Page 93 of Unbound
Nothing. No recognition, no response. He stared at the ceiling, breathing shallow and quick, like he was trying to disappear into the mattress.
"This is normal," the doctor said quietly from behind me. "The sedation, combined with the trauma—it takes time for the mind to surface. Give him time."
But even as she spoke, I could see Jesse's breathing getting faster. His hands, so thin now they looked like bird bones, began to twitch against the sheets.
Then I noticed them—the restraints around his wrists. Soft fabric, not chains, but restraints nonetheless. My stomach dropped.
"Why is he—?"
"Safety precaution," the doctor explained. "Patients with severe trauma can sometimes hurt themselves when they first wake up, not knowing where they are."
Jesse's eyes suddenly snapped into focus, wild and terrified. He looked around the room like he was seeing it for the first time, taking in the machines, the IV, the clinical white walls. His breathing turned rapid, panicked.
"No," he whispered, so quiet I almost missed it. "No, no, no..."
Then he saw the restraints.
The change was immediate and devastating. Jesse's whole body went rigid, every muscle tensing as the reality hit him. He wasn't free. He was still trapped, still held down, still helpless.
"No more, please, no more—" The words came out broken, desperate, a plea that tore through my chest like a blade.
His heart monitor erupted in alarms as his pulse spiked. He began thrashing against the restraints, not trying to escape but lost in pure panic, reliving whatever they'd done to him in that place.
"Jesse, you're safe. You're in a hospital." I reached for him instinctively, then stopped myself—what if my touch made it worse? "You're not there anymore. You're safe."
But he couldn't hear me. In his mind, he was still strapped to whatever table they'd used, still feeling electricity coursing through his body, still trapped in their version of salvation. The sounds coming from his throat weren't quite words—just raw, animal terror.
"Please, I'll be good, I'll be good, just stop—"
Those words destroyed me. The idea that Jesse thought he deserved this, that he'd internalized their message that his pain was somehow justified, was unbearable.
"Sir, you need to step back," a nurse said, gently but firmly moving me away from the bed.
"He needs to know he's safe—"
"He's not in reality right now. He's trapped in memory. Anything we do might feel like part of the trauma."
I watched, helpless, as the medical team surrounded him. More alarms joined the first as his blood pressure spiked dangerously high. Jesse was fighting so hard against the restraints that he was hurting himself, leaving red marks on his already damaged wrists.
"Get me 2mg of lorazepam," the doctor ordered.
"No!" The word burst out of me before I could stop it. "Don't sedate him again. Please, he's been unconscious for days—"
"Mr. Costas, his heart rate is at 180. If we don't calm him down, he could have a cardiac event. This is not a choice."
I watched them push the medication into his IV, watched the fight slowly drain out of his body like air from a punctured balloon. His desperate pleas faded to whispers, his thrashing slowed to tremors.
But just as his eyes began to close, as the drugs pulled him back under, he turned his head slightly toward me. For one brief, devastating moment, his gaze found mine—clearer than it had been since he'd woken up, present and aware and utterly broken.
"Adrian, you're real," he whispered, the word barely audible but unmistakably my name. "Please... save me."
Then his eyes drifted shut, and he was gone again.
The words hit me like a physical blow. He'd recognized me. In that moment of terror and confusion, when he couldn't tell past from present, when he thought he was still trapped in that hellish place—he'd called for me. Asked me to save him.
When I was the reason he needed saving in the first place.
"Is he... will he be okay?" My voice came out hoarse.
