The air came in so easily, much easier than I expected. There was suddenly so much more air in here and much less pressure on my chest.
Why?
I blinked several times, my eyes now fully uncovered but still trying to adjust to the sunlight. Even though they stung and watered from the brightness, I could see Garin sitting in a chair right next to me. I could see his hand on mine. I could smell him.
Clean. He was so clean.
“Breath kept his promise,” I said as I studied his handsome face.
I couldn’t find a single cut. There wasn’t even a scab or a bruise. Not even a scar. That was…strange. Some of his wounds had been so deep; raw muscles had been sticking out of them.
“How did you heal so fast?”
“Heal?”
My stare shifted between his eyes as another thought occurred to me. “How long have I been asleep?”
“Eight days.”
“What? Eight whole days?”
He put his palm on my chest to stop me from sitting up. “If you move too fast, you’ll get dizzy, and your drain might come out.”
I couldn’t have been asleep for eight days, nor could he have healed in that time. What Breath had done to him would have taken months to recover from, and he would have been left with scars. But, if he had any, I would have seen them because his beard had been shaved. All that thick, coarse hair…gone.
“How did you get a razor? Did Beard bring you one?”
He took a second to respond. “You’ve been through a lot, Kyle. You’ve had a head trauma. I’m sure it’s making things cloudy right now.”
“Head trauma?” I touched my forehead. “Did Breath hit me on the head? What—” I cut myself off when I noticed his clothes.
He wasn’t in the black pants and button-down he’d been wearing since Billy’s funeral. He was in jeans and a thin sweater.
“Beard brought you clothes? Did he bring me any?” I looked down and saw the blanket that was tucked over me. It wasn’t scratchy gray wool. It was white and knit. And I was in a gown, a light-blue one. And I was lying on a bed with buttons on both sides of the railings that made the bed adjustable.
Why was I in a bed? With a knit blanket, wearing a light-blue gown?
Why was it so bright in here?
Beep. Beep. Beep.
I looked over my shoulder, and there were machines behind me—a heart monitor and an IV bag.
“Am I in the hospital?”
“Yes, Kyle.”
I glanced back at his face and blinked hard, waiting for the cuts and gashes to reappear. But they didn’t, and there weren’t any scars. Why was he fully healed, and why was I the one in this bed?
“How did I get to the hospital? Did Breath take me when he dropped you off? Did he do something to me?”
“You got here by ambulance.”
“An ambulance picked me up? On Margarita Island? Or did he take us to Caracas?”
There was pity in his eyes—pity like whenever Billy had been high and incoherent. Garin and I would just stare at him while he tried to put words together, but nothing he said made sense.
Was that me—muddled and unintelligible?
“We’re in Atlantic City, Kyle.”
Atlantic City?
“I don’t get it. You’re all healed. I’m the one hurt and…I’m so tired.”
It was more than just tiredness that hit me; it felt like a heavy blanket of warmth was sinking me into this bed and about to close out all the light.
“I’ll explain everything to you when you wake up. Just shut your eyes, and get some rest.”
His hand tightened on mine. Somehow, it made me feel safe. It gave me the encouragement I needed to close my lids again.
“But I just woke up…”
There was that darkness that I remembered. Not the kind I felt in the cell. This was different. This wasn’t frightening. My body didn’t tremble in fear. It didn’t make me search for a way out. In the strangest of ways, it was comforting.
“Relax, Kyle.”
I did as he said, and each of my muscles loosened.
“Breathe, Kyle.”
My breathing slowed.
Those words…they were so familiar. So was his tone.
So was the dream behind my lids.
Twenty-Seven
Kyle
“She’s awake.”
There was that voice again. The one I’d heard in my head when I was prisoned, the one I’d just fallen asleep to. It was Garin. But, this time, it wasn’t in my mind. It wasn’t right next to me. It sounded like it was coming from several feet away.
My eyes opened slowly, my lids rising much easier than before. Unlike last time, I looked around the room, taking in the window, the two chairs—one of which had been pulled next to my bed—the TV, bathroom, and closet. I really was in a hospital…but in Atlantic City? That part didn’t make any sense. Maybe Breath had flown us back to the States, and an ambulance had picked us up from the airport.
