Page 134 of The True Garza
And I hate it. There’s light and sounds andhe’snot here.
A dull pain throbs at the back of my head, but it’s nothing compared to how awful it had been before.
Blinking slowly, I shift my gaze from the white ceiling to take in my surroundings. Hospital room. Flowers, post cards, helium balloons, Brook—
Brook!Theregret of being awake fades. It’s worth it to see her. Sitting in a chair across from my bed, chewing on a pen-cap as she pores over a thick stack of files on her lap.I love her so much.
“Hey.” My voice is hoarse and croaky, but it’s enough to get her attention.
Concentration broken, she looks up from her files, and her hazel eyes widen briefly before softening with relief. “You enjoy torturing me, huh?” She sets the files aside and stands, coming over to me. “I thought you weren’t ever going to wake up.”
“How long have I been out?”
She checks her watch. “Almost sixty hours.”
“Jeez. I’m an attention-seeking bitch, aren’t I?”
She laughs, taking my uninjured hand in hers. “I missed you. How are you feeling?”
“Parched. Nauseous.”
“Let me go get the nurse, then. Hang on.”
As she’s turning to leave, I weakly grab her fingers to stop her.
She looks back at me. “What is it?”
“Did….” The words are so pathetic they shouldn’t be uttered, but I shamefacedly push them through, anyway. “Did he come?”
Her brow arches. “Which one?”
“You know which one….”
“Yes,” she replies tightly, sounding frustrated with me. “He came and never left.” She tugs her hand away and is out the door before I can ask anything else.
Does that mean he’s still here?
My heart bloats in my chest. But the killjoy part of my brain is quick to remind me that he’s practically my boss, so it would’ve been weird if hedidn’tcome. Still, the hopeful romantic part of my brain points out that he didn’t just stop in, he “never left.”
A nurse comes in a few seconds later and checks my vitals, then gives me water.
My thigh is bandaged and elevated, as well as my left arm. I remember the sting of the bullet piercing my thigh, but I don’t remember getting hit in my arm.
“What time is it?” I ask the nurse.
“Almost quarter past three in the morning.” She fluffs my pillows. “You get a lot of visitors. For a minute there, we thought you were famous.”
I raise a questioning brow at Brook.
“All your BI friends and all your Red Cage friends,” Brook supplies. “Charles and Uncle Walter had to forcibly get rid of them. But the women keep coming. So you should prepare for them in the morning.”
“Women?”
“The Red Cage wives.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah, it’s been a crowded couple of days.”
