Page 8 of Desire Me
An astringent scent filled her nose. Disinfectant and fake lemons.
She was in a hospital.
“This is bad.”
The words came out a croak, the sound reinforcing her thoughts even as the dryness in her throat added to the myriad negative sensations enveloping her body. Slowly, fearing she would somehow rip herself apart, she raised her hands in front of her face. Scrapes, cuts, bandages, bruises. Her hands went to her cheeks without thought—more sore places. More bandages, one as big as her palm on the left side of her head. The tug of a line attached to the back of her hand drew her gaze down her body, wrapped in a flimsy hospital gown that was, no surprise, white, to the sheets gathered at her hips. Rails rose on both sides of the bed, caging her in, the sight registering at the same time that her heartbeat leaped into her throat.
Caged.
What was she doing here?
Searching her memory proved as fruitless as before, but the bed provided an answer: a red call button built into the side panel. Her hand shook as she reached out, the pad of her finger meeting the cool, hard surface, and then the green light blinked on as the pressure activated a call.
Now what?
Her frantic heartbeat fluttered like a trapped moth at the base of her neck. Black dots appeared in her line of sight. Blinking didn’t remove them. Shaking her head made them worse. But…
Pain gathered in her chest and worsened by the second. A hand on her breastbone brought a flicker of thought into the back of her mind.
Oh.
She sucked in a lungful of air. The black dots sputtered. Another breath and they disappeared.
Well at least she had control of one thing.
She focused on breathing as she waited, the blinking green light a beacon in the long minutes that followed. She didn’t dare move but barely managed to sit still. She needed answers, and right now.
A squeak outside the curtain—a door on a rubber track?—then the briskshhhhhtickas the wall of fabric was briskly pushed aside. “Morning, sunshine!”
The pounding in her head immediately doubled.
“What…” God, that croak. She tried to clear her throat, and panic surged again when she couldn’t. A shaky squeak escaped.
The nurse seemed to understand the issue where she couldn’t, moving immediately to a tray on the bedside table and pouring an inch of water into a clear plastic cup. “Here you go, dear. That throat has to be dry after all this time.” The woman tipped the glass carefully toward lips that felt dry, cracked. Just one more place that hurt. “Not too much at first. Four days means you have to take it slow.”
Immediately water spit from her mouth. “Four days?” she choked out.
The nurse nudged the cup against her mouth again as if she hadn’t spoken. Maybe what she’d said hadn’t made sense any more than the nurse’s words had. She opened her mouth and let some water in.
“There, that’s better.” The nurse used a paper napkin from the table to wipe up the mess across her chin and chest. No-nonsense movements of her slender, capable-looking hands. Alert expression in her dark eyes. The woman didn’t look crazy, but her use of the wordbettersuggested otherwise. “It takes time to get those membranes fluid again. Your voice will improve with use too.”
“Four days?” she asked again, then felt an irrational blip of pride that the words were recognizable this time.
“We’ll discuss that in just a moment,” the nurse said, voice turning crisp as she proceeded with a short exam, including shining a light in eyes that now had white spots instead of black. The flash made her wince, but the nurse continued as if the response was normal.
Finally all medical paraphernalia disappeared and the nurse patted down the covers. “Now,” she said, her smile bright even in the stark white room, “can you tell me your name?”
Of course I can tell you my name. For goodness’ sake.
She opened her mouth.
Nothing came out.
For a second the panic that jumped constantly inside her flared into outright terror—was her voice permanently damaged? God, what if she couldn’t talk? What if something really bad had happened to her?
Obviously something really bad had happened to her—just look at her body!
“Miss?”
