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“You what?” Bryce finally asked, sighing in exasperation.
“I can’t tell you.” I pressed against his ungiving arms, trying to squirm free. “Please just—”
My statement ended in a sharp inhale and wince, as, at the worst possible moment, a sharp pain radiated through my lower left side, and I wrapped my arms around my stomach.
“See what I mean?” Bryce was saying, smugness—or was that concern—heavy in his voice. “She needs to be checked out.”
“Oh,” was Finn’s understanding reply. “That. That’s her business, you need to butt out.”
Bryce headed for the car again, but at Finn’s statement, he froze and inhaled. “You knew?” he asked, turning back to the onmyoji.
My face grew warm at the realization that, yes, hehadto have known. But I couldn’t reply yet. I was still gritting my teeth as the sharp pain finally began to ebb away and the dizziness reseeded.
How could I have forgotten—
“She would search her symptoms,” Finn answered.
My vision blurred as shame filled me. I was so humiliated, and this time it wasn’t only because of the pain.
I hadn’t even told Dr. Kohler.
“What did Trinity say?” Bryce asked, his breath evening out a bit.
I rested my head against Bryce, no longer caring. If she knew already, then what was the point—
“Why the hell would I tell her?” Finn sounded scandalized, and when I opened my eyes, I saw that he had crossed his arms and was glaring at Bryce. “That’sgirl stuff, and Bianca’s personal business. If she wanted to talk to Trinity about it, she would have.”
My mouth popped open.
“You were monitoring her computer use,” Bryce pointed out. “Out of everything youdidn’treport, a potentially serious health issue was what you decided to keep secret?”
“God.” Finn stepped back, drawing his brows together in fury. “Will you stop holding that against me? I was trying to keep her safe, not strip her of any semblance of privacy. It wasn’t like I told everyone every little thing she did.”
He… didn’t?
I stared at him; the stirrings of an old emotion I’d never thought I’d feel again beginning in my chest.
He hadn’tcompletelybetrayed me.
It’d been bad, sure, but at least there was this.
“Bianca.” Bryce was looking down at me. “How—”
I squirmed in his arms once more. “Please put me down. I feel better now. I want to stay home.”
Finn stepped forward. “She said to put her down.”
Bryce glanced between the two of us, expression wavering, before he finally set me back on my feet. “Fine,” he was saying as the blood began to rush to my head. “Just so long as—”
And that was the last thing I remembered before my legs gave out.
Cold air was blowing against my face—at odds with the too-warm blanket that seemed to cover every inch of me. I was jostled against a hard body, and white and red flickered behind my closed eyelids.
A heavy breath brushed against my face, and I peeled my eyes open in time to glimpse a telltale sliding glass doorway. The crimson ‘Emergency Room’ letters flashed across my vision.
No!
Bryce must have felt me wake up, because his grip on me tightened, but he only made a soft shushing noise under his breath.
