Page 37 of Rescuing Nathaniel

Who knew flying hurt.

Her stomach pulsed with a red-hot pain that she was well and truly sick of, but there was a pain in her neck that seemed new. The organ traffickers hadn't taken anything from her neck. There was nothing there to take.

After what seemed like forever, she stopped floating. Hands grabbed at her, making her wince, but she no longer had the energy to cry out.

Actually, she didn't seem to have much energy for anything at all.

Someone laid her out flat on her back, and for a moment it felt like she was back on that boat, lying on a bed, held down against her will.

With a cry, she attempted to shove away the people restraining her. She didn't want to go back, didn't want to be trapped again.

For a second they backed off, and she felt free.

But then someone was there again.

A face leaning over her, a hand tracing lightly along her jaw before it pressed to her neck, making the pain there worse.

“Shh, sweetheart,” a voice crooned.

A familiar voice.

Nathaniel’s voice.

If he was there then everything was going to be okay.

“Bullet hit your neck but missed your carotid artery, you're going to be fine, you're safe, going home. It’s okay to sleep now, Aves, to rest. When you wake up, you’ll be in the hospital and this will all be over,” Nathaniel murmured.

Over?

No, it would never be over.

Not really.

Because the memories of the last few weeks, the terror she’d felt, the helplessness, would live inside her forever.

The very last thing she wanted was to wake up in a hospital and be reminded of her time being held captive by the traffickers. Over the last two weeks all she’d wanted was to go home, now that she was going there, it didn't feel any safer than where she’d just been.

* * *

March 4th

10:13 A.M.

It was probably notappropriate for him to be there.

Okay, there was no probably about it.

Nathaniel knew it was inappropriate for him to just turn up at the hospital to see Ava. His job was over. She was home now. Safe. She had her family around her, the people who loved and cared about her, the people she needed by her side to begin her journey to recovery.

Those were things he couldn’t help her with.

For all he knew, she wouldn't even want to see him again.

There was every chance that he was just a reminder of the worst thing to ever happen to her. That he was too irrevocably tied up in her ordeal that she wouldn't want anything to do with him.

Honestly, Nathaniel knew that was the better option even as he parked his rental truck outside the hospital. Because he was certain he didn't possess the strength to stay away from Ava unless she told him outright that he had to.

Which was a very scary thought for a man like him who had decided in his teens that he was not going to risk any romantic entanglements. The potential to develop real feelings for another person was too high so he kept things as detached as possible.

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