Page 104 of Desiring an Angel

The voice faded as numbness crept in.

I thought I remained somewhat alert. Hands kept touching me. Voices nudged me to stay awake when all I wanted to do was slip back into darkness where nothing hurt.

“Need Rhett. My angel.” I kept repeating the words—in my mind or out loud, I couldn’t tell.

Floating in the clouds…I understood the saying, but no jumbled thoughts flitted around my head like Sky’s.

Did I smile?

Her green eyes made me want to.

“Ashton?”

“Hmm?” I hummed in agreement.

The voice repeated my home address.

I hummed, realizing it wasn’t anyone I knew talking to me.

“Is there anyone we should call?”

“Rhett. My angel,” I murmured again—or perhaps for the first time.

My eyelids peeled back, bright light causing me to whimper at the resulting stab of pain through my head.

“Can you tell me your name?”

“Ashton Blackwood.” I couldn’t blink reality into focus.

“Do you know what happened?”

Vomit. Car accident. Not dead.

“Who is Rhett?”

“Partner—Stirling,” I remembered to add, closing my eyes, too tired to care about anything but rest.

No more pain seized my breath, but I could not stay awake.

A loud clanking noise echoed through the darkness while I floated. Hours…days.

Sudden silence filled my ears, the peaceful sort that brought a smile to an exhausted person’s mind.

Death isn’t so bad…

No more aches riddled my body—but I became conscious of an insistent beep slowly growing in volume nearby.

I attempted to blink, but my eyelashes behaved as though they’d been glued together, refusing to peel upward.

Rest.

The next time clarity moved through my mind, I rose fully to awareness.

A white ceiling hung above me. White walls closed in on me. An IV bag hung on my left…a line went into my hand.

“Huh.” I lifted my arm, inspecting the clear bandage over the needle nestled into my skin.

I couldn’t feel it.

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