Claire
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Iwoke up to the scent of smoke clinging to the air that drifted in through the open window. This was my second nap of the day. The combination of trauma, the aches across my body, and the pain relievers Sam gave me kept me in a disorienting haze.
My eyes processed the room. Light streamed in through the gap in the curtains, casting a long sliver of light that crept across the tile floor.
Room service carts scattered across the room as silver domes covered the white plates.
Room service had been sent to my room every few hours, most of which I didn’t touch.
Nausea clenched my stomach, reminding me of the night before and my current predicament.
It wasn’t just physical. The sickness curled in my ribs like guilt. I couldn’t tell if it was from what I’d seen or the knowledge that I was still here while someone else wasn’t. Jennifer’s laugh still echoed, faint and sharp like a wine glass breaking in my ears.
My laptop sat closed at the foot of my bed. I recalled messaging my mother and sister, letting them know I was okay. Despite providing the number for the hotel, I asked the front desk to hold my calls. I was in no position to explain what had happened or answer any questions.
I wanted to be alone.
Silence was a kind of mercy. Words felt dangerous. Too solid, too real. I didn’t want to be reminded of what I should say, what I should feel. Grief hadn’t formed into anything yet—it was still gathering shape.
Moments later, I heard the door unlock. Sam’s head emerged from the open doorway, letting in a gust of wind that carried with it the scent of roses and smoke.
“Here you are again,” I murmured, my voice barely more than a rasp.
“Like clockwork,” he said with a sigh as he closed the door behind him.
“What’s next on the menu?” I quipped, though the words felt foreign—like my mouth had borrowed someone else’s script.
Sam set his medical bag on the table next to the bed and pulled up a chair. “The usual. Wound check.”
He didn’t ask permission. He never did. And I never stopped him. That was our rhythm—quiet, clinical, efficient. It reminded me of hospitals, and I hated that it also felt like safety.
He glanced at the untouched room service carts. “Not hungry?”
“Too nauseous,” I replied, dragging myself to the edge of the bed.
My limbs moved like they belonged to someone else. Everything hurt. Pain radiated in the back of my head and across my torso, shocking my ribs and skull in pulses. My muscles were sore, and bruises covered my arms and the side of my neck.
Like reminders. Like warnings.
“I will give you something to help with that. You need to eat. It is good for your healing,” he said soothingly as he removed the bandages from my knees.
Healing. As if that was all this was. A process. A sequence of steps. A checklist.
He began unwrapping the bandages around my knees. I hissed as cool air touched broken skin. The scrapes and gashes had crusted over in places. Others were raw and red. Angry.
I watched his hands. Steady, efficient. Nothing like mine. My hands shook when I picked up the coffee mug earlier. I had spilled it. I still had not cried yet, but I’d spilled coffee. That meant something, didn’t it?
Maybe that was grief, or trauma, or just a body stretched too far. Maybe it was the sound of Antonio’s voice still echoing in my skull. Maybe it was the silence that followed—Arik’s silence—that gutted me the most.
He didn’t come.
I clenched my jaw as Sam touched a particularly tender spot. I didn’t flinch. Not because I was brave, but because I had run out of reflexes.
“Where’d you learn all this?” I asked.
“Tools of the trade.” He shrugged without taking his eyes off his work.
“Arik needs you to provide him medical attention?” I asked as my voice was laced with curiosity.
Sam’s eyes shot at me. “Not him,” he said, his voice filled with seriousness.
I stared at him momentarily until his gaze broke free and returned to my tattered knees.
“Take a seat,” Sam said as he rose from the chair and motioned for me to sit down.
I stood from the bed and felt every bone in my body ache. With a plop, I dropped into the chair and dropped my head.
Sam pillaged around the bulky black leather medical bag looking for more cotton gauze to clean my wound with.
“So, where is he?” I asked as I held my breath waiting for his answer.
“Nearby,” Sam replied, his voice low and trailing.
“How’s the head?” Sam asked quietly, almost like he did not want to be heard.
