King shakes his head. “She won’t go for us,” he insists. “It’s a waste of time. She gains nothing by doing that except by taking away part of your protection. We’re good.”
“But—”
A nurse pushes past Carver and all conversation falls away. She meets his heavy, intense stare as she goes, and in that split moment, I feel sorry for her. I’ve been on the receiving end of that stare more times than I can count and it’s not easy, add the self-hatred that’s pulsing through his veins, and that stare might as well be lethal.
“Ahh …” the nurse starts, looking flustered as she weaves through the room and makes her way toward my bed. She scoops my chart off the end and quickly glances over it before raising her head and meeting my stare. “How are you feeling, Elodie?”
“It’s Winter.”
Her brows furrow and she looks at me strangely before quickly glancing at the guys just to make sure she heard me correctly. “I’m sorry?”
“My name,” I tell her, wondering how the hell to explain this to an outsider. “Elodie is my legal name. I go by Winter.”
“Oh, um … sure,” she says, grabbing her pen and making a note of it in my chart, then dropping it back into place at the end of my bed. She walks around to my side and checks over a bunch of things that I can’t even begin to understand the purpose of. “I’m Rachel, I’ll be looking after you today, so anything you need, just press the button and I’ll be here.”
I nod, not down for small talk.
“Have you only just woken up?” she asks, reaching for the blankets and slowly peeling them back. “I just need to check your stitches. Would you prefer I clear the room first?”
I don’t even bother looking up at the guys, I know exactly what would happen if this innocent nurse attempted to kick them out, and for her health and wellbeing, I shake my head. “No, it’s fine,” I tell her, raising my head just a bit to see what she sees.
“Alright,” she continues. “I’m just going to raise your gown.”
She gets to work and peels my gown up my body until it’s all bunched under my tits and my black panties are on display for everyone to see, but with the thick bandages across my stomach, it’s as though my panties don’t even exist.
Rachel pulls at the tape and I close my eyes at the feel of her poking around. “You good?” King murmurs.
I clench my jaw and nod as he squeezes my hand. “Yeah, just hurts.”
“I know, I’m sorry,” Rachel says. “It’ll be over in just a second and then we’ll see about upping that pain relief.”
I try to breathe through the pain, and as I do, I slowly peel my eyes open again and look down to see the mess my abdomen is currently in. “Holy fuck,” I breathe, taking in the dark bruising and wicked stitches.
“Don’t panic,” Rachel tells me. “It looks worse than it is, but unfortunately, the bruising is only going to get darker over the next few days. You are one hell of a lucky girl, Winter.”
I scoff. “Lying in a hospital bed with a bullet wound is your version of lucky?”
Rachel presses her lips into a tight line, and I watch as she visibly attempts not to roll her eyes at my comment. “What I mean is that you’re lucky that it wasn’t any worse. The bullet grazed your left kidney and shot right out through the back without catching anything else. You got lucky. You had exploratory surgery to find the bleed, which your surgeon was able to locate and mend quickly. It’s nothing that a few weeks of bed rest and some pain medication won’t fix. So, for the most part, you’re going to be just fine.”
I can’t help but look up at Carver, knowing damn well that he’s been listening carefully to the trauma my body has just suffered through. There’s not a doubt in my mind that he’s hating on himself even more. The guilt inside this room is astronomical, and right now, it’s all coming from him. But in this very moment with Rachel still in the room, there’s not a damn thing I can do about it.
I turn back to Rachel, avoiding the shifty stares of the boys around me, knowing exactly why I was just looking at Carver. “For the most part?” I ask her, not quite sure how I feel about the few weeks of bed rest.
Rachel nods as she replaces the bandages. “Yes, you will be left with a small scar, but being shot is not something that happens every day, so I’m sure you will also have the emotional scars that go along with it.”
“Oh, umm … yeah, I guess. I’ll be fine though.”
“I’m sure you will,” she tells me in a tone that reminds me of a mother berating her misbehaved child. “But if you find yourself struggling, just let me know, and I can arrange for someone to come and talk with you.”
I bite down on my lip and glance away, hating the idea of having to discuss my issues with a trained professional. I get it. Therapy has been a big help for some people, even lifesaving in some cases, but for me, the idea of unpacking all my emotional trauma on a stranger and being expected to sort it all out just scares the shit out of me.
“Uhh, thanks. I’ll let you know,” I tell her, both of us already knowing that this is the last we’ll ever talk about it.
Rachel nods and pulls my gown back down before fixing my blankets back up over my chest. She steps back and we all watch as she fiddles around with my IV, hopefully giving me a good fix of morphine to get me as high as a kite.
After a minute, Rachel is done and excuses herself from the room, avoiding Carver as she walks past him. Four sets of eyes stare back at me, each one of them filled with something entirely different and impossible to decipher. Though, one thing I know to be true, the next few weeks are bound to be interesting.
CHAPTER 3
“A few weeks on bed rest, huh?” King smirks, leaning back in his chair and struggling not to laugh at the thought of me doing it without complaint. “How the hell are you going to survive?”
“You know damn well that I won’t,” I tell him, my gaze still flicking back to Carver’s. “I’ll give you one week of bed rest and one week on the couch. That’s it.”
Cruz laughs. “It’s not a fucking negotiation. You’re having four weeks of bed rest.”
“Get fucked. She said a few weeks. That’s two.”
“No,” Cruz continues. “A couple is two. A few is three, but I added an extra week for good measure because I know that during those three weeks, you’re going to do something stupid to fuck up all of your stitches.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do, which is why we’ve already talked to your doctor about it and he’s agreed that four weeks is where it’s at.”
“Don’t bullshit me. You have not talked to my doctor.”
The twisted grin that stretches across Grayson’s face is enough to tell me exactly what I don’t want to know. “Want to make a bet?” Grayson chuckles, his usual dark and broody self nowhere to be found. “That doctor barely got a chance to sit down before these fuckers were hounding him. Trust me, if you didn’t have school and graduation to get through, they would have pushed for eight weeks.”