Page 137 of Devilish Ink

I had no sense of time anymore. I had even less sense of myself. I wasn’t even sure how I was standing, or rather whether I was standing at all.

“Family of Ms Carroll?”

It took me a second to register that he was talking about Ryleigh. I’d come to know her only as Ry. As my wife. Asmine.

I lifted a hand which felt like it weighed fifty pounds. The doctor gave a curt nod of his head and moved toward me. My heart leaped wildly in my chest. I might have been hyperventilating.

“The husband?” the doctor asked.

“Yes,” I said without hesitation. It didn’t matter that we hadn’t officially said the vows, I washers. And she was mine.

He indicated for me to take a seat beside him.

I slumped into the chair, black spots already creeping in at the edge of my vision. “Just tell me she’s okay.”

Placing a hand on my knee, the doctor said, “Ms Carroll is out of surgery and is resting now.”

I struggled to process his words. That meant Ry was alive, didn’t it? Why hadn’t he just said that? Why did he have to make me read between the lines when I hardly even knew my own name at that point?

“Take me to see her.”

I stood, blood rushing to my head and making me stumble back a half step.

The doctor remained sitting, looking up at me with his palms flat on his knees. “Visiting hours begin at nine a.m. tomorrow.”

“No,” I said.

“I’m afraid those are the rules, sir.”

“Rules?” I shouted.

There was no steady progression from in control to not. I snapped like a rubber band stretched too far.

It all happened so fast that even I was startled by the loudcrash of the plastic waiting room chair against the wall. I was capable of violence, but usually it was a choice when I snapped.

“Take me to her. Right. Fucking. Now.”

The lobby of the ER had gone silent. Out of the corner of my eye I saw waiting patients inching away. The nurse behind the desk had a phone halfway to her ear.

The doctor held up his hands from where he’d remained seated. “You need to remain calm, Mr Carroll.”

Calm.Fucking calm?

I kicked away the chair next to him. He flinched, his face going white.

“Where is she?” I jabbed a finger toward him. “Where ismy wife?”

He stumbled back out of the chair. “Security? Security!”

I punched a wall. I could barely feel the pain, plaster crumbling around my fist like crumbs.

“Where. Is. My. Wife?”

I stormed toward the swinging doors to the ER as a security guard stepped into my war path.

“Ryleigh!”

The guard came for me, joined by another, beefy hands already on the handle of their batons at their hips. I ducked their swinging arms and pushed one to the ground.

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