He touched the side of my cheek. “Never. It can’t happen.”
I didn’t believe him.
3
Iwoke up to find Jeremy sitting on the edge of my bed. I stared at him. I was tired but I was… okay. I didn’t want to puke. I wasn’t itching. My head was only mildly pounding. All in all, I hurt but I was… okay.
“Well, the good news, Princess, is that you have a great shape to your head. I mean I wouldn’t necessarily have said shave your hair off, but we can all see now that you don’t have a weirdly shaped head under your hair.”
That shouldn’t have been funny. But it was. I covered my mouth, startled when I laughed. I hadn’t expected it. His words, they were just funny.
“There’s my girl.” He tugged me to him in a tight hug. “There you are. It’s going to be okay, Princess. I promise.”
He smelled familiar. I closed my eyes and breathed. It was a nice moment, so it was terrible that I was going to ruin it. “Don’t make me promises.”
Jer put his head on top of my apparently nicely-shaped scalp. “Why not?”
“Because they don’t get kept. Better if they aren’t made.”
I expected him to rear back and yell at me. That would be appropriate but instead he just held on. “Because I promised you that you’d never be taken against your will. And you were. We all promised you that we’d go wherever you went. It took months. So, yes, I get it. You have no reason to think that any promises I made or will make can be kept. But, look at it this way, I couldn’t be sicker over it, and I can only get better from here.”
I was the one to pull back. Jer’s eyes were so tired, his blond hair the longest I had ever seen it. I met his gaze. “I don’t want you to be sick over it.”
“Well, I am.” He took my hand.
A thought dawned on me. “I must really stink. I puked earlier.”
“You want to shower? I think they’ll let you do that. You don’t stink. Are you hungry?”
My stomach made a noise. “I am.”
“Good. I’ll tell them and I’ll ask them about showering.” He got up. “Good to see you so alert. You had a rough night, Phoenix and Barrett told me. We rotate about every six hours. Or so.”
I blinked. “Did I?”
“Yes. But maybe it’s a blessing you’re not holding onto memories right now that well. Be right back.”
Was it? I put my head on my knee. Yes, I liked it here. Right on my knee. It really worked here.
“Okay.” He came back and I was forced to lift my head. “Food is coming, and they say you can shower if I stay in there with you just in case you get dizzy. Okay? The shower is going to take a lot out of you. That is what Kirk says.”
I tilted my head. “Sure. I mean, if you’re comfortable with that.”
“I am. If you are.” He lifted an eyebrow. “This is about you.”
I rubbed at my face. “Can we talk after? I need to know what happened.”
Jer put out his hand and helped me off the bed. “Yes, of course. If you are able to stay awake, we’ll talk. If not, you can talk to whoever you want, whenever you want. Not that any of them can match my level of discourse—or my incredible sense of humor.”
I laughed, coming to my feet and pressing my head into his arm while the world righted. “I’m okay.”
“Yeah? You sure? ”
I nodded. “Yes.” We walked slowly to the bathroom. “I can’t believe how weak I am. I’d have been expected to get up and work when my punishment was over. I couldn’t be weak.”
“This is because of the detoxing. I think. If they’d kept you on the drugs, who knows what you’d be like. I don’t know.”
Detoxing. It was strange to think about. “Funny, you know I’ve never taken drugs on purpose. But I have to withdraw or whatever.”
