Hothouse Flower (Addicted #4)(68)

I make out shadows, dark and light, first. A figure rises from a chair, standing closer to me.

I’m not waking up after a night terror.

This feels so different.

I try to recall my last memory, the last picture I had before this—before lying down.

It’s not coming as quickly as I’d hoped. It’s just fuzzy.

Thankfully my ears are working. “Daisy,” the deep familiar voice says, still rough but full of unbridled concern. “Can you hear me?”

I try to nod. I think I’m nodding. I blink two more times, and then my vision clears. Ryke towers beside a hospital bed. My hospital bed. But I focus on his features, the scratches along his cheeks, the bruises that blemish his eyes and jaw. The stitches on his eyebrow.

“Ryke,” I whisper, raspy.

Tears build in my eyes. I’ve never seen Ryke so battered before. My hand instinctively goes to my mouth to hide my emotions, but the movement tugs an IV stand. I glance down to inspect the source. Tubes are stuck in the top of my hand, running across my lap.

Ryke takes a seat on the edge of the bed, by my legs. He rubs them, even though they’re underneath a light blue blanket. “Do you need water?” He’s just as overwhelmed as me, his features hardening to hide that burgeoning emotion.

I shake my head. “Can you…come closer?” I reach for his hand, but I grasp air. I try to sit up in the bed so I can see more of him, but my whole body is sore like I was hit by a truck. Was I? Did I accidentally run into traffic? Please tell me I didn’t do something stupid that got him hurt too.

I burst into tears because I’m terrified that’s what happened.

“Daisy, don’t cry,” he says. “We’re going to get through this.” We. I focus on this one pronoun while he presses a button on a remote. The bed groans as it rises to a sitting position. Then he scoots forward so he’s beside my thigh.

I let out a breath to stop the waterworks, and then I reach out, my fingers skimming his cheek. He watches me inspect the damage with a trembling hand, and I zoom in on the stitches. “Your eyebrow…”

“It’s fine.” He clasps my wrist to stop me from poking at it.

“It’s going to scar,” I murmur.

His face almost breaks. He shakes his head repeatedly. “I don’t f*cking care.”

I smile weakly, but the motion stings. Why does that hurt? My lips fall. “What happened?” I ask.

His Adam’s apple bobs. “You can’t remember?”

“No,” I breathe. “Did I…did I do something stupid? You didn’t…you didn’t follow me into traffic, did you?” The fact that this could be a possibility, I realize that reflects poorly upon me. I can be unthinking and selfish when I try to live fully. But I’ve always loved that Ryke never stops me.

Whatever wild thing I do, Ryke Meadows does too.

Down a ski slope.

In an ocean, caged with sharks.

Off a cliff.

Off a cliff. I was fifteen. I dove into the water. He jumped in after me. I couldn’t imagine any other guy willing to do that for someone they hardly knew. In that moment, I had fallen for Ryke. Literally, figuratively—I knew, if we couldn’t be together, he would be my friend.

Here we are now.

In a hospital. “Maybe I should have left you alone,” I whisper.

“What are you talking about?”

“You wouldn’t be hurt…” I scrutinize the way his muscles tense, sitting rigidly. I grip the bottom of his white T-shirt—that doesn’t look like one of his.

He holds my hands, stopping me. “Daisy,” he says with force. “I’m fine.”

“Take off your shirt.”

“No.”

I smile again. Ow. “I must be the only girl you’ve rejected.”

“That’s so f*cking not true,” he growls. He glances at the hospital bed, me in it, and then he sighs heavily, giving in. He lifts the shirt off, and my mouth plummets.

My hands zip across the yellowish purple bruises that mar his abs and chest, some bleeding into his phoenix tattoo. “Turn around, please,” I say softly.

He rotates only halfway, and I see even worse ones, deeper yellow, deeper purple. I want to kiss the wounds, but as soon as I lean forward, he puts a hand on my collar and leans me back against a fluffy pillow.

“What’s the last thing you remember, Dais?” he asks me seriously.

I strain my mind. “The bar.” We went to the pub next to the hotel. “Lo…” He drank alcohol. “Christina—I saw her in the pub and…” Ian. “You didn’t…did you guys…” Did they fight? “Ian…” I blink a few times, the picture starting to form. No, that fight ended early. That’s not what happened. “I was outside with Christina. We were about to go to the hotel.”

Flashes of the next events ripple through my mind. I was watching these two big guys screaming on the sidewalk, pushing each other in the chest. One punch flew, and then I was swept in a hurricane of drunken men and violent acts. I immediately shoved Christina back, and someone’s jacket zipper caught in my long hair. I was dragged backwards.

“Ryke…” The fear as I fell on the pavement returns, and the heart monitor’s steady beep, beep, beep picks up pace. Feet clobbered around me, on my stomach, my legs, and finally I yanked my hair free, only for it to snag in something else. This time, it pulled hard near my forehead. The pain seared beneath adrenaline. Beepbeepbeepbeep.