Yours Always

Prologue

Her first thought upon waking: Is it over? Am I safe? Her second: I can’t move my arms.

As she steadily slips back into consciousness, the room around her begins to take shape, and she identifies what she can—a window darkened by plastic blinds, a whiteboard decorated with illegible notes, an IV leading from the inside of her elbow to the machine beeping insistently next to her head.

Hospital, she thinks, dredging up the word with some effort.

I am in a hospital. Then she feels it all at once: the white-hot, all-consuming throb of her left shin, wrapped in layers of gauze so she can’t see the damage.

She wonders if it looks as bad as it feels; that doesn’t seem possible.

It comes back to her in flashes.

Shouting. Struggle. The deafening blast of a gunshot. Searing pain.

And blood. So much blood.

Through a plexiglass window in the door, she can see a uniformed officer standing outside the room. See? she thinks. Safe. You are safe.

“Water,” she attempts to croak, but her voice fails her.

She tries to wave her arms, to call out again, but it seems her whole body is paralyzed.

Instead, she closes her eyes, settles back into her pillow, and concentrates on her breathing: in and out, in and out. She tells herself, It’s all over now.

But a voice deep inside her head whispers that’s not quite true.

Because it’s only over if they believe her.