Page 139 of Twisted Obsession

“Darius, can you hear me?” the main figure kept asking, flashing that damn light into my eyes.

I tried to swat him away, tried to move my arms, but they stayed stubbornly down at my sides. It didn’t matter. The white mist enveloped me once more.

The third time back, I knew immediately where I was. The room was a sharp focus of divine white light so pure, I momentarily believed I’d died. The bed faced an entire wall of windows overlooking a sky thick with overcast. The late afternoon spilled into an already painfully sterile box containing an enormous bed, a million chairs and a dozen people in varying degrees of awareness.

I studied the crowd through sleep heavy lids, painting their faces to memory. It seemed nearly every person I held dear was clustered around me, but it was the dark head at my right hip that I actively sought out. It was the small hand curled possessively into mine even as she slept. I couldn’t make out her features from that angle, but I recognized all that lush cloud of hair spilling over slender shoulders.

“Hey.” From my left, Mom rose quietly from her seat and crept forward. Her hand settled lightly on my shoulder as she leaned in. “Hey baby, how are you feeling?” The words were a whisper, and I realized the rest of the room was asleep still.

“What happened?” I rasped.

Her brows creased with concern. “You don’t remember?”

I did, or at least, a part of me did. It had been a loop in my dreams, a never-ending cycle of ripping pain every time the blade had sunk into my gut. It definitely explained the raw, burning itch across my torso.

“Was Kami hurt?”

Mom shook her head. “She’s fine. Worried about you. We all were.”

My gaze drifted down to the woman at my side. “What happened?” I asked again, returning my attention to my mom. “Was it a robbery?”

She shook her head. “Don’t worry about that right now. Just rest. We’ll talk about everything later.”

I really didn’t want any more rest, but I could feel my body settling to drop back into that weird, foggy place I kept going to.

“Tell Kami…”

I couldn’t be sure if I actually finished my thought or what she was even supposed to tell Kami, but the words lingered in the space as I slid into nothing once more.

Dusk pressed into the glass and filled the room, except for the solitary lamp lit at the foot of the bed when I pried my eyelids apart. Most of the chairs lined the far wall, empty. Only one was occupied. The one I wanted to see most.

Kami sat in the same spot, face turned in the direction of the windows. A book lay forgotten on her lap, the spine cracked around the thumb being used as a bookmark. I studied her while she stayed lost in her thoughts. I traced the soft lines of her features warmed by the single source of light. The golden glow created a halo around her head, teasing out the streaks of auburn in the dark strands twisted into a loose braid over one shoulder.

It struck me in that moment with a clarity I probably shouldn’t have possessed given how much drugs I was probably on, but I couldn’t believe she was mine. Somehow and for some inexplicable reason, she had chosen me. She, who could have literally had anyone, wanted me. I couldn’t believe it. I would have laughed if it didn’t hurt.

“Hey kitten.”

Her head snapped around with a ferocity that sent tendrils of hair whipping around her face. Her dark eyes widened, and she leaped out of her chair.

“Hi!” she breathed, rushing to the side of my bed, her book abandoned on her vacated seat. “Hey, how are you feeling?”

I tried to inhale, realized it was a terrible idea and blew it out gingerly. “Like someone hooked my guts up on a hot poker.”

Her features creased into one of sorrow as she took the hand closest to her between both of hers. “I am so sorry,” she breathed. “This is all my fault.”

I may have raised an eyebrow, though I couldn’t be sure. “You didn’t do this.”

Without letting my hand go, she perched her hip on the edge of my cot and sat. “I was the one who made us leave the party. If we had stayed—”

“Then it would have happened another day,” I pointed out. “Possibly worse.”

She nibbled on her bottom lip. “I have never been so scared.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, wishing I could erase the uncertainty and grief from her mind. “I wish you hadn’t been there.”

Her fingers tightened around mine. “Then you would have died in that parking garage. I would have lost you forever.” Our joined hands were brought to her chest and cradled against the soft pattering of her heart. “I never want to let you out of my sights again.”

I tried to chuckle, but the sound came out as a weak wheeze. “Promise?”

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