Page 81 of Vengeful Eyes
My head swings back to look at him so quickly I almost lose my fucking balance.
“The hell did you just say?”
“She’s pregnant.”
I don’t even know what to do with that information. I stagger backwards a bit, eyes wide at the thought. She can’t be pregnant. She was, is, on contraception. Injections.
“You’re wrong.”
“No. She’s definitely pregnant. I don't know how far gone. We'd need to do an ultrasound, and quickly.” I glare at her there, feelings all over the goddamn place. “It's standard to test when there's abdominal trauma. Cover all bases.” I can't hear a fucking word he's saying. Pregnant?
My ass hits the chair, head spinning. She's fucking pregnant and she put herself in front of Emily?
“She might not even know, Ben.” My head swings to him, wanting to say something that I can't find words for. “It's relatively common to not know in the first trimester, especially if she's on contraception. It happens.”
“Wake her up,” I say. I need to look into her eyes, understand what the hell this is.
“She'll be better staying under. Rest and recuperation. I can get some gear brought up here and run the ultrasou—”
“Wake her the fuck up. Now.”
He nods and goes over there, starting to get drugs ready to feed into her intravenous lines. Baby. “No, wait.”
His hand stops. Jesus. Pregnant. I don't know whether to be furious or fucking elated. “You can do the ultrasound while she's under?”
“Yes.”
“Do that. I wanna know if it's still alive, and how far along she is.”
He picks up his phone immediately. I stand, hands rubbing my trousers to try to get to grips with this. Hope Winters. Pregnant. It's never even been on our radar. We’ve not fucking talked about it once. She said she had injections. That's it. No children.
“It'll be half an hour or so before it gets here. The moment it's done we'll wake her up.That'll be another hour or so, and she's going to be groggy as fuck when she wakes. You might wanna get a drink while we keep monitoring her,” Daniel says.
I can barely think let alone drink, and now I've got to wait another two hours? Fuck. Fuck. And what, go out there and talk to the Canes about shit I have no fucking interest in whatsoever?
My hands go to my head, fussing my hair around until I do the only thing I can think of. I grab some clean running clothes—Hope’s—and go back into the lounge. She saved her life. The least I can do is let the pair of them be clean after the fucking mess of the night.
“Go get yourself cleaned up,” I say to Emily, throwing some clothes on the table. I look over at Gabby, nodding. “You, too.” They both look shocked.
I know the goddamn feeling.
Twenty-Eight
I’m safe. Warm, safe and content. I don’t want to leave this place, wherever it is, but I can hear a ringing, a faint buzzing from somewhere. It’s disturbed me, and I can’t reach back to feel the embrace of safety. The buzzing gets louder until it’s a full-on throb in my head. One by one it feels like my nerves are coming back online, registering in my brain and delivering information I don’t want.
Pain.
My eyelids stick and scratch as I try to open them. I struggle, my mind beginning to replay my last moments. The boat. The men. The gun. Benjamin. My eyes snap open, the need to find him now overtaking everything else. The blurry sight in front of me doesn’t help me to orientate myself, but I know he’s here. The smell of his body wash fills my nose as I suck in air.
I blink my eyes, willing them to focus. Eventually, they do. I’m in our room, but not in our bed. There’s a beeping noise, movement, people I don’t recognise.
“Benjamin?” I part my lips to talk but only manage to croak out his name. A blurred man approaches me, checked shirt, a tie, his hand reaching for something.
“Hope, my name is Daniel Redman. I’m a doctor.” He moves left, then right,confusing me. “I’ve been looking after you since you got here.”
“Benjamin?” I ask again, needing to know he’s all right.
“I’ll go and get him for you.”
