Page 75 of Dark Things
“WHERE IS SHE!” he screams.
Brooks lowers his voice. “They took her into surgery. If you want to see her, you’re going to have to be treated, Haunt. Please, sit down.”
He sways again and almost takes a tumble. We rush to make sure he doesn’t hit his head. He’s clutched in our arms, but he’s still thrashing around.
“Ghost!” Staff yells right in his face. Haunt goes still and looks at us properly for the first time.
“Where is she?” he asks.
“Surgery. Let’s get you patched up. Please, let them do their jobs, and then we’ll go right up there,” Brooks says.
“She’s alone? No one is up there for her? She doesn’t like to be alone. She needs to sleep next to me when the nightmares get bad. I can’t leave her alone.”
He’s crying again, so much pain rolling off him. Brooks helps him up and picks him up like he weighs nothing and places him in the bed. The nurse comes in with pursed lips.
“Are you going to let us take care of that knee now? You’re bleeding all over my ED.”
I growl at her, but move on the other side next to Staff. “Just fix him up. We’ve had a shitty fucking night. Our love was shot in the chest,” I say, wiping at my face.
The nurse gives us a curious look, but I don’t give a fuck. We all love her, and there’s nothing she could say or do to change that fact. It was always weird for other people that the three of us were in a relationship. We didn’t give a fuck then, and we don’t give a fuck now.
Haunt lets the doctors stitch his knee up and clean and bandage the worst of the cuts. They take a bedside x-ray, and Haunt has three broken ribs and a slight fracture on his jaw. Nothing that requires surgery, but he’s pretty fucked up.
They give him some painkillers, but the stubborn bastard won’t go to sleep. Staff grabs his hand and sits down next to him while we wait for the doctors to tell us we can go upstairs.
“We know,” Brooks says.
Haunt gives him a look, but doesn’t disregard Brooks’ claim. “It’s about fucking time. I would have known her regardless of the surgeries or hair dye; there’s zero chance you forget someone like Reb when you’re in love with her. You were supposed to know her soul. Recognize her anywhere. I know what you assholes did to her, but you don’t know what she’s been through because of it. All the pain and suffering.Everything she’s had to endure because of the three of you. If I wasn’t in this bed I would kill you all.Siete tutti dei disgraziati.”
“What stopped you before?” Staff asks, letting go of his hand.
Haunt turns to him and scowls. “She did. Said I had to wait because she didn’t know what she was going to do yet. Thank God she stopped me, because you would have been scattered in a hundred pieces. No one would have found you.”
He leans back and closes his eyes. Seconds later he’s out from the drugs. I lean back against the wall and close my eyes. We’ve lived a half-life for five years, and now our north star has returned to us, except she’s no longer our Belle.
She’s Pitch, a merc, a killer.
Someone who’s done who knows what, who’s been through so much, and there’s no guarantee that she’s going to live so she can finally find out the truth.
Because the one thing that didn’t happen that night was Belle killing her uncle. No, that pleasure went to me.
I’m a killer, my soul tainted, but I’d do it again. I’d do anything for her.
It takesover seven hours before they let us upstairs to see Reb. She’s finally out of surgery and in the ICU. Wecan’t all go in, but I’ve decided to be first. I need to see her properly with my own eyes, even if she won’t be awake.
Haunt was moved to his own private room, but he’s been sedated because he refuses to stay still enough to not re-injure himself. Staff and Brooks are with him in case he wakes up and tries to hurt someone else. The second he woke up after they stitched his knee up, he demanded to see her. When the nurse told him no, he tried to lunge for him. If Brooks wasn’t quick enough, I’m pretty sure the guy would have died.
I round the corner to her room, knowing I’m going to see her hooked up to all kinds of machines. I steel my spine and take a deep breath, twisting the door handle and walking into the room. The curtain is closed on the bed near the window. My hand reaches for it, but I start shaking. I’m not sure I can do this.
We’ve searched for her for so long, and now that she’s finally here, she can’t even speak to me. All I want is to hear her say she’s Belle—that I’m not imagining this, not clinging to some fantasy. I need her to be who I believe she is.
I need her to be ours so badly.
I slowly pull the curtain back, but there’s no one there. The bed is made and doesn’t look like anyone has been lying on it.
What the fuck?
I rush out of the room to the nurses station. There are a few of them there, typing or talking on the phone.No one looks out of place, but the frantic energy inside of me is going to spill over if I don’t find out what happened to her.
