“Why are you talking to me like that?” I insisted. “Were we in an accident?”
Blinking, she shook her head. “Jacob, your pinky is pretty badly broken.”
I glanced down at my right hand, seeing my finger in a splint. I squinted because for the fucking life of me I couldn’t remember how it happened. And that’s when I started to feel the physical pain even more. It was as if my body took that exact moment to remind me that whatever I went through it’d been hell.
Using my uninjured hand, I pulled free from the hospital robe I wore. I glared, stunned at the red and purple bruises that’d begun forming.
“Did I go to the Underground?” I questioned, not even peering up.
“Yes.”
I moved my gaze from my body to Grace but I couldn’t look at her for too long. Something in the solemn way she was staring at me, almost as if she felt sorry for me, pissed me off.
My gaze moved past her to the doctor. The one she called by his first name. “How bad is my finger,Mark?” I snarled because I hated how close he was standing to Grace.
He blinked and looked to her and then to me.
“Am I your patient or is she?” I growled, feeling angry because I couldn’t remember how the hell I’d gotten here, and because I loathed the feeling of being treated like a damn child. I didn’t need caution. Just tell it to me straight.
“Jacob—”
I lifted an eyebrow. “Dr. Reynolds,” I corrected.
He frowned and cleared his throat, his dark brown eyes darting to Grace again. Thankfully, she didn’t say anything.
“Dr. Reynolds, we don’t know the extent of your injuries just yet because we haven’t been able to conduct an X-ray. You were, uh, pretty agitated when you arrived here at the hospital.”
I looked him up and down, first sizing him up, it was an instinctive reaction. And secondly, I wanted to see if he had any injuries that maybe I caused. I didn’t notice anything.
“I suspect you have a fracture of the metacarpal bone of the fifth finger.”
“A boxer’s fracture.”
He nodded.
I looked down at my swollen hand and had essentially the same diagnosis. In other words, I fractured my pinky knuckle, commonly referred to as boxer’s fracture because it was often the result of punching an immovable object such as a wall or a person’s jaw.
Blinking, I tried to force my mind to remember what the hell had happened. I squinted as I remembered climbing into the ring with some new guy and Buddy giving the directions as usual before the fight, then everything goes dark. Except, that nauseous feeling welled up in the pit of my stomach and I felt hands touching me.
“Don’t touch me!” I snarled and yanked my body away, causing the table with the medical supplies sitting on it to go flying through the air, making a loud banging sound as the bowl hit the ground.
I jumped down from the exam table, my legs feeling shaky … so much so that I nearly toppled over.
“Jacob, it’s okay. Mark just wanted to take you to get some X-rays so he can diagnose the extent of your injury.”
Grace’s voice had a soothing affect on my nerves.
I turned to her and our eyes collide. All I saw was worry and fear in the depths of those brown pools.
Again, I had to turn away from her to the only other person in the room.
“Fine,” I grunted. “Let’s get the X-rays.”
He swallowed and nodded before leaving the room without another word.
There was silence for a long while before Grace spoke up. “Jacob …” She didn’t finish because too soonMarkwas back with an X-ray tech and the huge machine I’m very familiar with.
“Dr. Reynolds, we’re going to need you to—”