“I haven’t told her,” Garin said.
I glanced toward the open door, the voice sounding like it came from the hallway.
“I know, I know,” he continued. “You have nothing to worry about. Trust me.” He looked into the doorway, and our eyes connected. “I’ll call you later.” He shoved the phone into his pocket and came over to the bed. “Feeling any better?”
As he sat, I noticed he was in different clothes again. Darker jeans, a black button-down shirt. His scruff had grown a little, the black hairs casting a shadow across his cheeks.
“A little, I think. I’m still so tired and so confused.”
“The doctor said that’s normal. It’s going to take your body some time to recover.”
“When can I go home? Unless…” My voice drifted off as I thought about the prison.
Were Beard and Breath waiting for me outside the hospital? Would they take me the second I healed?
“Home is an option, right?”
Garin laughed, which confused me more. “Yeah, it’s an option. Just a few more days, and you’ll be able to go. Your doctor wants to make sure you’re stable enough to fly. Your lung is healing well, and so is your head. Your drain should be coming out tomorrow. Then, I’ll fly you back to Florida to make sure you get home safely.”
“That’s not necessary.”
“It is. Don’t fight me on it. Because last time”—he grabbed the armrests, the tips of his fingers turning white—“I didn’t keep you safe.”
Last time
.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. What happened to my head? And my lung?”
When he shifted in his chair, I picked up a whiff of his cologne. It was spicy, enticing. It would have turned me on if my whole body didn’t hurt, if I wasn’t so confused about why he was so healed and I was so battered.
I looked at his hands again. There wasn’t any dirt on his fingers or nails. No cuts. Not the least bit of redness. How was that possible?
“Do you remember Billy’s funeral?”
I recalled being at the funeral home, seeing Garin near Billy’s casket. Garin had come by the table where I was getting a drink.
“Yes,” I finally answered, “and I remember going to the bar with you.”
He had kissed me outside the restroom. Squeezed my neck. His touch had brought out more of the guilt. But it was the sexiest kiss I’d ever had, enough to make my skin flush in this hospital bed.
“We left the bar to go to your hotel, I think…”
That was where things became fuzzy. I didn’t have a full memory of the car ride, just random flashes of it. I saw the interior, the black leather seats. His hand on my thigh. A green light. Dark…something so dark and hard.
“We never made it back to the hotel, Kyle.”
That must have been because of Breath. He’d kidnapped us from Garin’s car, injected something in our bodies so that we’d black out, shoved us into a plane and flew us to Margarita Island.
“I know. We were kidnapped and—”
“We got into a car accident.”
“We…
what
?”
He pulled his chair closer, sending me his scent again. I didn’t know what he was saying, I didn’t know what he meant, but I knew there was nothing familiar about this smell. It wasn’t the one I’d memorized in the cell. It was too clean.
Everything in here was too clean.
“Listen to me.” His hand landed on my leg, and I winced. “A truck ran a red light and hit our car. It was on the passenger side, right in the middle of the hood. You hit the airbag and ricocheted off, slamming against the door. Your head hit the window. The glass shattered, and a piece of it punctured your lung. The blow to your head caused some damage, and you’ve been in a medically induced coma for the last eight days. The doctors just took out your breathing tube this morning and lowered your medication, so you’d wake up.”
It didn’t feel like he was talking about me. It felt like he was telling me a story about someone I didn’t know. How could all of these things have happened, and I had no recollection of any of them?
Was he lying to me?
I felt the medication in my body, I saw it pumping through the tube that led to my wrist. With each drip, drip, drip of the IV, I thought about everything he had said—head trauma, a breathing tube, days’ worth of medication…a coma.
A breathing tube would explain the plastic taste that had been in my mouth.
But what about everything else?
“I don’t…understand,” I said.
“I probably had a few too many drinks at the bar. I shouldn’t have been driving us. My reflexes might have been off, and I didn’t slam on the brakes in time. That truck hit us and—fuck, there was nothing I could do to stop it.”
I needed him to tell me I wasn’t crazy. I needed him to tell me that everything I saw, I felt, I experienced was real.
