “Is that pole on wheels?”
“Yes, you’ll be able to roll it into the bathroom. But you might need help washing yourself and your hair.”
“I’ll do it.” Banks offers first, surprising me. Then when I think about it, it makes sense to have him in there with me. He won’t be thinking about anything other than helping me, not that I think any of the guys would even have anything sexual on their minds right now. But still.
Emerson helps me maneuver the tubes and pole into the bathroom, he unhooks the IV tube from the port, so I can take my shirt and bra off, then hooks me back up while Banks warms up the shower. He leaves, and Banks starts to help me with my pants. But the sight of masculine hands on my joggers sends panic racing through me.
“Stop.” I drag deep breaths in as I push his hand away. “Stop. I can’t. He was going to,”
Banks straightens and cups my face with both his hands. “Breathe. Breathe, Harper. It’s just me. I won’t do anything you don’t want me to.” He strokes my face with his thumbs. “I’m here and you’re safe.”
I put my hands over his, letting his warmth seep into my palms and comfort me. After a few deep breaths and looking into his ocean blue eyes, my heart slows back to its normal pace. Instead of him helping me, I pull them off on my own. His eyes never leave mine until I turn to step into the shower.
“Do what you can, I'll help with anything you can’t get done,” he says as I close the curtain.
An angry purple bruise has bloomed over the right side of my ribs. I notice dozens of small cuts as the suds from my body wash run down my body, exposing them through the dirt and sand that seems to have covered nearly all my body somehow. I put shampoo into my palm and thoughtlessly lift my arms to wash my hair but wince when the motion pulls on my IV at the same time excruciating pain explodes in my side.
Banks rips open the curtain when I cry out. His face is drawn tight in concern. “I’m going to get in and help you, okay? I’ll leave my boxers on.”
“Okay.” I must be a pitiful sight, tears of pain on my cheeks and my body bruised and broken.
He quickly strips down to his underwear and gets in with me, closing the curtain behind us. I tip my head back under the water again while he gets some shampoo and works it between his palms. He runs his hands over my hair, gathering it and putting it on top of my head. I watch his face as he concentrates on working the shampoo through my strands and down to my scalp with his fingertips.
For the first time in what feels like days, even though it’s only been one day, I feel my muscles relax one by one. Maybe it’s a combination of the medication and IV and the princess treatment I’m getting, but my eyes begin to droop. Sleepiness settles over me as he repeats the process with the conditioner.
By the time I’m dried off and being tucked back into bed, I can barely keep my eyes open. Cy combs my wet hair and then puts it into two braids for me. When I drift off to sleep, the four of them are spread around the room with me, settling in to sleep on the floor or in a chair. I feel safe and protected as I sink into a deep sleep.