Page 21 of Hidden Truths

But what else could she do?

Harrison.

Megan.

Harrison.

Hurry!

She slid into herself.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

KELLENOPENEDHEREYES. Her real eyes, the ones in her body. She rested on the hospital bed in the room she recognized as hers.

Hurry!

She had to get up, but it took a moment to remember how to use her body, to move her fingers and use them to push back the blankets, to sit up and stare at her bony legs, her skeletal feet, and hope they would hold her weight.

Because Max had had her removed from life support, there was no IV…but she was bound by a catheter. She looked around, found a pair of scissors resting on a bedside metal tray and used them to cut the tube. She used a tissue to catch the fluid—not much at this point—and she was free.

Everything sort of hurt: her head, of course, but all her joints and muscles protested their lack of use as she moved her legs, inch by inch, toward the edge of the mattress, dangled them and then, holding the metal railing, stood.

Pins and needles in her feet. But she didn’t have time to worry about comfort. She needed to walk. Now!

She practiced a few steps, holding the railing. Good enough.

She wore one of her nightgowns, thank heavens, but look! A bathrobe. Her bathrobe, hanging on the hook on the wall, waiting for her.

She smiled. Rae had insisted they leave it for her, for when she got up. Bless that little girl. With all her heart, she had believed Kellen would live.

Holding the railing, Kellen lifted the robe off the hook and shrugged her shoulders into it. No time to try to work out the difficult process of inserting her arms into the sleeves.

She tried to walk toward the door.

Adhesive attached her to a monitor.

She ripped herself free and knew alarms had gone off at the nurses’ station. She didn’t have much time before the whole medical staff would be in here.

She hurried as fast as her feeble body could hurry, pushed the door open, discovered she was just in time.

Harrison was walking past.

She caught his arm.

He tried to shake her off.

No. She hadn’t come back from death to be ignored. “You can’t do this,” she said. Her voice creaked and cracked.

He glanced down, did a horrified double take.

She had stopped him in his tracks. Her battered and gruesome face and head were good for something. “You can’t do this.” Her voice gained strength. “You have a life. You have a wife. You love her. She loves you. If you kill yourself now, you’ll have plunged her into a lifetime of tears and guilt.”

“What in the hell are you talking about?” Now Harrison was horrified for a different reason.

Kellen spelled it out. “You must not kill yourself.”

He looked wildly around the corridor, at the medical staff, all of them who were running toward Kellen. “Shut up,” he said. “Shut up. Shut up!”

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