Page 18 of Love Me in the Dark
“You were raped. The cops think there were three of them. They sliced you up pretty badly but also cut your throat. You lost a lot of blood, but a homeless woman got you out onto the road so she could flag down a car,” he explains.
“When?”
“They put you in a medically induced coma so you could rest and heal some. That was a week ago,” he says. “You have been breathing on your own, so they took you off sedation about an hour ago.”
“Can I sit up?” I ask. I am trying to be as quiet as I can to keep the pain at a minimum.
“Yeah. I’ll help you,” he says. Cade helps me sit up, and that’s when I see the bandages. “You got hundreds of stitches. One of the fuckers bit you, so they had to give you a lot of antibiotics to get the infection to go away.”
“They… no condom,” I whisper.
“I signed on emergency contraceptive. You’re already getting so many antibiotics, so I only had you tested for things that it won’t get rid of. All of them came back negative,” he explains as he sits beside me.
“I just wanted to make you bread,” I whisper tearfully.
“You remember?” he asks, and I nod. “Faces too?”
“It was dark, but yeah,” I answer quietly. “How bad… my throat.”
“They didn’t cut deep enough to do any significant damage. The doctor will have you eat after a while to see how your swallowing is. They resuscitated you twice on the ride to the hospital, so they weren’t sure if you had brain damage or memory loss.”
“I remember all of it,” I say with a sigh. “Happy birthday, I guess.”
“You’re alive, Nyx. That is the only birthday present I need,” he smiles. “Plus, now you have no choice but to let me take care of you.”
“I don’t want to live there anymore,” I admit. “I was a block from home.”
“Callum already got your things and brought them to my place,” he says. Callum is his best friend and is also like my brother. I’ve known him for my entire life. When our parents died, Callum’s parents took me in so Cade could finish college.
“Thank you, Cade.”
“You’re welcome,” he says sweetly. The door swings open, and Callum walks in.
“Hey, kid!” Callum says as he comes over and kisses the top of my head. “Heard you went for milk and came back with mass blood loss?”
“You’re an idiot,” I say softly with a smile. “Thank you for being here.”
“Mom and Dad are downstairs talking to the detective,” he says. “They called when they took you off the sedation.”
“Ah,” I say softly.
“She remembers everything,” Cade says.
“Fuck, I’m sorry, Nyx,” Callum says with a frown. “I was kind of hoping you wouldn’t remember.”
“I wish I didn’t,” I reply. The door opens, but I keep talking. If I don’t say it now, I won’t say it at all. “I kept screaming, but they wouldn’t stop. No one helped me. They were so much stronger and… I was happy when I thought I was going to die. All the pain went away, and it was peaceful. Now it’s all back. I get to keep suffering while they’re out there hurting people.”
“The physical pain will fade,” Cade says. “The memories won’t always weigh this much, and you will get stronger. I promise you will be okay.”
“I just want them to get what they deserve,” I respond. “I want all the ones like them to get what they deserve.”
“Me too, hun,” Cade says, squeezing my hand.
I focus my attention on the detective, and he has me go through everything I remember from beginning until I passed out. He audio records everything so that I am not forced to tell it over and over again. The longer I am awake, the easier it is to talk. I go over the description of each man to the best of my ability. After, he tells me he will get my description to a sketch artist to show me some sketches so we can make adjustments if need be. He seems to be taking this seriously, but somethingtells me those men knew what they were doing. I know they won’t go to jail for this, but I will be the last thing they will see before their lives fade away.
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Phoenyx
