According to a balding cop who had been the one to interview me, the detectives who raided Josh’s apartment had found evidence confirming this. Damning him. What they didn’t know was that Josh had already been damned, by Zayn.
The night Eastman kidnapped me, he had also taken one of his victim’s siblings who had testified in court against him in his original court case. Eastman had kept them in a small shed, tortured and killed them in the same abandoned farmhouse. I was next on his list. Apparently, he had stalked out to retrieve me from the well, to do the same to me, when he had run right into Zayn.
Zayn had also given a lengthy statement about the fight and murder in self-defense. I had blearily given an eyewitness account to match up with Zayn’s story.
Rae returns to the room and she and Zayn take turns filling me in on my many injuries. According to Dr. Jenkins, they include a broken ankle and pinky finger, two bruised ribs, a concussion, and a few deep lacerations on my head and across my upper back.
Quietly, Rae informs me that my rape kit came back negative. A shiver racks my body and I fight back the urge to cry. After being drugged, I was passed out and left alone in the well for hours. I hadn’t known what Eastman did or didn’t do to me during that time. The news is a tangible relief.
Closing my eyes, I see the Demon’s face twisting cruelly into a smile. But before the flashback can continue, Zayn grips my hands hard between his own, bringing me back to the present moment. He leans forward to brush a thick lock of hair from my forehead.
Two nurses enter to check my vitals. One nurse takes my temperature and fiddles with the IV sticking out of the back of my hand. The intravenous morphine they gave me is wearing off, my body thrumming with the pain; the intensity of it almost breathtaking. But as the nurse presses the little round button again on the IV machine, I feel the almost instantaneous pain relief course through my body like cool water down a dry throat. I allow the ease and comfort to wash over me. I close my eyes again for a moment.
Sighing, I shift gingerly in the bed, attempting to lift myself to a more upright position. The nurse moves in to stand beside my bed and offers to push the lever and adjust the electric bed’s angle. I wave her off, as my gaze falls to Zayn. Wordlessly, he again takes one of my hands in both of his warm ones. I look down. My hand looks so small in his. I feel my lower lip give a little tremble.Fuck, I do not want to cry right now.
Zayn’s thumbs smooth over my knuckles as he holds me in his steady gaze. The gratitude I feel at having him here, whole, real and with me is almost overwhelming. It is a palpable thing: tender and warm, and seeming to emanate from somewhere in the dead center of my chest.I had tried to push him away. I rejected him.
And still, he had come for me.
“How are you feeling, baby?” he finally asks, his voice low and quiet.
I survey his face, and upon looking more closely, I see that tension pinches his handsome features. There are dark purple shadows blooming underneath his eyes, and his hair is decidedly mussed.
He’s been worried about me,I think.
He looks scared, and lonely with something shrouded behind his eyes that I have never seen before.God, did I know what it was to feel alone, with nothing solid to hold onto.I knew what it was to stand apart from the world and feel acutely that gnawing ache that is loneliness.
Not answering, I reach for him instead. Zayn leans forward to wrap his arms around my waist, nuzzling his face into my neck.
Without words, he gently slides onto the hospital bed beside me, taking care not to jostle the many wires and cords attached to various parts of my body. He settles in next to me, and I exhale a slow breath. I feel Zayn’s warm hands gently remove my glasses. His arms wrap around my torso, and he lays his head on my chest.
I lick my dry lips and swallow the lump of emotion gathering at the back of my throat. My chest rises and falls faster. The words are fully formed and spilling from my lips before I can think twice about them.
“I love you, Zayn,” I whisper softly to him.
And as soon as the words leave my mouth, I know they’re true. I know it in the depths of my gut, to the very core of my bones.
I love him.And I will never hold him at arm’s length again.
____________________
ZAYN
“I love you, Zayn.”
Her words echo through my ears like a whispered prayer.
I love you, Zayn.
I want to drink down the sound of her voice and eat up those precious words. Swallow them and make them part of me forever. I settle instead on burrowing my face deeper into her neck and trailing my nose up the velvety soft skin of her throat to her ear.
There, I pause, and whisper back, “I love you so fucking much, Doc. Always have and always will.”
Her dark eyes brim over with tears. Gently, I use the calloused pad of my thumb to wipe them away.
Then, I kiss her. And I don’t stop.
I kiss softly along her jawline and at the corners of her lips. I kiss the tip of her nose and her soft mouth, coaxing it open. I swallow a small moan as it escapes her full lips. I kiss her until we are both breathless, and my heart feels as though it will thunder right out of my chest. I gently cup her jaw and pull back to allow her head to fall back on her pillow.
