Page 77 of Fate

“Carson. Oh, thank God.” Instantly, her hands are on my face, and she’s kissing my forehead in quick presses.

The grogginess is trying to force me back down, but I push it back. I do a mental assessment, and my entire body feels lethargic. Heavy. Like I’d been asleep forever and am finally waking.

“You’ve been out for twenty-four hours, bro,” Chloesays.

How the hell did that happen?

“What happened?” Then two words hit my memory like a jack hammer. Kat’s hurt. “Kathleen!” I cry out and try to shift out and off thebed.

Chloe presses firmly against my chest to hold me down, but it doesn’t take a lot of effort on her part. I’m sluggish as fuck and can barely move my arms and legs without using a great deal of energy.

“She’s okay. They’re treating her. The airbag gave her face a nasty beating, and she has a raunchy bruise across her chest where the seat belt held her in place. Thank God she was wearing it. The drugs though… That was bad on her system. Especially with the, uh…other thing.”

Airbag. Nasty beating. Bruises. Other thing.

The words jumble around in my head until a doctor I recognize all too well strides into my hospital room. Dr. Dutera, the same doctor who has treated almost all of my friends and family at one crisis or another. He pushes his glasses up his nose and glances at me from head to toe before he comes over with a penlight and examines myeyes.

“Mr. Davis. Hadn’t expected to see you here, and especially not like this. How are you feeling?”

“Like shit.” No sugarcoating needed.

He nods and writes something down on his clipboard. “You got lucky. You didn’t have as much Rohypnol in your system as your girlfriend.”

“Kathleen was drugged?”

The doctor nods and checks a few things on the machine attached to the fluids being pumped through my IV. “Enough to know it wasn’t a medicinal dose. Had it been any more, you both could be a lot worse. I’ll be back later. You’re here another day. Cops want to talk to you though. Anytime we find Rohypnol on the drug screen, we have to reportit.”

“The date-rape drug?” I ask, my voice betraying the shock.

“Yes, Mr. Davis. Try to rest and think about how you could have ingested it. There are no injection sites, so you must have eaten or drunk it,” he says before he leaves.

“Were you and Kat together on Friday?” Chloe asks. “We figured the two of you had somehow come into contact with it together, and she left and you went tobed.”

I scan my brain. “The last thing I remember I was sitting down to dinner with Misty early Friday evening. We, uh, were talking about her moving out, and then nothing. Everything goes blank after that. I don’t remember finishing dinner, going to bed, and I sure as shit don’t remember cominghere.”

Chloe’s eyebrow rises in what I can only assume is speculation. “And Kathleen wasn’t withyou?”

I shake my head. “No. That I would remember. I think.” I close both hands into fists, trying to remember what happened. It’s all a big blackhole.

“Misty,” Chloe whispers and looks out the window. “That’s weird. Kat left work on Friday evening saying she had to meet with Misty at a bar downtown. The way Kat explained it, they were supposed to have some type of come-to-Jesus chat with one another.”

“But I was with Misty.”

Chloe shrugs. “I don’t know, but when I left work at seven thirty on Friday evening, Kathleen was heading to a bar named Bubba’s to meet up with Misty.”

Bubba’s is the shithole where Misty used to work before I came back into the picture. “Fucking hell. I need to see Kathleen. Now.”

“She, uh, doesn’t want to see you.” Chloe’s entire face crumbles into an expression of misery.

“What?”

She rushes to continue. “I don’t know what’s going on. When they finally got her awake, she was crying, carrying on, saying you hurt her. You ruined everything. I believe her words were that you betrayedher.”

Betray Kathleen?

I grind my teeth and brace against the mattress to sit up straight. “I’d never in a million years betrayher.”

“I’m sorry. You do need to talk, but she’s in no position. And Chase… He’s got her on lockdown.”

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