I only processed a few of her words, my one consolation being her statement that there hadn’t been serious consequences.
“Is it a bad headache?” she asked thoughtfully, and I nodded, unable to do anything else. “Then I’ll give you something for the pain.” She moved away but turned to address my mother before leaving the room.
“Selene won’t be able to have visitors today because we’re going to need to run some tests.”
After that, I couldn’t track anything that was happening. It felt like the world was moving on around me while my life had stopped.
About a half hour later, the doctor came back to free me from the IV and the nasal tube that had fed me for those ten long days. Then, she sat down next to me with a stack of papers ready to be filled out.
She asked me a battery of questions designed to rule out any post-traumatic amnesia. The accident I had experienced could have caused memory loss, but it hadn’t. My memories were all right there, completely intact and crystal clear.
She confirmed this when she put me through a normal questionnaire, starting with biographical data like my name and age. Then she asked me to count, compile a list of words, and track an object as she moved it around. When we were finished, she told me that I’d have to get an MRI and some more specific neurological tests. She also said she’d prescribe me some painkillers. I stayed quiet and tried to listen to her, though I was still bleary.
I was so confused and increasingly angry as I realized that my accident had been no accident at all but was instead caused by that masked bastard. The burden of all those emotions only made my headache worse.
While the doctor informed me that I could experience problems focusing, insomnia, and flashbacks to the traumatic event that would only fade with time, my mind was elsewhere. I half-listened in a state of rising turmoil as the doctor continued giving us the technical details, mostly addressing my mother in a composed, knowledgeable tone.
She said around sixty percent of people in my situation recovered on their own in the months following their injuries, though some did require further physical or psychiatric treatment. If I experienced symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, she could refer me to a specialist.
Finally, she said that I was generally in good condition and would soon be able to go back to my regular life. But even that wasn’t enough to soothe me.
“Thank goodness.” My mother pressed a hand to her chest, relieved to hear that I was fundamentally okay. I tried to rub my temples, but the discomfort I felt in my head made me give up immediately.
I wanted to be alone so I could process all that I was going through because no one understood the enormous secret I was concealing inside. My “accident” had been intentional, premeditated, designed by a strategic thinker who likely wanted me dead, just as he had wanted Logan dead.
Why did he target me?
I wasn’t really part of the Miller family, but I was connected to Neil, and anyone who was with or around Neil automatically became a potential target. I’d spent more than a month with Neil, which probably made his nemesis suspicious that I mattered more than one of Mr. Disaster’s usual flings.
All at once, I was afraid. Afraid of the reality that I now had to face. I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to confront it all, that I would find myself back in his crosshairs, that I wouldn’t be able to figure out who he really was, and that he might go after Logan again or Chloe or Neil directly. I was afraid of diving deep into this dangerous, diabolical game and coming out a loser.
When the doctor left the room, a tear rolled down my cheek, and I shifted to look out the window in front of me.
I felt like a boat trapped in a frozen lagoon. I looked out on a frosty landscape that perfectly matched my chilly insides.
I was icebound. A worn-out body. A terrified soul caught up in a reality too large to face. I didn’t want to talk to anyone, but at the same time, I really wanted to see the people I cared about again.
Especially him. Neil.
I hated him for what he’d done—hated him for forcing me to run away, for showing me the worst parts of him when he took me into that bedroomwhere Jennifer waited for us. I hated him for letting me down and wounding me like that, but still, my heart seemed to beat only for him and no one else.
Goddamned feelings, I thought.
My face tightened as I felt another stab of pain, and I decided that this wasn’t the best time for thinking too hard. I needed to recover and hopefully get back to normal as soon as possible.
A sudden melancholy mingled with fear squeezed my chest tight, making tears drip down my chin.
“Sweetheart, why are you crying?” My mother touched my face, wiping a tear from my cheek with her thumb.
“Everything is going to be okay. I’m right here with you,” she reassured me, but I knew what awaited me. This was only the beginning. Player wasn’t going to stop. Not once he’d already started the game. My mother’s words of comfort were not enough to cancel out the mental image of that black Jeep, that mask, and that hand lifted in a wave, signaling that he was there to kill me.
“Mom, you don’t understand…” She didn’t know anything; she was completely ignorant of the macabre packages, the letters, the indecipherable riddles, and the mysterious figure behind Logan’s accident—and now mine as well.
All of it was crazy.
“Sweetheart…”
“Mom, please.”
