Page 11 of Vicious Hearts

"Got it."

I hang up and swing my feet onto the couch.

Relationships are a terrible idea for a guy like me. I have enough insight to know that I can't resist manipulating people. So what if I'm obsessed with Roxy? It's not as though that's healthy.

I'm a man with a freak on my back. A sweet girl like her can't stand up to that.

I close my eyes. The city's colors are too brash and bright after spending so long in nature, and I have a headache.

* * *

Roxy

"You were out for three days. You had a seizure shortly after you arrived, so we put you in an induced coma."

The flowers beside me are looking limp. Someone put them in water when they were fresh but never topped it up again, and the heads of the gerberas bow as though they're praying for me. The card beside them reads, 'much love from everyone at Always Home.'

The doctor is pissed that he's not holding my attention. "The paramedics found you unconscious at the roadside, two hours from here. Luckily, you had some identification on you, and we could bring you to a hospital near home." He frowns. "What happened to you?"

I've been awake for a few hours, but this is the first time anyone has asked me that question.

"Have the police been here?"

"No," the doctor replies, "but if you need to speak to someone, we'll call them.”

The Dollmaker planned to kill me. He drove me miles out of the city to dump me somewhere. Whatever I do next, I'm not telling this doctor anything.

"I think someone tried to mug me," I say. "I was hitchhiking. I’ll report it myself." I shrug in an I-know-I'm-dumb way, but the doctor isn't amused.

"We're waiting for a liver toxicity screen to come back,” he says. “We ran various tests while we kept you under." He picks up my chart and looks at it. "You have a concussion, but observation suggests no long-term damage. We thought you'd need a blood transfusion, but it looked worse than it was. Eighteen dissolvable stitches in the lower occipital area of your head, and you now have what one of the younger residents told me is a 'nape undercut.' Very fashionable, by all accounts."

He pauses and sees I'm not laughing.

"Liver function results were borderline, hence the in-depth screening." He narrows his eyes at me. "Do you do drugs?"

Fuck no. But I don’t want to get into a conversation about chloroform.

"Um, sometimes?" I lie.

"Well, don't." The doctor shakes his head, raising an eyebrow at me. "Anyway, we're confident you will be able to have your catheters out this afternoon, and if your test results are better, you can leave after your evening meal."

I can't afford all this. But there's no way I'm sending the bill to Leo and Ali, no matter how much Ali would want me to. She's rolling in money, but I don't like accepting charity.

"Thank you, doctor.' I yawn. "I feel exhausted. Is that normal?"

"Sure." The doctor stands up, slipping the chart back into its holder at the foot of my bed. "You're still adjusting to being awake. I'll leave a discharge notice with the charge nurse, conditional on you being fit to go and your liver tests returning with levels in normal parameters." He waves his pen at me. "Take better care of yourself. Clear?"

I give my most solemn nod. The doctor walks away, leaving me to rest.

I touch the back of my head, feeling the shaved patch where they had to stitch my head together. Split like a watermelon by a man who could have killed me but didn't.

I close my eyes.

The Dollmaker is still out there. And no one knows but me.

I have to get out of here.

4

---