"Can you turn a light on?" I asked, hating how small and weak I sounded. How scared I sounded, even to my own ears.
Lucas didn't question me, though. He just reached over and flicked on the small bedside lamp closest to where he sat beside the bed. Then he clasped his hands on the mattress in front of him and bit the edge of his lip, his eyes drinking me in. Every visible cut, scrape, bruise, and burn seemed to be catalogued as he stared silently, and I ducked my eyes away from the intensity of his expression.
That was when I noticed the IV line hooked to my other arm.
Terror spiked, and I drew a sharp breath through my nose, my eyes darting up to the bags I was hooked to.
"What are you giving me?" I demanded, panic flooding my voice. One of the bags was almost empty, and what remained was an ominous, dark-colored fluid.
"Blood," Lucas replied quickly, spreading his hands flat on the mattress like he was fighting his need to touch me. "Mostly blood. We've also given you a dose of antibiotics and attached you to a morphine drip."
I said nothing in response, too busy fighting with my inner trauma to speak. It took everything I had not to rip the IV line out of my arm in sheer terror, believing there was more. Maybe this was another PCP induced delusion.
"Who's we?" I asked in a thick voice when I managed to tear my panic-stricken eyes from the needle piercing my arm. "Why blood? I'm..." I gave a small shake of my head. It was fuzzy, but I had no pain. That must be the morphine at play. Despite knowing I needed to steer well clear of narcotics right now, the break from constant pain was a welcome relief. I could detox when I'd regained some strength. Unless this wasn't real...
Lucas was talking, but I hadn't been listening. "...not sure how long you'd been bleeding. Figured we didn't want to take the risk. Hayden, you're in really bad shape." His voice cracked slightly, and my heart ached.
The last time I'd seen him, I was being arrested by stupid, tits-for-brains Jeanette and Lucas was finding out just what a shitty excuse for a girlfriend I was.
"Lucas," I whispered, sagging back into the pillows. I simply lacked the strength to stay upright any longer. "I'm so sorry."
His brows hitched in surprise. "For what? You didn't ask for any of this. If—"
"No, not... I'm sorry for not telling you that I killed your father. That was a shitty thing for me to hide." My voice was rough and scratchy. Unsurprising, given how badly abused my vocal cords must be.
Lucas stared at me in shock for a moment, then swiped a hand over his face and gave a small laugh of disbelief. "Hayden... that man wasn't my father. I was raised by a single mom, and she's the only parent I've ever had. Brant Wilson was little more than a mysterious sperm donor, and if you killed him, then I'm sure he deserved it. I don't give two fucks about that; I was just hurt that you hadn't told me about it."
Ugh. He had a valid point. It’d been a dick move on my part not telling him the second I’d connected the dots. I was just so used to taking care of everything myself and not trusting anyone other than Zed.
And look where that’d gotten me.
I blinked slowly, trying to gather my thoughts.
"Where are we?" I mumbled, looking at the room again. It was well-decorated, comfortable, but somewhat impersonal, like it was a vacation house or something. A long yawn filled my lungs, and my eyelids drooped.
Lucas leaned in close but didn't touch me. He just laid his head on his hands and gazed at me with worried eyes. "We're safe, Hayden. Doc and Maria are on their way back with Cass now. They'll want to check you out properly, so just rest until they get here."
Confusion swept through me, and I frowned. "Doc's not here? Who hooked all this up?"
Lucas flashed a grin. "I did. With some videocall guidance from him. Most of the supplies were in the medical kit Cass tossed in the helicopter, which was lucky."
I gave a vague nod, my body demanding more sleep. But something was nagging at my mind now that I’d realized we weren't in a hospital.
"The blood?" I mumbled. "You had O negative in the supply kit?"
The look on Lucas's face slipped to something more troubled as he shook his head. "We weren't that prepared. Luckily, though—"
"Zed," I mumbled, already knowing what he was going to say. Zed and I were both O negative, and while we could donate to anyone, we could only receive O negative blood. We always joked that it might come in handy one day.
My eyes drifted shut. I didn't have the energy to unpack all my feelings surrounding Zed right now. Giving me a pint of blood was probably the least he could do.
"Yeah," Lucas whispered. "Fucking idiot probably should have told us he had a knife lodged in his side before I took his blood, though." My lids snapped open once more, but Lucas just shook his head. "Don't worry, he's fine. Alive, anyway. Go to sleep, Hayden. I'm not going anywhere."
With that reassurance, I let my eyes drift closed once more. As sleep pulled me back under, Lucas's soft whispers of safety lulled me into a sense of peacefulness that I'd never known existed.
I slept heavily, waking only to the low murmur of voices near my bed. The morphine was fogging up my head, though, and it took me some time to really wake up.
"...fucking lights on?" someone was asking.
"Because she asked for light," Lucas replied in a low voice. "You didn't hear how scared she was when she woke up in the dark, Cass. I'm not risking that again."
My grumpy cat just grunted a sound of reluctant understanding, and I cracked my lids open to doublecheck that it was him and not a figment of my imagination. Again. I'd had plenty of delusions of him in the time Chase held me, but this felt different. The safety and calm that I felt in Lucas's presence wasn't something that any drugs could imitate, so I wanted to know...
"Saint," I breathed, my eyes locking on his scowling face above the bed. "You're here."
His brow furrowed deeper at my words, and he crouched down. "Where the fuck else would I be?" he grumbled. "I only left to get Doc, otherwise the hounds of hell couldn't have made me leave."
My lips tugged with the faintest hint of a smile, but it was an uncomfortable feeling and I quickly let it slip. Now that he'd mentioned it, I shifted my gaze past Cass to spot our one and only trusted doctor waiting patiently near the door.
I swallowed a lump of anxiety in my throat and gave Doc a small nod before refocusing on Cass and Lucas.
"Thank you," I murmured. "You saved me."
Lucas gave a small scoff. "You were doing a pretty good job of saving yourself, Hayden. Just when I thought you couldn't get any more badass." He gave a disbelieving shake of his head.
"Doc wants to check you for broken ribs," Cass rumbled. "And whatever else. Lucas stitched up your wrist but probably made a mess of it."
"Fuck you, dick," Lucas muttered. "I stitch like a damn sewing machine."
Drawing a breath, I tried to give him a grateful smile. It just came out as a grimace, though, so I gave up with a sigh. "Can you give us some privacy?" I asked, my voice weak. Both Lucas and Cass looked surprised by that request and didn't make any move to leave the room.