Trapped (Caged #2)(59)

“Liam, you gotta calm down,” he said. “I’m not going to let you rip out those stitches. Don’t make me call security!”

“You are not my mother!” I continued to yell. “You don’t get to call me that!”

“I never stopped being your mother!”

“You did!” Everything in my body tightened. I felt like I could quite literally explode with bits of me ending up on the walls and the ceiling. My chest was so tight, I couldn’t breathe right, and I struggled to get air into my lungs. “You gave all that up!”

“I never gave up on you!” she insisted.

“He threw me out, and you let him!”

Dr. Baynor was trying to get a word in, but it just wasn’t working out. I saw him hit the little panic button on the edge of the bed, but I didn’t care.

“I thought you would come back in a few hours!” she cried. “And then when we heard…”

“Shut up!” I screamed. “Don’t say a f*cking word!”

“Liam?” Tria’s head appeared in the doorway. She walked in slowly as she glanced from me to my mother. Her eyes widened in understanding as my mother tried to talk to me again.

“I didn’t want you to go!” my mother said.

“You didn’t f*cking care what happened to me!” I snarled back at her.

“You were just gone! You were gone, and we couldn’t find you anywhere!”

Tria dropped the tray she had in her hands on a table near the door and rushed over to the bed. I hadn’t realized how much I was shaking until she gripped my arms. There was so much noise in the room and in my ears that it overwhelmed me, and I couldn’t even understand what was happening any more. I just knew I wanted my mother out of there.

“Calm down,” Tria said quietly.

“Get her out of here!” I screamed.

“Liam, I’m going to have to sedate you if you don’t—”

“Get out! Get out!”

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Teague, but you are going to have to leave. I can’t have Liam this upset. It will affect his recovery, and—”

“I’ll go,” she replied softly, her voice cracking as she spoke. “We weren’t trying to hurt you, Liam. We were only trying to protect you.”

The scream was completely incomprehensible, and I didn’t even realize it was coming from me at first. Tria was suddenly in the bed with me, straddling my thighs and trying to push me backwards.

“Shh…shh…shh…”

Two men in light blue uniforms appeared at the door, and my mother was turning to go. I refused to watch as she walked out with security right behind her. I was pretty much expending all my energy trying to breathe right and not actually wreck the entire hospital room, which was likely going to lead me right back into surgery. I focused on Tria’s hands against my shoulders as if I could pull calming energy from her touch.

Maybe I could. It helped, anyway. My mother being out of the damn room helped more.

Baynor was beside the bed, and his hand gripped my wrist for a moment before he dropped it back down. I reached out and pulled Tria against me, feeling myself calm from her presence and her scent. After several minutes, I could breathe normally again. She backed off slowly, and Baynor helped her off the bed.

“So how long have you been dealing with the PTSD?” Dr. Baynor asked.

“What the f*ck are you talking about?” I growled back.

“I might be a hospital surgeon now,” he told me, “but I was a medic in Desert Storm, and I know what post traumatic stress looks like, Liam. How long?”

“Fuck off!”

“Liam, you can’t just—”

“Enough!” Tria jumped up and pointed a finger at him. “Just leave him alone, all right? Now is obviously not the right time!”

She turned and shifted her body against the bed, placing herself between me and the doctor. She tightened her arms around me as she lay down by my side and took my face between her hands.

“You have a good thing there,” Dr. Baynor told me as he nodded toward Tria. “If you don’t do something to get over whatever happened to you, you are going to f*ck it up. You let me know when you want to talk about it.”

“Fuck you,” I said again, but my words had lost their bite. I leaned heavily against Tria as she wrapped her arms around my head. Dr. Baynor left the room and closed the door behind him. A while later, Tria brought over the rice and stir fry she had made. The vegetables had obviously come out of a can, but it was still a whole lot better than what the hospital had brought me before.

It probably took a couple hours, but I managed to completely push my mother’s impromptu visit out of my mind.

I was never one to acknowledge what was going on in my head, but my mother’s face haunted my dreams the rest of the night.





Chapter 16—Shock the System


“Are you sure you can make it up the stairs?”

“I’m fine,” I muttered, not completely convinced it was true. I wondered how in the hell the landlord got away with not having an elevator in the building. I let Tria support my side as I hobbled up the steps and into the apartment.

Climbing into my own bed felt awesome. More than anything, I was just glad to be home. Tria propped up pillows and made me Swedish bean balls for dinner, which she served to me in bed. I pretended to complain about it, but I loved every second of her fussing over me.