She laughed. "Get out of here, Hayden."
"I'm going," he said. "On a more serious note, be careful."
"I will be."
After he left, she went back into the bedroom. Max was asleep and no longer shivering. It was only seven, but she was suddenly exhausted, so she stretched out next to him in the bed, staying on the side of his good shoulder so she wouldn't accidentally fall asleep and bump into him.
At some point, she dozed off, but Max woke her up around ten, talking wildly in his sleep as he thrashed on the bed.
"Have to get him," he muttered, his head tossing restlessly. "Have to kill him. Should have done it years ago."
"Max?" She touched his forehead. He was still warm but no longer burning up.
"Qadir," he said clearly. "Have to find him. Have to make him pay for what he did to Nicole."
Nicole. Kara's chest tightened. Who was Nicole? And what had Qadir done to her?
"It should have been me," he muttered. "Not you, Nicole. My fault. Should have seen it coming."
His ramblings continued for the next several hours. By dawn, she had a lot of questions and a growing certainty that there were parts of Max's past he hadn't shared with her.
She'd always known he had secrets, but in the last several days, she'd felt like those secrets didn't matter. But they did. And she needed to stop burying her head in the sand and figure out what was really going on. Max had wanted to tell her something at the lake, just before he got shot, but he hadn't had the chance. As soon as he woke up for real, she was going to find out what he hadn't wanted to tell her. Because she had a feeling it was something she really needed to know.
Max woke up, feeling a stabbing pain in his shoulder, but the pounding in his head had stopped, and so had the endless shivers. He blinked his eyes open, seeing the sun coming through a crack in the blinds. He didn't recognize this room. But he did recognize the woman sleeping next to him on the bed, her cheeks rosy from sleep, her brown hair falling around her pretty face. Seeing Kara safe and right next to him drove the cloudy fear out of his head as his brain cleared and his memories sharpened.
He rolled over onto his good side, aware of the bandage on his shoulder and the throbbing pain in that part of his body. As his weight shifted, Kara woke up. She opened her eyes much faster than he had, alarm followed by relief as she met his gaze.
"You're awake," she murmured, putting her hand on his side. "How are you feeling?"
"Great," he murmured.
"Liar."
"Where are we?"
"At a house in Pound Ridge. I needed to get us somewhere safe, and my friend is a realtor. She has the listing on this house."
"Was your friend here?" He tried to remember what he'd seen and heard. "My memory is fuzzy."
"You had a fever, and you were in a lot of pain. My brother was here."
"Your brother?" he echoed in surprise. "Why?"
"You needed a doctor. He stitched you up, gave you antibiotics, and also left you a couple of pain pills. Do you need one?"
"Not right this second. Was it safe to bring him here?"
"My friend Jess called him. I turned off our phones miles before we got here. He took precautions. It was a risk, but I had to take it. You were burning up, Max. It was my brother or the ER."
"This was the better choice," he said. "Thanks for taking care of me."
"Well, you took a bullet for me, so I owed you."
"I think you more than paid me back by saving my life."
He let out a breath. "I remember being by the lake, and then I saw something."
"A gun," she reminded him. "You pushed me out of the way. We ran to your Jeep. A guy followed us for a while, but I lost him. Eventually, we came here. I have some snacks in the kitchen if you're hungry."
