Torn between gouging my eyes out at my mother calling Tatedreamyand clawing my way through the wall until I reached Charlie’s room, I tried to sit up.
“Was he hurt?” I asked her, suddenly wide awake. “Has he come looking for me? I need to see him. Now.”
Mom gently pushed my shoulders back, and to my great embarrassment, I didn’t have the strength to fight against her. Plus, searing pain shot up my entire lower left leg when I tried to move it, halting my flight out of bed. When it abated, I realized it was wrapped in something bulky and heavy.
“He’s okay, sweetheart. He’s resting, just like you. He wanted to come see you, too, but you’ve both been through a lot. You need to take it easy.”
He’s here. He’s resting.I hardly knew what to do with the balloon of hope that swelled in my chest.
Charlie’s still here.
Then her words caught up with me. “Days?” I asked, confused. “How many days?”
“Four.” Every minute of those four days was etched into her face, lined with exhaustion. “Keith’s been here every day, too. He just left about an hour ago. He’ll be so glad to hear you’re awake.”
Just then, Dad arrived with two medical personnel in tow. “Hello there, Reece. Good to see you’re awake,” the one on the left said. She was short, with straight, black hair pulled away from her face, and wearing a white coat over her purple scrubs. “I’m Diya Blake, a Nurse Practitioner. How’re you feeling?”
The other person, a nurse, I assumed, pushed a few buttons to halt the machine’s awful beeping and wrapped the blood pressure cuff around my arm before she began fiddling with a new IV bag.
“Um,” I paused, assessing. “Like shit.”
She smiled. “Not surprising, given what you’ve been through. You have a mild TBI—a concussion,” she clarified at my horrified look.
I thought back to the force Leonard used when he knocked me out with that heavy flashlight. A mild TBI was probably the best outcome I could hope for. “What about my MS? Is it, I mean, do concussions cause relapses?”
She gave me an understanding look. “You’ll have to talk with your neurologist about keeping an eye on things over the next few months, but there were no new lesions when we did an MRI to assess the extent of your concussion.”
I blew out a sigh of relief, and Dad patted me on the arm.
“So, overall, it seems your head injury is healing well,” she continued. “Our main concern is infection, given the nature of your other injuries and your compromised immune system from the MS treatments. We’ll need to keep you a few more days for observation, but so far, you’ve been doing fine.”
“Infection?” I asked. “In my leg?”
She nodded. “You have fairly extensive tissue damage, but no broken bones. You’ll benefit from physical therapy to rebuild the muscle mass in your leg.”
Again, I was stunned.No broken bones?
Images of the bear trap clamped around my ankle flashed through my mind. Could I really have been lucky enough to avoid broken bones from that monstrosity?
“Wait.” I reached up, patting at where I’d been shot, and frowned. My hands were clumsy with the IV and oxygen monitor, but still, shouldn’t I have felt bandages? Stitches? Something?
“What about here?” I asked. “What about my chest?”
Mom’s brow furrowed. “Your chest, sweetheart?”
The nurse practitioner cocked her head to the side. “You had a few superficial scrapes and bruises, but no significant chest wounds.”
I gaped at her. That was impossible. I’d been shot. Not grazed—shot.Right through the chest. Hadn’t I?
Dad’s face was grave, as if he remembered the same thing I did. Subtly, so Mom wouldn’t notice, he shook his head once, eyes glassy.
I don’t understand, either.
“We’ve got one more round of IV meds for you,” the nurse practitioner said, “so you might feel ready to sleep again, soon. You can use the call button to let us know if you need anything.”
The room was quiet while the nurse finished with her rounds and left.
How was it possible I’d escaped everything Leonard did to me with nothing more than a mild concussion and a bandaged-up leg?
