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“Hey, hey. Look who I just found roaming the hallways, darlin’.” Stepping to the side, she revealed Captain Chum in the doorway.
Raina’s cheeks immediately flooded. “Captain,” she sobbed, lifting her arms toward him.
“Oh God.Pookie!” He rushed toward the bed, and I stepped back to let him pass. “You’re awake. You’re really awake.” Sitting on the mattress beside her, he pulled her into a hug. “I was so afraid you’d never open your eyes again.”
“Captain,” was all she could choke out as father and daughter wept openly together.
I glanced toward Darlene, who met my gaze briefly, and silently, we exited the room together to give them some privacy.
But as I went, I could hear Raina ask, “Did Kinsey come with you?”
Pain welled in my throat like a bubble. I clutched my chest as I hurried toward the stairwell for privacy. But dammit, I knew this feeling. It used to plague me constantly as a kid. The surging anxiety. The uncontrollable stress. The never being able to stop it.
“Breathe,” I ordered myself with a teeth-gritting growl as I closed my eyes and forced air into my lungs.
I told myself I was okay. Raina was okay. She was going to live, and no one was in danger. Everyone was safe. Everything was fine.
I exhaled again and then opened my eyes, feeling dizzy and drained. Clutching the banister, I stumbled down the stairs and out of the hospital.
Once I’d climbed behind the wheel of my truck, however, and shut the door, my gaze slid to the passenger seat, and it hit me all over again when I didn’t see Raina there.
Panic returned in a flood because I knew I’d never get to see her sitting in that seat again.
“Oh God. Oh God,” I gasped, trying to calm myself but only growing more upset when I realized my time with her was over. The girl I’d spent the last two weeks with and probably grown closer to than anyone else was gone. She hadn’t even really existed. The person she was now saw me as a stranger and—and she was learning about her sister at this very moment, probably going through the worst heartbreak of her life.
It killed me that she had to be told about Kinsey twice.
But the part that affected me the most, the part I couldn’t seem to get past?—
My vision blacked out and sweat coated my face.
The fact that she didn’t remember our time together meant it had basically never happened.
Raina Bollen had survived, yes, butmyRaina was as good as dead.
Reaching out to grab the steering wheel, I tried to ground myself to something real and mentally pep-talk myself out of the attack, but it seemed determined to stay.
By the time it finally passed, I felt drained and exhausted. My shirt was soaked from the amount of sweat that had poured off me, and my vision was still blurry and taking its time to clear.
Spotting vague outlines of people walking through the parking lot toward the hospital, I decided that I should get out of here before?—
A knock on my side window had me jumping hard. I swallowed, then heaved out a breath as I glanced over. I could tell it was a guy, around my age, but it took me rolling down the window before I was able to focus enough and recognize Connor Resson.
“Hey, man,” he greeted, looking worried. “You okay?”
I nodded and swiped my hand over my damp hair. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
He wasn’t convinced. Glancing toward the hospital, he asked, “You need some help getting inside?”
“No.” I shook my head. “I jus’ came from in there. I’m okay. Thanks for checking, though.”
“You sure? Because you don’t look so?—”
“Connor, I said I wasfine!”
He pulled back in surprise and blinked at me, never having heard me get short and snippety before.
I hissed in regret and closed my eyes briefly before running a hand over my face and wincing when pain resonated through my temples. “Sorry,” I mumbled. “I’m jus’…” I flailed out a helpless hand and finished by merely saying, “I gotta go.”
