Page 5 of Her Avenging Angel

“Glad to see you back in the land of the living,” the new guy said as he came in and moved around the opposite side of the bed from the guy who still sat beside her. “How are you feeling?”

“Hurt,” she whispered, still not able to speak more. “Water?”

“Oh, Yes, of course.” He looked up toward the doorway. “Can you bring us some water? Broth would be good, too, but water first.”

Taylynn glanced that way and saw the same face who’d told the man next to her that the doc was in the bathroom.

“I know you have to have questions,” the older man now sitting on her left said, his voice gentle, “And we have some, too, but there’s also some things you need to know. I know you’re hurting and now that you can talk to me about it, I can do a bit more than knock you out to help make it a bit more tolerable. What do you want to address first?”

“Ba—” she started to speak again but her throat hurt so bad she stopped and swallowed, grimacing at how it burned when she did.

The guy she didn’t know came back, a bottle of water in one hand. He gave it to the man on her right side.

“I’m working on the broth, but it will be a few minutes.” He glanced at her but disappeared without saying anything to her.

She tried to reach for the bottle, but pain shot through her at even the slightest movement.

“Just lie still. I’ll make sure you get some of this.” The stranger who had been there when she woke spoke slowly, but he twisted the top off the bottle—she heard the soft snap of the seal breaking—then held it to her lips and tilted it so a trickle streamed into her mouth. She waited until enough pooled in her mouth to be of use, then swallowed. It helped with the scratchy sensation, but her throat still hurt. Apparently, the pain wasn’t just because she hadn’t had anything to drink in who knew how long.

With that thought, her mind flashed on a memory of Levi, with his hands wrapped around her neck, squeezing. She closed her eyes and tried to push the memory away as she focused on the water still trickling into her mouth. After several swallows, she nodded, and the bottle was moved away.

“Better?” Freud asked after she’d had a chance to swallow one last time.

“Yes, thank you, but I need to use the bathroom. Can I get up?” Talking was still painful, and her voice sounded like she’d been smoking for longer than she’d been alive, but at least she could talk now.

“You can, but it will hurt. Probably quite a bit and you’ll need help to get there and back. Another option is we can get a bedpan and let you use that.”

Taylynn shook her head. There was no way she’d go through that humiliation, not if she could help it. She’d rather deal with the pain of getting up and going herself, even if she needed help. She’d dealt with pain before and she’d do it again, she was sure.

“I want to get up.”

“All right. We can do that. The first thing you need to know is that this arm’s broken.” He touched her left hand gently. “I’ve got a splint on it until some of the swelling goes down. There’s also an IV needle in that hand, I’d like to give you another bag of fluids and another dose of antibiotics, but after that we can remove it.”

That explained part of why that arm hurt so much. She tried to lift the arm in question, but it felt like it weighed more than she did, so in the end she let it lay there, wishing she could see it.

“Okay, what else?” She knew there had to be more. There was something wrong with her ribs, the pain with every breath, and the fact that she’d had cracked ribs in the past told her that much.

He ran through a list of her injuries, which included the ribs, and a few other things she was sure she just hadn’t noticed yet because she hadn’t moved much since she woke up.

“What I didn’t do was check for sexual assault. Doing something like that is too invasive not to get permission for.”

“No need. It happened. Will someone help me up?” She did her best to be blunt about it. It hadn’t been the first time one of the Demons had gotten rough or refused to take no for an answer, and she was sure it wouldn’t be the last. There was no point in getting emotional about something she couldn’t change and had no power to stop. She tried to push herself upright again only to have to stop because of the sharp, shooting pain in her chest.

“Let me help.” The man on her right, the one who had been mostly silent for the last few minutes but had been there watching her when she’d woken, moved to the edge of his chair then stood. He slid one arm under her shoulders and lifted, easing her into a sitting position. “You okay?” he asked once her upper half was upright.

Taylynn started to take a deep breath but stopped when the pain in her ribs got too bad. “I’m okay. Feet next.” She looked down to see she wore an oversized t-shirt with a Harley logo on the front, then used her good arm to push the blankets down. She kicked her legs trying to push them out of the way, gritting her teeth at the stabs of pain the movements sent through her.

“Hang on a sec. We need to keep track of your tubing, too.” The older man on the other side of the bed did something she couldn’t see with the tubing leading to her left hand.

Taylynn knew she was being difficult and stubborn, but she didn’t care. She was not going to lie in bed and pee into a bin if she could possibly get to the bathroom, no matter how bad it might hurt.

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