“Loud,” I muttered. “Quiet. Both.”
He didn’t press. Didn’t tell me what that meant. Didn’t ask what I meant.
“I can’t remember the last time I felt normal,” I admitted after a moment, voice barely above a whisper. “Even before all this…it’s like the world’s been tilting for a long time.”
Sam paused his work. I didn’t look at him. I couldn’t.
“I think you’re doing better than you think,” he said, finishing with a fresh wrap. “You are here. That counts.”
I didn’t tell him it didn’t feel like it. That I still felt like I was trapped on that cliff, in Antonio’s grip, begging for air.
He cleaned up without another word, and I let myself drift, blinking slowly at the ceiling.
I closed my eyes.
Arik hadn’t come.
I felt the saline spray against my scalp, stinging the wound that was stitched together.
“Can he hear us?” I whispered, my voice barely audible as I watched Sam’s expression for clues.
“Maybe. Maybe not at this low of a whisper. I really do not know.” His breath ghosted against my hair as he leaned in, dabbing the stitches with practiced care.
A silence stretched between us, filled only by the soft rustle of cotton and the distant hum of the hotel’s mechanical heart.
“I’m surprised he hasn’t come by,” I said, trying my best to keep my voice low and steady.
I didn’t know what to make of the silence. Arik’s absence hung heavily in the room, the kind of quiet that meant too much.
“Do you want him to?” Sam asked gently, as if he already knew the answer.
“No. I…I don’t know,” I mumbled. My lips felt dry. The words sat awkwardly in my mouth like they didn’t belong to me.
“I understand why you’re mad. But it’s not going to change anything,” Sam replied as he reached for the antibiotic ointment, his tone calm.
“What do you mean it won’t change anything?” I asked, my voice cracking upward as something bitter swelled inside me.
“Claire.” Sam’s voice didn’t flinch. “I think Arik’s been very transparent.”
I stared at the curtain’s edge, light bleeding in across the tile. Transparent. That word felt like a joke.
“I don’t understand what you’re saying, Sam,” I whispered, tension pulling at the back of my neck.
“You’re his. Be mad all you want. But he is not going anywhere.” Sam’s words landed like a stone dropped in water. No ripple. Just weight.
Irritated, I snapped, “He doesn’t own me. I ran last night. I can run again.” The sting of defiance soothed something sharp in my chest.
“For what reason? To prove a point? What is your end game?” His voice rose with surprising heat.
“I don't have an end game,” I shot back. “I just don’t have to do whatever he wants. This is my life.”
My voice trembled, but I held the line. The truth felt brittle, but I needed it to be said aloud.
“It is.” Sam nodded slowly. “Maybe stop fighting for the sake of fighting. Maybe put last night aside and be honest with yourself.”
I exhaled hard through my nose. Part of me understood what Sam was saying and the truth behind it. But another part recoiled, because I hadn’t chosen any of this.
Not Antonio. Not fear. Not Arik.
I didn’t want to be a pawn in someone else’s game, but the truth was harder to pin down than I wanted to admit.
Sam handed me three pills of assorted colors and shapes. “One for pain, two for nausea.”
I looked down at them in my palm, then tossed them into my mouth, and they slid down my throat like chalk. Sam was already holding out the water, well accustomed to the rhythm of this dance.
“I will send room service in again. You need food,” he said, already beginning to repack the medical kit.
I stood from the chair with slow, deliberate motion, one hand reaching out behind me to steady myself.
“Sam,” I whispered.
He turned again, his fingers just grazing the doorknob.
“Am I going to get out of here?” I asked. My voice was too soft to carry the full weight of what I meant. Not just this hotel. Not just this country.
Out of this story. Out of this life.
Sam’s face was unreadable, but his eyes were kind. “Sure,” he said.
A lie, maybe. Or hope. I let out a long exhale, closing my eyes as if that one word might be enough to keep me upright.
“And Arik will be right there, I’m sure,” Sam added, just before he slipped out into the light.
The door clicked shut behind him.
I slumped back into the chair, the silence returning, louder than before.