Page 107 of Elusion

Pete must read my mind on my way by and cuts Connor off from following me. “He’ll be right back.”

“Jordan, no—” Connor starts a protest, but I’m already gone.

Down the hall, turn right, third door brings me to a dark, empty room. Through the fourth doorway, however, I find a line of vending machines. Trey stands in full uniform with his forehead pressed against a wall, staring down at the blue carpet. The stance alone answers all my immediate questions.

Nothing has changed.

I slump back beside him. “She’s not awake.”

He straightens up and winces, a hand reaching for his right side. The other rubs over his face, careful not to hit a cut over his eyelid. “Something about the combination of a concussion and her losing consciousness from the strangulation…” He stops when my head drops onto the wall.

The word makes my stomach wrench, and I feel absolutely helpless. Graham strangled Callie. While I drank scotch with my father and laughed about sailing, hers beat the shit out of her and had his hands around her neck.

Graham strangled Callie.I roll the words around in my head, waiting for them to become easier to understand, but they remain surreal.Graham strangled Callie.

Trey’s hand on my shoulder reels me back. I kick off the wall and feed quarters to an ancient coffee machine. “Sorry, you were saying?”

“They set her broken wrist, and her ribs will heal in six weeks. When she does wake up, they’ll more than likely keep her sedated with pain meds to keep her calm and comfortable.” He rolls his eyes. “I have a fucking pamphlet for family members of a strangulation survivor if you want some light reading.”

“What happened to Connor’s hand?” I ask, needing a change of subject.

“Ten stitches across his knuckles and four in his palm, and he won’t tell me why. So, who the fuck knows.” He examines the contents of a vending machine. “This is such a fucking disaster. Lauren won’t answer her phone. Dad won’t leave the jail.”

He slaps at the buttons without putting money in. Then the heel of his hand slams into them harder. Once more. Now he hits it with a fist. And again. All composure gone, he’s teetering at the edge of the same abyss I narrowly escaped earlier.

I catch his arm before he lands another punch. “If you don’t stop, you’ll need stitches next.”

It takes a few seconds, but he unclenches his fist. I release my hold, and he walks away.

His hands drag through his hair and stop on the back of his neck. “A nurse asked how I was doing with everything earlier. I should have answered her like that.”

Jesus. Even with my tendency to say the wrong thing at the worst time, I wouldn’t have asked that question. A simple blink in his direction could answer—dark circles under his eyes, hardly any color in his face, his movements rigid.

“Howdidyou answer her?”

He turns around, laughing without humor. “I looked her dead in the eye and said, ‘I’m twenty-one and making serious medical decisions for my eighteen-year-old cousin because no one else gives a shit. I’m fan-fucking-tastic, lady. How the fuck are you?’”

“Very subtle,” I say.

“Yeah, well, the uniform typically excuses any lack of tact.”

A deep breath makes him grab his side. This time, I doubt Callie did the damage, so I gesture to his eye. “What happened to—”

Pete smacks the doorframe as he rushes in. “Doctor’s looking for you.”

My untouched coffee lands in the trash on my way out of the room. The three of us haul ass down the hallway to the waiting room. A doctor stands outside when we round the corner. Trey and I bombard him with different versions of the same question.

“Is she awake?”

“Did she wake up?”

His eyes warm in response. “We haven’t seen any change yet and are waiting on a few scans. Everyone’s body responds differently to trauma. Some take longer to recover, but we have her set up in a room.”

“You’ll let us see her?” Sheriff’s Deputy Henders conveys more of a statement than a question as he straightens up taller and scratches a conveniently placed itch next to his badge.

The doctor offers a small smile. “If you keep the visits to ten minutes, we’ll let the three of you see her, one at a time.”

“Thank you,” Trey says.

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