Page 27 of The Secret Kept from the Greek
“Vix.” His one hand slid up to touch the right side of her face, so gentle and tender.“Hey… can you hear me?”
She tried to nod, found that she couldn’t.
“Oh, my God.” He leaned closer, and she felt his warmth.“Don’t try to move your neck, OK?”
She made a sound of sorts, a cross between a moan and a sigh. Now she noticed that her throat felt tight, raw, and she raised her free hand to touch her neck. She winced at the hard plastic and metal encasing it, knew that she was injured. How badly, she’d have to find out. Later.
“Here.” Ice grabbed a cup with a straw.“Drink some water. Slow and easy, now.”
He lifted her shoulders, and that was when she noticed that she wasn’t actually lying down. She was being propped up in a seated position by pillows and some kind of frame. Ice supported her as she drank, and the cool water hit her throat, and she felt blessed relief. She drank a bit more, then blinked at Ice in some kind of weird attempt at communicating with her eyes only, letting him know that she was done. Carefully, so carefully, he eased her back down, then gripped her hand again.
Gingerly, Vixen opened her mouth and tried a word. The only word that she wanted to say right now, the only word that mattered:
“Keira…”
“She’s fine.” he said quickly. “Totally fine.”
“Yes?”
“Yes. I promise you. Keira isn’t hurt at all.”
“The van…”
Anger flared across that gorgeous face now, and she watched as he fought down his rising rage.
“The guy got away.” Ice’s voice was calm, but his eyes were blue flame. “Jinx is looking over footage from the parking lot cameras. He’ll come up with something, I’m sure.”
“He’s gone?” she croaked, wishing that her throat would cooperate, wondering why the left side of her face felt like a balloon.
“He’s gone for now,” he said grimly. “If I were him, though, I wouldn’t expect that to be the situation for too fucking long.”
Carefully, she touched the plastic and metal again. “Am I hurt?”
“You are.”
“How bad?”
He stood up.“I need to go get the doctor. She can tell you everything better than I can.”
“No!” She grabbed his hand, winced as her neck jarred at the motion.“No!”
“Hey, hey.” Ice sat down again, seriously alarmed at the pain on her face. “Don’t move your neck, Vix. In fact, try not to moveanything. OK?”
“OK,” she whispered, blinking back tears, swallowing the lump in her throat. “But tell me. Please.”
“I will.” He sighed, knew that the medical professional would handle this better than him – but for better or worse, Ice was it for right now. “The first thing you need to know is that you’re going to be fine. No matter how it looks or feels right now, there’s no real permanent damage.”
“OK.”
“OK, well… in order from smallest injury to biggest: you wrenched your ankle, but it’s not broken. Your head is cut from the exploding glass from the car windows and windshields, so the bandages probably feel dramatic, but really, it was just a matter of a few stitches. Your face –” He cleared his throat. “You broke your left cheekbone when you were – when you fell. It’s as bruised and swollen as hell, but the break will heal on its own in a few weeks.”
He paused again, and Vixen put careful fingers to the bandage on her face. Yes, it hurt like crazy, but she supposed that a broken bone wouldn’t ever feel pleasant.
“The thing is – ummm.” Ice sighed. “The impact on the ground cut your face open pretty bad, Vix.”
She stared at him as the penny kind of dropped. “I’ll be scarred?”
“Yes.” Ice decided to just rip off the bandage, so to speak. “You’ll be scarred on your face. Not anything like Scars, but you know… they’ll be visible. I’m really sorry.”
