Page 109 of Slow Burn (The Boston Beauties)

‘What the hell have you done?’ Lisa stood over me, her voice dripping with shock. When I tried to move, a sharp cramp shot through my mid-section, and I let out an agonizing cry. I looked down to see the concrete floor around me covered in blood, clearly coming from between my legs.

‘Oh no,’ I cried out. ‘Please, you have to get me to a hospital.’

‘No chance,’ she paced.

I forced myself to sit up, feeling lightheaded, and I was losing a lot of blood. I didn’t have a medical degree, but even I knew this wasn’t normal. ‘Lisa please, there’s something really wrong, I’m going to bleed out.’

My breathing was labored and it was hard to keep my eyes open. ‘Please,’ I begged once more, before lowering myself back down to the ground. ‘Please, I don’t want to die.’

‘Well, that makes one of us, now shut the fuck up and let me think.’

‘Please…’

‘I’ll gag you again, whore. Your whining might get you what you want with everyone else, but not me.’

~

Looking up to Drew, I saw a single tear in his eye. Eyes that looked tired and bloodshot, like he’d too been crying.

‘Jessa, I’m so, so sorry!’ he started to sob, covering his face with his hands.

I clutched my stomach and closed my eyes, willing myself back to sleep, for I hoped that I could wake up to find this was all a bad dream.

‘It’s all my fault,’ I heard Drew say, and it broke my heart, but I just didn’t have the words at the moment to console him.

It wasn’t his fault, at the root of this was me and my so-called disappearance. If I had never gone away, Drew would have never been involved with Lisa, she wouldn’t have been heartbroken and she wouldn’t have kidnapped me.

She was a disturbed individual and I, unfortunately, had to find that out firsthand the hard way. I looked to Drew; hearing his sob broke me just a little bit more. I reached out for his hand and he let me take it, but he couldn’t look at me. He was grieving too.

‘I’m sorry too,’ I whispered. ‘I tried…’

‘Cupcake, no, this isn’t your fault.’

‘It’s not yours either…’

‘But I dated…’

‘Because you thought I was dead and gone.’

He looked at me, shaking his head. ‘This isn’t your fault.’

‘I know, just as it isn’t yours.’

There was a knock at the door and a woman I didn’t know in nursing scrubs walked in. ‘I thought I heard voices.’

‘She just came to,’ Drew informed her, wiping his eyes and trying to cover me back up.

The nurse looked to me with a pitying look, ‘So he told you then?’ I nodded, wiping my own set of fresh tears away. ‘I’m so sorry for your loss.’

‘I’m going to call your parents.’ Drew stood and walked to the other end of the room while the nurse did a quick examination.

‘Do you have any pain?’ she asked me.

‘A bit,’ I touched my face. ‘How bad does it look?’

‘For an MMA fighter, not too bad.’ she winked at me.

I couldn’t help the small smile on my lips. ‘If I can have some ibuprofen, I think that’s all I’ll need.’

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