Page 98 of Deadly Secrets
Sudden exhaustion washed over him. Or maybe it was the pain killers. His vision was fuzzy and he felt light and floaty. “Tell him…thanks.”
Brooke relayed the message to Shane, her face becoming three as he tried to keep his eyes open.
“You need to rest now,” Clarice said, patting his arm. “We’ll have you at the hospital in no time.”
“It’s okay, Roman.” Brooke’s face looked like it was smiling at him. He couldn’t feel her hand anymore. “Don’t worry about me. Close your eyes and relax.”
He didn’t want to. He wanted to keep staring at her, make sure she didn’t disappear on him. For the first time in a long while, he wanted a woman in his life. Not just for a weekend or a short-term fling. He wanted someone who understood what drove him, who didn’t flinch at his lifestyle. “I promise to tell you…everything,” he said as his lids fluttered shut.
“I’ll hold you to it.”
He heard her say something else, but she sounded far away. He floated on the darkness for a long minute before coming back hard as Brooke’s voice broke through.
He heard Shane’s name, felt the low buzz of anxiety under his skin as Brooke’s voice spiked again. Something about the sigils. What was that? What was she saying? An ancient alphabet?
The drugs took him under once more, away from her and whatever had upset her. Darkness enveloped him, the pain slipping away…
Sirens jarred him…bambambam…the dream pounded against his skull. Screams. A loud, reverberating boom like thunder. His body went sailing through the air, floating, gone…
Lights and sounds assaulted him, lifting his too-light body from the shadowy dream. He tumbled over, hit something hard. Pain exploded in his temple right before something heavy hit him in the back. He tried to raise his arms, found them too heavy. Pushing against the thing at his back, he half rolled over, forcing his heavy lids to crack open.
One obeyed, the other didn’t. Lights flickered, he heard a moan. His one good eye saw the inside of the ambulance, but nothing looked right.
It wasn’t a dream. The ambulance lay on its side, the gurney and IV pole tangled around him. Clarice was knocked out, lying pinned under the gurney.
A whisper. “Romaaan.”
Brooke! He searched for her and saw her at the end of the ambulance by the back door. She reached for him, her slim hand floating in the air. He struggled to grab it, his vision from the single eye blurring. He blinked, got both to slit open this time.
There!Contact. The ends of their fingers brushed and they clawed at each other. Brooke tried to crawl toward him to get a better grasp.
He shoved at the mess of paraphernalia that covered his body, trying to shift toward her, but his limbs didn’t want to cooperate. Something heavy weighed down his right thigh.
God, he was so tired.
“My ankle is trapped,” she said. As he blinked again, he noticed blood coming from her lip. “I think it’s broken.”
He had to pause to get his breath and realign his body around the weight holding him down. He fought through the sedative and pain killers, feeling like he was drunk.
What the hell had happened? Had someone T-boned them, flipping the ambulance on its side?
The echo of gunfire from his dream surfaced and he shook his head, trying to clear the cobwebs. Through the confusion in his brain, a spike of primal fear hit his solar plexus. “Brooke…” His lips didn’t want to form words. “Where’s…the gun?”
She stopped trying to kick at what had pinned her ankle and looked around. “I…I don’t know. I can’t see my purse.”
“Find…it. Now. Get a…weapon. Any…thing.”
Her gaze met his and he saw the fear written there. Just as she started to shove at the blanket near her head to find the purse, the rear door opened.
Fuck.
Whatever had fallen on Brooke’s ankle went careening to the ground. She gasped and a man in the doorway, silhouetted by the moon, smiled at Roman.
“No!” Roman yelled, but it was too late.
The man grabbed Brooke by the ankles and jerked.
“Roman!” she screamed, her hand still reaching for him as she was hauled out of the ambulance.
