Dr. Wilkes’s kind smile didn’t reach his eyes this time. “Stress can sometimes cause physical reactions. There is nothing to be concerned with.”
I frowned and leaned back into the pillows. “You say that, but I’ve been in and out of the hospital for weeks now. I haven’t spent more than five days in a row at home. This is worse than normal.”
“It’s the stress,” he insisted. “Your grief. Everyone’s body reacts to stress. Headaches, tension, sleep issues, pain in the chest. Unfortunately for you, your body has always reacted far more strongly to things. We need to ease your stress. I could prescribe you some medication to help. How do you feel about that?”
I nodded. “Yeah, that sounds good.”
But even though I would welcome some measure of relief, something about the look in his eyes didn’t sit right with me. I felt an awful lot like I had after the first time I’d had surgery, and through the haze of the past month, I swore I could remember the flicker of surgical masks, needles, and buzzing monitors.
Ridiculous, of course. It wasn’t like I could have been through another surgery and not remember. And even if that were the case, Dr. Wilkes wouldn’t pretend I hadn’t had one. That would literally be insane. And incredibly illegal.
They were dreams and nothing more. I’d been having them a lot lately. Sometimes they were memories of Mom and me. Other times, my mind conjured up past lives from the 1800s and beyond. Lives that felt all too real.
I’d told Sarah and Anya about them. They’d told me the dreams were a way for me to escape my pain. That made sense. I hadn’t been myself since Mom...
Sighing, I closed my eyes to block the bubbling tears. “Do you know when I’ll be able to go home?”
Dr. Wilkes checked my vitals, and then scribbled something on his clipboard. “We’ll see how this medication makes you feel. As long as all goes well, you should be able to return home with Sarah and Anya tomorrow morning.”
“What about the rib pain? Are you sure it’s nothing to worry about? Mom kept complaining of rib pain in the last month before...” Pain ripped through me. This time, it went right through the heart.
“Nothing to worry about.” He clicked his pen. “You’re on the mend, Eva. You’ll be fine.”
* * *
Aface blurred before me. Cracking open my eyes, I peered up at a familiar head of dark, wavy hair, eyes the color of midnight, and tanned skin covered in a neck tattoo. Concern painted every inch of his familiar face.
“Caim,” I whispered, heart thumping. Memories suddenly flooded my mind. The cult trapping me inside a stuffy house, the ritual where they drank my blood, the frantic escape where I ended up...
Completely blacking out. One minute, I’d been less than a heartbeat away from Caim’s building. The next...I’d woken up here. A monitor buzzed by my head as the scent of disinfectant swirled into my nose. I was in the fucking hospital again.
Ugh.
Caim leaned forward, brows pinched. He palmed my cheek and scanned my eyes, sucking in a sharp breath. “You recognize me?”
“What?” Shocked, I laughed and then winced as it led straight into a cough. Everything,even my skin, hurt. I’d clearly had another episode. Right on Caim’s street. To be honest, I should have seen it coming. After the past few days I’d had, my body was angrily rebelling against me.
The blood loss. The running and the fighting. No wonder I’d ended up here with no recollection of how I’d gotten to the hospital.
The light of hope in Caim’s eyes died. “What do you remember from last night, Eva? Do you know what you said to me? To Sarah? To Anya?”
An unnerving chill swept down my spine. “Okay, you’re starting to freak me out now, Caim. I don’t remember anything. I mean, I do. Kind of. I escaped from the cult, and I managed to get a block north of your apartment and then...everything went blank. And now here we are....what happened? I had an episode, didn’t I?”
“First,” he said, his voice dark with tension. “I need you to tell me everything that happened. What did those assholes do to you?”
I swallowed hard. Caim’s tone had rocked me, but this weird memory loss didn’t matter when we were facing a bunch of newly-transformed demons. Ones that wanted revenge. So, I sucked in a deep breath and told him everything. It took me at least half an hour to get through it all.
When I had finally told him the full story, I loosed a breath and leaned back into the pillows. I felt drained.
Caim stood and paced across the floor, his hand rubbing his tense jaw. “I don’t understand how that could have worked. Even if the orb grazed your skin and infused your blood with some of its powers, that shouldn’t have been enough to transform them. They’d still need a demon to do it. They’d need me.”
“They were pretty damn convinced. And my blood turned black in the moonlight, which was proof to them it would work.”
He frowned. “That’s odd.”
Moving over to my side, Caim gently peeled the bandage away from my arm to gaze at my wound. I winced at the flare of pain. Shaking his head, he replaced the bandage and stepped back.
“What did you do that for?” I asked.
