Another pinch, followed by another and another across my abdomen, making me aware of all the places on mybodythat should hurt, but somehow, my brain can't process the pain.
The only thing I can focus on isEamon's voice as he barks orders.Whether it's in reality or just in my head, I can't tell.
But the last thing I remember before everythinggoesdark is Eamon's voice reaching out to me through the fog,You're going to befine. I'll be right here when you wake up.
Then everything goes blank, and I'm floating on a sea of nothing. No pain. No fighting. A blissful world of nothingness. The only thing I miss, the only thing I need to make this place a paradise, is just out of reach.
Even Eamon's phantom voice can't reach me here, and I hate it.
Revenge Could Be Fun
Eamon
"Is she ready to wake up yet?" I ask the question I've barraged the doctor with every single day since we got Isla out of that fucking place.
"Vitals look good. Herbodyisn't rejecting the blood. The wounds have started closing and show no sign of infection." He looks over the chart before looking at me again, "I do think it's time, but it'll happen slowly."
I know this guy is sick of me and my shit, but he's looking over the mostimportantperson in my whole world. Watching them cut her out of that bloody dress and dress her wounds has haunted me since it happened, and Ican't wash those memories clean until I see her as she's meant to be, full of life and brimming with violence.
"So what does slowly mean?"
"It means," he sets the chart down, reaching for Isla's IV, "that we'll stop the propofol, give her fresh fluids, and she'll start to wake up within the next half our or so. But she'll be groggy and in a lot of pain."
Half an hour. Only half an hour and I'll get to see my girl again. I promised her she'd be okay. And she is. But promising that while she was halfway gone already, there's a chance she's been in this coma, having nightmares so deep in her mind even I can't reach them.Sedation does strange things to the human mind, makingit impossible to swim through.But it's almost over, and she'll never be rid of me again.
"What about the others?" I ask.
He grimly smiles, "Most of them were suffering from acute malnutrition, but other than that, they're okay."
42 people.
42 women and children stuck beneath that cabin, half of them convinced they lived there because the world had ended and that was the only safe place. The other half threatened into silence.
The women who knew the truth criedtears of joywhen we arrived, thanking the entire team profusely.
Those who didn't thought us devils come to drag them into the apocalypse. In a sense, I guess they weren't wrong. I can only imagine the kind of damage it must have done to their psyches to realize they were kept prisoner and that their protectors were really their captors.
Some even now refuse to believe it, wishing to stay in their delusions rather than face the reality of the horrors they faced.
I don't blame them, but I do hope they find peace. I've offered all the funding they could ever need for psychiatric and medical assistance, housing, even created new identities for eachof them.
And all the while I've been doing that, I've spent every second wondering when Isla was going to wake up so that 1. she could see all the lives she saved and 2. so I can kick her ass for being so fucking reckless.Again.
"I'll be right back," I tell the doctor. "I need to be here when she wakes up."
And so does someone else.
Walking out of her room and into the common area, I meet the blue eyes of the most furious little thing I've ever seen. I'm not sure Bel will ever forgive me for letting Isla get this close to her demise, but what was I supposed to do? Isla tricked all of us and ran off half-cocked.
"She's going to wake up within the next half hour or so," I announce to the three of them, hoping thatmaybe this willbe the day Bel doesn't scream at me.
It's not.
I can see her big inhale before the shouting begins. Once again, she tells me that all this fucking bullshit I put Isla through to keep her safe failed in the end. That I caused her pain and suffering, basically put her in solitary confinement just to hand her over to the enemy in the end anyway.
She's not wrong.Every single thingshe shouts at me is something I've already thought to myself. Her hatred and fury will never be able to overshadow the self-loathing I've felt over the last few days. Between Isla healing and trying to manage the dozens of people she found, I'm run ragged and can't even bring myself to ask Bel to stop shouting.
The neighbors have complained several times, forcing hotel management to check on us just to be manipulated away by Fritz. And yet, I deserve all of it. I'll take it as long as she needs me to until she can scream at Isla herself.
