Page 28 of Rampant

“Please, just let me see her once. I need to know she’s okay.” I needed to fucking tell her how sorry I was. I faced him again, but my plea didn’t soften his stance.

“You want her to be ‘okay’? Then give her a clean break. She has some sort of misplaced infatuation with you because of the kidnapping. If I let you in to see her, make it clear whatever thisthingis between the two of you is over. Can you do that?”

I nodded.

“She’s in room 427.”

I traded a glance with Jax before exiting the lounge, which was really just a space where families waited in agony to hear news on their loved ones. Other than a middle-aged couple speaking to the woman at the reception desk, the area was empty. She pushed her glasses up on her nose and eyed me. I gave her my I’m-a-nice-guy smile, but I wasn’t sure she bought it. Spanning the hall in seconds, I slowed as the numbers climbed. 423, 424, 425, 426…

Once I reached her closed door, my feet refused to move. Something told me to turn around and run. Never look back. Did I really want to open that door and look inside? I lifted a hand, curled my fingers around the handle, and prepared for the worst.

She’d scream at me, say I was the reason she was in the hospital. She probably hated me.

I pushed the heavy door open and was unprepared for the sight of the frail girl swallowed up by the bed. Her eyes were closed, long lashes fanning over pale cheeks. Her curly hair lacked the vibrancy I remembered. Even the flash of her I’d seen in the cellar didn’t compare to the brokenness of the girl…woman lying in that bed.

Moving slowly so I wouldn’t startle her, I pushed the door shut until it made the slightest click, then I stepped to her side. Her chest rose and fell in perfect rhythm. My gaze landed on her delicate collarbone and an intense vision of choking her hit me. To my horror, my dick hardened, straining against the zipper of my jeans. I clenched my hands at my sides. The mental picture was so vivid it could have been straight from my fantasies.

I knew it wasn’t. It was a memory. I retreated several steps, my heartbeat pulsing in my ears. Alex was laid up in the hospital, and my fucking cock wanted out to play. What the fuck was wrong with me?

“Rafe?”

My gaze shot to her wide, green eyes. God, those eyes…I remembered them well. Still full of mystery and shining with innate strength. I wanted to delve in and unearth all her secrets.

Her mouth parted slightly, as if she wanted to say something, or maybe, like me, she was having trouble drawing in a deep breath. She lifted an arm, covered in white bandages from wrist to just below her elbow. An identical bandage wrapped her other arm. My heart dropped to my stomach, landing somewhere in the dregs of my gut.

“What happened to you?” The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them, my feet across the floor and at her bedside before the second hand on the clock above the door could move two spots. I took her arm in my hands, my fingers sliding along the bandages.

And I forgot that I didn’t remember, that I was supposed to tell her to move on with her life and forget about me. Getting into the subject of my amnesia wasn’t part of the clean break Abbott insisted on.

“Alex?” My gaze landed on her face. Hurt and something else pooled in her eyes. It could have been so many things, a plethora of emotion all vying for residence in that stare.

Which told me shit, except that my presence made her cry.

She grabbed my hand in hers and squeezed hard, as if she feared I’d slip away. A tear slipped down her colorless cheek. “I thought you were dead. When he told me you weren’t, I wanted to believe it, but I was scared.”

“What happened?” How the fuck had she ended up in the hospital with bandages that suggested she’d slit her wrists? Why was she not furious or terrified of me? “Where have you been?”

“Doesn’t matter. Oh God…you’re real, right? I’m not dreaming?”

Something about the desperation in her tone fucked with my head. I pulled my hand away and stepped back. “I just came to make sure you were okay.”

She blinked, her expression blanking for a few seconds before confusion took hold of her features. “What are you saying?”

I dropped my gaze to my feet. “You’re better off without me. What I did, what you did, whatever we did together, we need to move on.”

“No,” she said with a resolved shake of her head. “Before Zach showed up, things were finally settling between us. I wanted to be with you. I still want that, more than anything.”

I almost asked what Zach had to do with any of this. Maybe he was responsible for shooting me. He’d always been protective of her. I bit my tongue, holding back those questions and more. I didn’t want to say anything that could give away my memory loss. She’d been through enough. I didn’t know much else, but I knew I wanted to stay out of jail, and I wanted her to be whole again. Somehow, I got the feeling those two things contradicted each other.

“My father knows you were involved in my disappearance.”

Inevitability was a bitch. I knew this was coming. I wanted to ask her if I’d raped her all those years ago, but I didn’t want to burden her with my issues. She’d been through hell, and I’d put her there. I didn’t know the details of how or why, but she was in that hospital bed because of me.

She’d tried to kill herself because of me.

“I’ll turn myself in, if that’s what you want.”

Her startled gaze punched me in the gut. “No! Why would you think I’d want that?”

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