Chapter 6
Chapter six
Ethan
An hour later, Ethan was seriously regretting his decision to send Tressa away. At least with her, he was getting a stunning face with his lack of answers. Even if she was unnervingly chipper.
Ethan rubbed at the scar on his neck. He needed to stop thinking of the charming counselor. She reminded him far too much of Jake. He also kept a permanent smile on his face regardless of how bad things got.
Except when he died. The last time Ethan would ever see his friend was the one time Jake didn’t have his normal carefree expression in place. Those glassy vacant eyes, frozen in terror and pain, would haunt Ethan for the rest of his life.
And holding onto that was the least he deserved for surviving when Jake hadn’t.
Yeah, probably for the best he told Tressa he didn’t need counseling. He wasn’t looking to get his body laid or his mind healed, so there was no reason to keep her around.
Now if his brain would stop throwing up images of that stunning smile, he could actually concentrate on the complete bullshit answers the doctor was giving him.
“Okay, Dr. Kim, let me see if I’m understanding you correctly,” Ethan said, running a hand over the itchy beard growing wild from his normally clean-shaven chin. “I’ve been out for three damn months, and after all that time and investigating, no one has any idea what happened to me in the lab?”
The older Asian woman with short black hair grimaced, and it only accentuated the roughly thirty years’ worth of hospital work that were etched into her face. “No, Ethan. As far as I’m aware, the police have no inkling of what occurred that night.”
“Right.” He pushed his sliding glasses back up on his nose. “And of course the building burnt down so there was no evidence.”
The doctor grimaced again.
“And no witnesses that saw how I survived or managed to escape?”
The tired woman rubbed at her temples, then folded her hands in her lap.
“I’m sorry I don’t have more to tell you.
The detective assigned to your case has been notified that you are lucid, and he will be here in the morning.
Perhaps they have uncovered more information, but as far as my knowledge goes, you were brought in with severe trauma to the neck which was attributed to an animal attack, extreme blood loss resulting in hemorrhagic shock, and multiple contusions throughout your body.
It was only by the grace of God that you survived long enough for us to induce a medical coma.
In all honesty, you shouldn’t even be alive right now. ”
Ethan tried not to bristle at her usage of ‘God.’ He’d stopped believing in an altruistic higher power the day his mom died.
If he survived against all odds, it certainly wasn’t because of some sky daddy watching over him.
Which left the question of who, exactly, was watching over him?
And why didn’t that vampire finish him off?
“Yeah, well, thanks for nothing, I guess,” Ethan told the doctor. Then he tossed his glasses on the nightstand and rolled over onto his side, hoping she would take that as an obvious sign he was done listening.
He’d already endured an agonizing breakdown about his current health, and after the fourth time she mentioned additional lab tests and long-term monitoring, he had gotten the gist. His body was weak, and a lot of his muscles were atrophied, so life was going to be rough.
Thankfully, he’d always kept himself in solid shape.
Any time not spent in the lab was usually spent in the gym to combat the effects of his otherwise sedentary lifestyle.
Even if he lost the definition of a six-pack, it wasn’t like he didn’t know how to get it back.
Building up his strength to go after that creature was at the top of his priority list.
That demonic, soulless creature.
Anytime he closed his eyes, it was all he saw, so he didn’t imagine sleep would be coming anytime soon. After the doctor quietly left his room, Ethan reached for his cell phone that had finally charged enough he could check his messages, of which there were many.
Not surprising after three months in a coma.
Fuck. When the doctor first mentioned how long he’d been out, he was still so fixated on the vampire aspect that it didn’t fully register. But the enormity of his situation was starting to hit him.
He had no idea what his life even looked like now. Did he have a job? Would he be able to work at a different VieTek lab and continue his research? Hell, did he even have an apartment to go home to?
The answer to that last question came from listening to his handful of voice messages. And the rest came from his very full email inbox.
He groaned and slammed the infuriating device back on the nightstand. Between the messages from his now former landlord and the emails from his VieTek manager, Ethan had more or less no life waiting for him. No home. No job. No best friend.
No problem, he thought. That all just means I can focus on what really matters.
Hunting down the vampire he knew was still out there somewhere needed to be his sole priority anyway. He would never be able to relax until he could see for himself that it was dead-dead.
Closing his eyes, Ethan braced himself for the image of the monster to invade his mind once more so he could search his memories for any possible clues, but the black-haired female he found himself thinking about wasn’t a vampire. She was a counselor. A sexy, friendly, human counselor.
Try as he might, he couldn’t shake the image of her smiling at him.
She was probably just doing her job—being nice and all that jazz—but for some reason, he didn’t fully believe that.
The way she’d looked at him was more than if he was any other patient on her roster.
And even if she was just a distraction from what he needed to be concentrating on, maybe he could allow himself a brief reprieve from the darkness.
A little self-indulgence couldn’t hurt, Ethan thought as his hand slid under the sheets to palm himself. Making a plan to hunt down the vampire could wait until tomorrow.
He just needed a quick confirmation that his cock still worked, and thoughts of Tressa would more than help in that endeavor.