Page 72 of Dirty Desires
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Nina
“He’s not going to make it,” I heard a woman whispering.
My eyes fluttered open as I heard a very slow, beeping sound. Only a dim light filled the small room I was in. One wall was entirely made out of glass, and I could see a woman in pale pink scrubs standing across the hallway.
She looked on as a couple of other people, also wearing scrubs, stood inside the other room. That’s where the slow, beeping sound was coming from.
The door to the room I was in stood wide open, and it was made of glass too. I moved my arm. Or I tried to, anyway. I stopped trying to move it when I felt something tugging at it.
My head turned slowly, and I found I was hooked up to some clear lines. It seemed I was in the hospital, and apparently in bad shape. But I couldn’t recall just why that was.
When the beeping sound went from slow to one constant beep, I knew the person in the other room had died. My brain was in a fog, but even with the haze around it, I wondered if Ashton had been with me when I was hurt.
And then I wondered if that was him in the room across the hallway. Wondered if it was him whose heart had stopped beating.
“Help,” I croaked out. But no one heard me.
“Call the time,” one of the women in scrubs said.
“Two-fifteen a.m. is the official time of death,” another woman said from inside the room. I couldn’t see her as she stood behind the curtain, which had been pulled across the majority of the glass wall.
I could see the foot of the hospital bed, though. In that bed, some person had just died, and I lay there, helpless to find out if it was Ashton or not.
Closing my eyes, I tried not to think that it was him. I couldn’t take it if it was him. If I lost him, I had no idea what I would do. I had never loved anyone as much as I loved him, and I knew I would never love anyone else that way ever again.
I was sure my heart would give out too if it was Ashton who now lay lifeless in the bed across the hall.
“You can call the nursing home to let them know Mr. Sandstone won’t be coming back,” someone said with a hushed voice.
Mr. Sandstone?
My eyes flew back open.
It’s not Ashton!
I was elated to hear the lady say a name that I didn’t know at all. And then I felt terrible for being so happy when a person had just died. And one so close to me.
Well, I didn’t actually know Mr. Sandstone. We weren’t mentally close, but physically, we were only a few feet away from each other. I needed to show more reverence, I thought.
Hell, he was probably floating away, looking back at us all and thinking that I was a pretty heartless bitch to be looking so happy and smiling so big when he’d just passed away.
“Sorry, Mr. Sandstone. Rest in peace,” I offered.
The nurses began to leave the room as some men came in to deal with the dead body. And one of them spotted me looking at them. “Hi there, Nina.” She waved to get another person’s attention. “Look whose woken up.”
Three of the nurses came into my room. One went to check the machines, as the other two gave me wide smiles. I could see their last names were on the tags they had on their shirts.
The woman closest to me hadGonzaleson her tag. “Nurse Gonzales, my throat hurts, it’s so dry. Can I have something to drink?”
The other nurse ran off. “I’ll get her some water.”
“Everything’s looking good here,” the last nurse said.
Nurse Gonzales leaned over me, flashing a small light in my eyes. “Normal pupil dilation. Well, normal for being on morphine.” She put her hand on my shoulder as she held up two fingers. “Can you tell me how many fingers I’m holding up?”
“Two,” I answered. “Now, can anyone tell me what the heck has happened to me?”
