Chapter 26
JUSQU’à LA MORT
KAT
“Ok so what the actual fuck do you know then, Dr. Jenkins? I mean seriously. This is supposed to be a top fucking hospital. Christ.”
A woman’s agitated voice cuts through the fog that encircles my brain like a hot knife through butter. I would know that voice, and the pissed off tone in it anywhere and in any state. Even concussed, lying in a hospital bed.
“R-Rae?” I croak out. My throat is dry and searing like it’s on fire. I blink my eyes open.
“Kat!” she exclaims, a hint of relief cutting through the irritation in her voice. “Yes, I’m here. Battling with one of your dumbass on-call doctors, who won’t tell me anything about your condition that I couldn’t figure out for my own damn self.”
Rae’s face slowly comes into my view as I open up my eyes, but she looks as though she is underwater.
I can make out the deep juniper green of her eyes, but not much else.
Everything is blurry. Seconds later, I feel warm, rough hands gently slide my glasses onto my nose.
I can tell by the feel they are my backup glasses that usually reside on my nightstand.
I blink, adjusting to my renewed vision.
Zayn. His face comes into focus and something deep in my chest constricts.
Looking around, I see that I am lying in a hospital bed, most of my body covered up by a white sheet and a scratchy, light blue blanket.
Silvery rivulets of rain streak down the large window at the end of the room.
Rae hovers at the left-hand side of my bed, holding her cell phone and hanging up on what I presume is one of my doctors.
Zayn stands just to my right, staring at me with an expression I've never seen on his face before.
“Hey baby,” he murmurs.
My heart swells as I remember the last moments we shared before I must have lost consciousness in his car. Had I dreamt those words he whispered to me?
“I should go let the nurses know you’re awake again,” Rae says. “Stay with her,” she adds, clearly talking to Zayn.
He gives her a look that seems to say, where the fuck else do you think I’d go?
Green eyes meet blue, and their gazes clash like lightning in a storm. Zayn versus Rae. Now that is something I wouldn’t want to be in the middle of. Except that I am, right now—currently helpless and lying in a hospital bed with the both of them leaning over me.
A tense, brittle energy fills the room like a helium balloon about to burst. My eyes dart between them, and I swallow thickly.
“Rae, this is… Zayn. My… my… Zayn,” I manage, lamely, as I try to sit up.
“Mhmm… we’ve met,” she replies knowingly, not sparing a second look at him.
“How are you? Do you need me to fluff your pillow for you? It’s about the only thing I can do since bringing you to this fucking chop shop with the worst coffee known to mankind.”
I move to shake my head, but immediately grimace and wince at the resulting throb of pain that reverberates through my head. Zayn’s warm hands gently rise to either side of my face and hold me still, as delicately as though I’m made of glass. I meet his eyes and give him a weak smile.
The police had already come and gone. I vaguely remember that.
I had given them my statement in an exhausted and barely coherent state, Zayn grasping my hand tightly the whole time.
Eastman had used his power, his charm, and his connections to break out of prison.
Josh had been the mystery accomplice, lurking in the shadows. Unidentified, for years.
According to a balding cop who had been the one to interview me, the detectives who raided Josh’s apartment had found evidence confirming this. Damning him. What they didn’t know was that Josh had already been damned, by Zayn.
The night Eastman kidnapped me, he had also taken one of his victim’s siblings who had testified in court against him in his original court case.
Eastman had kept them in a small shed, tortured and killed them in the same abandoned farmhouse.
I was next on his list. Apparently, he had stalked out to retrieve me from the well, to do the same to me, when he had run right into Zayn.
Zayn had also given a lengthy statement about the fight and murder in self-defense. I had blearily given an eyewitness account to match up with Zayn’s story.
Rae returns to the room and she and Zayn take turns filling me in on my many injuries. According to Dr. Jenkins, they include a broken ankle and pinky finger, two bruised ribs, a concussion, and a few deep lacerations on my head and across my upper back.
Quietly, Rae informs me that my rape kit came back negative. A shiver racks my body and I fight back the urge to cry. After being drugged, I was passed out and left alone in the well for hours. I hadn’t known what Eastman did or didn’t do to me during that time. The news is a tangible relief.
