Fourth Debt (Indebted #5)(51)

You have no choice.

If only I could heal faster.

Taking a deep breath, I pushed off the bed. My bare feet slapped against cool flooring. The room swam, reminding me all too much of Nila and her imbalance. We’re perfect for each other. Both slightly broken. Both slightly flawed. But perfectly whole once we let our hearts become one.

My toes dug into the smooth linoleum, keeping me upright. The back of my hand twinged as the drip line tugged. I groaned, wiping away sweat already beading on my brow.

I’d learned the hard way when I first attempted a bathroom visit that I had to roll the contraption feeding my drip with me; otherwise, the needle in my hand jerked me back.

That’d hurt. But not nearly as much as my heart did whenever I thought of Kes still holding onto this world. He hadn’t died; no matter how adamant Doctor Louille had been that he might never wake up.

Don’t think about him.

I had too much to worry about. Being in a high-traffic public place meant my emotions were scrubbed raw. Luckily, I had a private room, but it didn’t stop emotions from soaking through the walls.

Snippets of grief and misplaced hope trickled under my door from family members visiting loved ones. Horrible pain and the craving for death drifted like scent waves from patients healing from trauma.

I f*cking hated hospitals.

I have to leave—if not for Nila’s sake, then my own.

I would be able to heal a lot faster away from people who drained the life right out of me.

Gritting my teeth, I shuffled forward. The large bandage around my middle gave my broken rib some support but agony radiated anyway. Doctor Louille had cut down my painkillers at my request. I needed to know the truth—to monitor my healing and be able to cope with the discomfort on my own terms.

Because three weeks was far too f*cking long.

I’m not waiting that long.

The minute I could get to the bathroom without it taking fifteen bloody minutes, I was checking out, and I didn’t care what anyone said.

Every step fed energy to atrophied muscles.

Every shuffle forced my body to revive.

And every stumble ensured I could leave that much sooner.



Eleven minutes.

An improvement from sixteen minutes yesterday.

Not the best achievement to go from bed to bathroom, but I’d whittled off five minutes in just under twenty-four hours. I was healing faster—bolstered by my unrelenting pressure.

Wobbling back toward the despised mattress, I paused in the centre of the room. The thought of getting back into the starched sheets and staring yet again at the powder blue ceiling with no f*cking purpose other than to torture myself with images of Nila didn’t inspire me.

I was no good to her yet. I had to be sensible and heal before saving her, but I couldn’t lie there another moment without talking to her. Without telling her how much I loved her, cared for her, missed her, craved her. I needed her. I needed her smile, her laugh, her touch, her body.

I need you, Nila, so f*cking much.

After talking to Jasmine the first day, we’d agreed to keep communication few and far between. It was hard not to know what happened at Hawksridge, but Cut didn’t know we’d made it out alive. For all my dear doting father knew, Kes’s and my bones were now pig shit at the back of the estate.

And I want to keep it that way.

Jaz had done all she could to hide our reincarnation from everyone. The doctors and nurses called me Mr. James Ambrose. No one knew my true identity. She’d even taken us to a hospital we’d never been to before—boycotting our usual medical team in favour of strangers who would keep us unknown.

It didn’t mean I trusted anyone, though.

I risked anonymity by contacting Nila, but I couldn’t deny myself anymore. Just thinking of messaging her like we did before I claimed her made my heart beat stronger and blood pump faster.

She was my cure—not drugs or doctors. I was stupid to avoid contacting her for so long when all I wanted to do was drag her into my embrace and keep her safe forever.

Wrapping my arm around my waist, adding pressure to the throbbing wound, I inched barefoot out of my room, dragging the drip on its little wheels behind me.

I’m a f*cking invalid.

The hospital was quiet.

No emergencies. No visitors.

It was a nice reprieve from daylight hours when I had to focus entirely on the itching of my stitches and ache from my rib to negate the overpowering overshare of emotions from such a busy place.

I didn’t know the time, but the bright neons were dimmed, giving the illusion of peace and sleepiness. However, the morbid silence of death interrupted the false serenity, lurking in the darkness, waiting to pick off its latest victim.

Move along, death. You’re not taking me, my brother, or Nila.

Not this time.

My mind jumped back to the images that Bonnie had shown me a month or so ago. Her study had always been a festival of flowers and needlepoint, but when she’d invited me to tea, she had a new acquisition.

Photographs.

Images of a Weaver, who looked exactly like Nila and my great, great grandfather.

I’d always known I looked like Owen Hawk. Cut had told me a few times as I grew up. But that’d been the first time I’d heard how similar Owen and Elisa’s tale was to my own life.

It was meant to scare me. To keep me in line and show me what would happen if I followed that path.