Against all odds, the words are like a blow to my chest, knocking all the wind out of my lungs. I tell myself it’s because I’m angry I won’t get my revenge. But I have the uncomfortable feeling I’m lying to myself.
He raises an eyebrow.
“You don’t seem particularly relieved,” he comments. “Aren’t you happy he’s leaving you alone?”
I stare at my hands, trying to make sense of my contradictory emotions.
“Aren’t you happy?” he insists. “He won’t hurt you. You won’t suffer anymore. Okay? You’ll stay here and get better, and we’ll take good care of you. We won’t abandon you. I promise.”
Each word he speaks falls like a hammer on my body. Pain pulses at my temples, and my throat feels parched. I feel like I can’t catch my breath. Far away, it seems, I hear the beeping of the machine accelerate.
Logan’s eyes narrow in anxiety. “Fuck.”
A moment later, the doctor returns. The exhaustion isn’t a feint anymore. I’m overcome by it, my eyelids are heavy, and I lower them. My breath feels like it’s burning me. I’m aching all over, and vague memories of the last time this happened, when Damien cradled me in his arms and put me in his car, drift through my consciousness. Images of the concern in his eyes ashe took care of me flit before me.
Maybe he does care about me after all.
No, impossible. He left.
Stop believing his lies,I tell myself desperately.He wants to kill you. You need to hurt him. Stab him. Get away. You’ve killed two men. You’re a cold-blooded killer. A polar bear.
But beneath all the confusion, I have one conviction. I don’t have what it takes to kill him.
I still love him, and I fucking hate myself for it.
“Fever spiking,” I hear distantly.
“I don’t get it. We thought, with Damien gone… He’s her main source of stress…”
“We’re going to need to figure something out. She’s already very fragile with the weight loss. I don’t know how long her body can handle such a high fever.”
I blissfully lose consciousness.
__
The following days pass in a haze. I drift in and out of sleep, but the pain is so great when I’m awake that I welcome the comatose state in which I invariably find myself falling back into. Physical pain, first of all: burning, aching skin, a head that feels so heavy I can’t stand to move it, a throat so swollen it wouldn’t let me speak even if I remembered how, cold sweat coating my body in a thick sheen.
But the emotional pain is worse. The horrific fear squeezing at my lungs, a fear I can’t fully understand. The anger that feels more and more like a lie. The unutterable sense of loss that pervades my every pore. I could stand the physical pain. It’s the secret pain that makes me welcome sleep, if only to escape it fora short while.
In the rare moments when I’m both conscious and alert, I wonder what all this means. Sleeping in Damien’s bed, when he’s nowhere to be found; Damien was gone, Logan told me. He’s leaving me alone. Why?
Doesn’t he care enough to come kill me himself? I find myself daydreaming of his touch, of his scent, of experiencing him one last time before he kills me…
I would welcome that, now. The anger is gone, replaced by an all-consuming thought that fills me with dread.He’s gone. I’ll never see him again.
__
I’ve long ago lost track of the days when a voice pierces the thick shroud of my slumber.
“He’s back.”
Logan’s speaking.
“Obviously, he’ll leave her alone. But he came back when he heard of her state. He’s staying in the fourth-floor apartment. That way, if she… she dies, Damien can be here for the final moments. But as long as there’s hope, he’ll stay away.”
Damien.
With more strength than I thought I could exert, I open my eyes and struggle to sit up. Both he and the doctor, whom he’s been speaking to, look at me in surprise.
