Page 18 of Wicked Bite
I closed my eyes, trying to focus, to remember anything about tonight. “I remember being scared. I remember running. After that . . . not so much. Are you okay? What happened to you?”
“What happened to me? I freaking ran out the door to find you broken and bloody! My heart is still in my throat. Also, I might puke looking at you.”
“That bad?”
“Oh, yeah, that bad.” She nodded.
“So, um.” I searched my mind for any memory of what happened. “What happened to me?”
She pulled the chair closer to the bed and leaned in. She lowered her voice. “Look, it’s kind of embarrassing, but you fell down the stairs.”
Flashes of black feathers, glowing eyes, and feeling so warm ran through my mind. None of that made sense. Confusion riddled my body, and I had to pull it together. I pressed my hand to my hair and froze. It was caked, knotted, and crunchy. I wrinkled my nose and pulled my hand away slowly.
Eww. “Is that blood in my hair? And what stairs? There’s no stairs on the way to the apartment.”
“Yeaaaaaa.” She tucked her hair behind her ear. “The stairs by the ice cream shop.”
I sighed and that movement hurt my side. “That’s ridiculous. Those are barely steps. They’re more like a slope.”
“Tell me about it. It’s like you threw yourself down them and kept on rolling.” She paused as a nurse walked by. “It was pretty bad when I found you. There was a lot of blood.”
“What’s wrong with me?” I felt the pain, but I didn’t know how bad it was. I fell? I didn’t recall falling. I remembered being at the restaurant, getting my food, and starting to walk home.
“Well, the blood in your hair isn’t as bad as it looks. There was a small cut, but it was deep enough to need two stitches. I’ve learned the head bleeds A LOT. And it is way more terrifying than I ever want to see again. And you got a little bump on the head with a slight . . .” She held her fingers up, making that small motion with her thumb and pointer. “. . . concussion.”
“Concussion? Are you serious?” It felt like she was serious. I was exhausted and everything didn’t feel in focus. Like I was looking at her from a distance.
“Only you would fall down those stairs and keep on rolling.” She chuckled. “Like you didn’t just stop at one stair, you decided to throw yourself down them all.”
“That’s stupid. They’re so spread out.” I pictured the stairs leading from Essex Street down to the ice cream shop and how spread out they were. They were huge, not steep at all, and like two feet long each. “What’d I do, just keep rolling, like one of those bad stunt men trying to keep on rolling down the hill, forward roll, push off to roll again?”
She threw her hands up. “That’s what I’m saying.”
My head pounded and when I sucked in a breath, my side hurt again. “It feels like my ribs are broken.”
She shook her head. “Nah, you got lucky, it’s just a bruise. Not even bruised ribs. Just a bruise over your ribs . . . it looks nasty, though.”
“Greatttttt.” I felt every bit as gross as I was. “I need a shower and my bed.”
Something tingled at the back of my mind. Like I had some place to be or something to do. “I was scared. Like I was being followed.”
“Were you?” Her face turned serious.
I hesitated, fighting with my own mind trying to recall anything. “I-I don’t remember. I felt like I was, but I don’t think I actually was.”
“Yeah, you called me, and I went to meet you, and then I found you . . .” She motioned to me in the bed. “. . . like this.”
“I must’ve tripped.” Still, everything felt so hazy, like a dream. Like a memory that wasn’t quite mine but was there just the same. I fought to try to remember more. There was nothing, except the thought of why I was going home at that hour and how I felt in that moment.
“Why are you making that face?” Her brow furrowed and she leaned back in the chair.
“What face?”
She pointed at me. “You know the face.”
“No, I don’t.” I shook my head.
“You do.” She pursed her lips. “Like you’re forgetting to tell me something.”