“Garin, I know we were kidnapped by two guys named Breath and Beard and…” I didn’t have to finish. The answer was all over his face.
“I haven’t left your side since you were admitted to the hospital, Kyle. I rode in the ambulance, and I slept in this chair.”
But he was in the cell with me. We’d both been held captive. We’d both been tortured. I had admitted to Breath and Garin that Anthony had killed Paulie.
And it had all been…a dream?
A dream my mind had created while I was in a coma. None of it was real—not the emotions I’d experienced in there, the words we’d exchanged…the sex. The only thing that was real was the kiss we had shared before we’d gotten in the car and the way he was looking at me now.
“I’m not sure what to say.”
“Why don’t you tell me about those guys you dreamed about? Beard and Breath—were those their names?” He sounded amused.
It made me feel ridiculous.
The man I stared at was nothing more than a friend from my past who I hadn’t seen in twelve years. He was basically a stranger now. The cell hadn’t brought us closer. It hadn’t reintroduced us; it hadn’t made our feelings grow. He hadn’t heard me say
I love you
. Telling him my dream wouldn’t change anything. It would only make me feel crazier. But there was one thing that seemed consistent during my dream and in this hospital room. I felt it in his grip and in the way his eyes wouldn’t let me go.
“You protected me,” I said. “You did everything you could to keep me safe.”
I didn’t deserve his protection in prison. I certainly didn’t deserve it out here.
The secret was still buried inside me. It prisoned me in my dreams, and it fueled me with guilt now that I was awake.
Had Garin known the truth, I wondered if I’d still be alive.
“I didn’t protect you, Kyle. That’s why you’re in here.”
Twenty-Eight
Kyle
I was chewing on a dinner roll. It wasn’t hard or moldy like the rolls I’d eaten in the dream. This one was soft and buttery; it almost melted on my tongue. Then, Anthony walked in. The second my eyes connected with my brother’s, I put the roll back on the tray. It was the first thing I’d eaten in almost nine days, and I suddenly had no appetite.
Since Garin had told me about the accident and I’d had a chance to process it all, I knew I would be seeing Anthony soon. I was just surprised it had taken this long, considering I’d been awake for over a day. What didn’t surprise me was hearing that my mom wouldn’t be making the trip up north. According to Garin, she was staying in Florida to help out at my shop.
My gaze followed Anthony over to the windows.
He stopped and leaned his back against the ledge. “You all right?” he asked.
“I’m okay.”
The dream had brought back so many memories from that night in The Heart. I could feel myself huddled on the pavement outside our apartment. I could see the blood flowing out of Paulie’s body. I felt myself inside Anthony’s car, more scared than I’d ever been. I could hear Anthony give his final orders, dictating the way my life would be.
Twelve years later, the man in front of the windows hadn’t changed at all.
But I had.
And the dream I’d had while I was in the coma had changed me again.
“When are you getting out?”
I blinked, wishing I didn’t have to answer his question, knowing he’d track me down, no matter what. “A few more days.”
I didn’t look in Garin’s direction even though I felt his eyes on me. I wanted to get through Anthony’s visit without getting emotional. And, if I glanced at Garin while the killer was in the room, I didn’t think I’d be able to do that.
“I’ll drive you to Florida when you get out,” Anthony said.
“She’s flying to Florida with me,” Garin said.
Garin’s response came out so fast that I didn’t even have a chance to open my mouth. I just stared at Anthony, waiting for him to react.
It didn’t take him long.
He looked over his shoulder at Garin, sitting in the back of the room near the closet. “Did you say something, motherfucker?”
When Anthony glared back at me, I shivered. I knew how deadly that stare could be, how easily he had aimed that gun at Paulie and pulled the trigger.
“I think you heard me just fine,” Garin said.
“Why don’t you get out, so I can talk to my sister alone?”
“That’s up to your sister. Not you.”
With much pause, I shifted my gaze toward the closet and locked eyes with Garin. He didn’t appear fazed at all by Anthony’s comment; he didn’t look intimidated either. There was no reason for him to. In Garin’s line of work, I was sure he dealt with bigger, scarier, more confrontational assholes than my brother.