“Yeah. Still here.”
“Okay, um, you’ll have to put in the leave request on your end. And I’ll approve it. Please reach out if anything changes, alright? You need anyone to check on your place in town?”
“Um, thanks. I’ll, um, I’ll text Ford. Have him go by and make sure everything is fine.”
“Okay. Listen, you reach out if you need anything.”
“Will do, thank you, ma’am.”
I hung up the call and released another big sigh. It’d been weighing on me since I found Shiloh that I was due back to work on Monday and I couldn’t fathom leaving her. I was barely functioning sitting right outside her hospital room.
“What happ—sorry, I shouldn’t be asking…” Crow, turned his attention to the end of the hallway.
“Nothing,” I responded on habit. I sighed, slamming my head against the wall. “Well, it’s not nothing. She’s…she doesn’t believe that she’s safe. She thinks that they’re going to find her, find me, the rest of our family. She doesn’t believe that they’re dead.”
Crow took a deep breath and cleared his throat. “I don’t blame her. I’d be freaking the hell out too. Does she want to see the footage?”
I grimaced. “I was hoping that I wouldn’t need to ever show her that. Sounds like a shit ton of extra trauma she definitely doesn’t need to experience.”
“Maybe. But, if that’s what it’s gonna take for her to feel safe, then…maybe it’s what she needs.”
I sighed forcefully, growling in my chest.
“I hate this. I hate all of this. She doesn’t deserve this. And they’re in there, fucking…” I trailed off, hands curling into fistsagain. “Fucking tying her up like she wasn’t just fucking chained to the floor for God-knows how long.”
Crow, reached out and squeezed my shoulder. Her door suddenly opened and I jolted up from the chair, nearly knocking into Crow.
“Can I go in?” I asked the nurses filing out of the room.
One of them nodded, “Yes. Let us know when she’s awake.”
I looked past him to find that she was still restrained and clenched my fists to prevent myself from putting my hands on the man.
“Why is she still tied to the bed?”
“It’s for her safety, sir. I know it looks bad, but this is to protect her from hurting herself or a member of staff.”
“She’s just going to freak out all over again if she wakes up and realizes she can’t move her body.”
The nurse eyed his colleague with a‘help me out here’look so I eyed the woman beside him.
“She’s asleep. Yes? So, she doesn’t need to be restrained. She can’t hurt herself or anyone else if she’sasleep.”
I didn’t care that I was coming off as a dick. It wasn’t fair to Shiloh and they were only making their jobs harder by causing another panic attack when she woke up.
“I’m telling you. She will not comply or be calm in any way if she wakes up restrained.”
The woman sighed before nodding. “Okay. I’ll remove them. But if she has another episode she will be restrained again.”
Fuck that.
“Sure.”
I followed her into the room, helping to remove the ones on her wrists. They were red from straining against the ties, and I gently kissed both of them. I glared at the back of the nurse’s head as she exited the room before settling into the chair beside her bed once more.
I leaned forward to wipe the tears from her cheeks that hadn’t dried. I stroked her cheek as I studied the even breaths moving her chest up and down like I’d been doing for the last three days, ready for her to wake again.
I prayed that this time she’d stay calm enough to give me the chance to prove to her that she was safe.