Closing my eyes, I see the Demon’s face twisting cruelly into a smile. But before the flashback can continue, Zayn grips my hands hard between his own, bringing me back to the present moment. He leans forward to brush a thick lock of hair from my forehead.
Two nurses enter to check my vitals. One nurse takes my temperature and fiddles with the IV sticking out of the back of my hand.
The intravenous morphine they gave me is wearing off, my body thrumming with the pain; the intensity of it almost breathtaking.
But as the nurse presses the little round button again on the IV machine, I feel the almost instantaneous pain relief course through my body like cool water down a dry throat.
I allow the ease and comfort to wash over me. I close my eyes again for a moment.
Sighing, I shift gingerly in the bed, attempting to lift myself to a more upright position.
The nurse moves in to stand beside my bed and offers to push the lever and adjust the electric bed’s angle.
I wave her off, as my gaze falls to Zayn.
Wordlessly, he again takes one of my hands in both of his warm ones.
I look down. My hand looks so small in his.
I feel my lower lip give a little tremble. Fuck, I do not want to cry right now.
Zayn’s thumbs smooth over my knuckles as he holds me in his steady gaze.
The gratitude I feel at having him here, whole, real and with me is almost overwhelming.
It is a palpable thing: tender and warm, and seeming to emanate from somewhere in the dead center of my chest. I had tried to push him away. I rejected him.
And still, he had come for me.
“How are you feeling, baby?” he finally asks, his voice low and quiet.
I survey his face, and upon looking more closely, I see that tension pinches his handsome features. There are dark purple shadows blooming underneath his eyes, and his hair is decidedly mussed.
He’s been worried about me, I think.
He looks scared, and lonely with something shrouded behind his eyes that I have never seen before. God, did I know what it was to feel alone, with nothing solid to hold onto. I knew what it was to stand apart from the world and feel acutely that gnawing ache that is loneliness.
Not answering, I reach for him instead. Zayn leans forward to wrap his arms around my waist, nuzzling his face into my neck.
Without words, he gently slides onto the hospital bed beside me, taking care not to jostle the many wires and cords attached to various parts of my body.
He settles in next to me, and I exhale a slow breath.
I feel Zayn’s warm hands gently remove my glasses.
His arms wrap around my torso, and he lays his head on my chest.
I lick my dry lips and swallow the lump of emotion gathering at the back of my throat. My chest rises and falls faster. The words are fully formed and spilling from my lips before I can think twice about them.
“I love you, Zayn,” I whisper softly to him.
And as soon as the words leave my mouth, I know they’re true. I know it in the depths of my gut, to the very core of my bones.
I love him. And I will never hold him at arm’s length again.
____________________
ZAYN
“I love you, Zayn.”
Her words echo through my ears like a whispered prayer.
I love you, Zayn.
I want to drink down the sound of her voice and eat up those precious words. Swallow them and make them part of me forever. I settle instead on burrowing my face deeper into her neck and trailing my nose up the velvety soft skin of her throat to her ear.
There, I pause, and whisper back, “I love you so fucking much, Doc. Always have and always will.”
Her dark eyes brim over with tears. Gently, I use the calloused pad of my thumb to wipe them away.
Then, I kiss her. And I don’t stop.
I kiss softly along her jawline and at the corners of her lips.
I kiss the tip of her nose and her soft mouth, coaxing it open.
I swallow a small moan as it escapes her full lips.
I kiss her until we are both breathless, and my heart feels as though it will thunder right out of my chest. I gently cup her jaw and pull back to allow her head to fall back on her pillow.
And then I hold her as the evening light falls from the sky, and the clouds roll in heavy and dark through the hospital window.
I hold her until my arms ache, and I feel the steady, slow breathing of sleep overtake her.
And then I hold her, still.
When she wakes again, Rae and I are ready for her. We have fresh food, the good coffee from the café down the street, and thanks to Bea, her favorite fuzzy throw from Pearson House to replace the scratchy, standard hospital-issued blanket.
Bea had also dropped off a bottle of Rombauer Sauvignon Blanc, despite Rae’s blatant judgement and commentary of “this is a fucking hospital, you wino.” But Bea had been insistent that just seeing the wine would help make Katherine feel better.
And who am I to argue with a best friend?
Bea had been here whenever she could in between patients.