Page 3 of Deny Me
She skittered away from that thought.
“Listen, I was hoping I could talk to you about something going on with one of the girls. I just…I don’t know.” She paused to round a curve, trying to bring her words together and failing. Chewed the inside of her lip. “I need some help.”
Accelerating through the bend in the road, she eyed the short straightaway ahead. Could Wes help? He served as legal counsel for Creating Families, but Becky had already terminated her agreement. What could he do?
“The situation’s complicated, but I’m hoping…” What? She slowed for the next curve. “I don’t know. We’ll talk later. Will I see you at—”
A flash at the corner of her eye had her jerking her head around.
A pickup truck, its grill massive to her eyes, barreled toward her from a side road. There was no time to get out of the way. There wasn’t even time to scream. One second she was staring down that grill; the next, everything went black.
Chapter Two
“Ma’am, do you know…? Just…get you…hold…”
The words flickered in and out like a radio station going out of range, but no matter how hard Charlotte tried to focus, she couldn’t catch all the words. Static mixed with a thick, pounding pain in her head and buzzing, like someone was running a saw nearby. She tried to turn her head, to figure out where the noises were coming from, but the instant she did, nausea sideswiped her.
Sideswiped…side…
“Ma’am? Ma’am?”
Stop yelling!Even the exclamation point in her own head hurt. The noise… there was so much noise. If only they’d be quiet, maybe she could think. Figure out why she hurt so much. Why she couldn’t see.
Except…her eyes were open. Why couldn’t she see? Why couldn’t she—
A red-tinged oval swam in front of her face, anchoring her in the dark. “Ma’am?”
He’s talking to me.
“Can you tell me your name?”
She tried to get the words out, to tell him. Tried to blink away the haze blocking her vision. “Can’t…”
A flash of light broke the darkness from somewhere nearby, sweeping across her throbbing eyes, and then the person was speaking again. “I need you to be real still, ma’am. You’re all right. Can you tell me your name?”
“Can’t see…”
A big, bright object approached her face. She shied away, or tried to, but something thick and hard around her neck held her in place. She couldn’t move. What—
Soft cloth dug into her eye socket, sweeping over her eyelid. “Just a little bit, here.” The man—she could see that much now—repeated the procedure on her other eye, wiping away whatever gunk had obscured her vision. The oval became a man’s face. “Heads bleed like a bitch, but we’ll have you out and fixed up in no time.”
Blood? I’m bleeding?She tried to lift her hand to find the wound—
Why was everything a try? Could she not just do something? Anything?
The man took out a light and began flashing it in her eyes. She closed them as pain beat in her head. “What—”
“Let me see now, ma’am. Can you open your eyes? Can you tell me what happened?”
She wanted to say no, to question him more, but as if the closing of her eyes was a signal to her body, she felt everything going black again.
“Wake up for me, Charlotte.”
How does he know my name?
She blinked back into awareness, peeled her eyelids up again. The man hovered right in front of her this time, his face turned to the side, where shouts had added to the chaos, echoing not far away.
She must’ve moved, because pain sizzled through her body again. The man turned to meet her eyes.
