Chapter 4
Chapter four
Hudson
My eyes flutter open to a harsh overhead light, my vision blurry. I blink, trying to clear the fog from my line of sight. Muted voices surround me, but become sharper the more I gain my bearings.
Awareness begins to bloom that I’m not dead like I hoped, anger sparking that I’m still stuck here. Sharp pains envelop me as the fuzzy forms in the room begin to take shape.
“Hudson? It’s Dr. Anderson. You’re in the hospital.” His voice is deep, tinged with an underlying emotion I’d rather not pinpoint.
Pity? Sadness? Understanding?
I don’t want any of it.
I blink again, Dr. Anderson’s hazel eyes coming into focus. Another doctor I don’t recognize hovers on the other side of the bed, a compassionate smile on his deeply lined face.
“Welcome back, Hudson. You gave us quite the scare.”
My brain comes online in fragments. A dull ache pulses through my body, but a rough pull against my neck is what I notice first. My arm is strapped into a sling, wires cling to my skin, and tubes crowd around me. The rigid plastic down my throat is scraping and suffocating all at once.
The pang in my chest has nothing to do with the wires or the tape pulling at my skin.
I tried to die, and somehow I even fucked that up.
I just want to die.
A monitor nearby begins to beep rapidly, incessantly. My heart batters my rib cage as it sinks in that I still have to endure the hell in my mind.
I try to scream.
The sound comes out choked, gagged, restricted by the hose in my mouth.
I thrash, trying to pull the tube that is helping me breathe from my throat.
Heavy hands land on me, trying to restrain my movements.
Pain radiates down my slinged arm as I grasp a thick line, blood oozing as I rip it from a vein.
“Code gray! I have a combative patient!” the unfamiliar doctor yells as he and Dr. Anderson try to hold me down. My flailing continues, just wanting to finish what I failed to do at the river.
Why won’t they just. Let. Me. Die?
Nurses run into the room, my energy waning as I struggle against being restrained.
“Hudson, love, please calm down.” A choked sob sounds from the corner of the room, my eyes snapping to my mom and dad holding each other.
Why are they here? They don’t need to see me like this.
I fight harder, just wanting, needing this to end.
More hands force my body into the hard mattress, urging me to calm down.
Through the cacophony of noise, a whispered “Hudson” meets my ears. My head whips in its direction, tired green eyes locked on me.
An immediate magnetism tugs at me—pulls me towards the man standing at the foot of my bed. His face is tear-stained, dark circles ringing his beautiful eyes.
“Please. Stay.”
The soft words leave his lips, and everything in me collapses.
Tears flow down my face as I keep my focus on Cullen, falling back onto the bed, defeated. A tiny prick stings my arm, my entire body rushing towards weightlessness.
I allow the drugs to pull me under, my eyes closing with a prayer that maybe this time, I won’t wake up.