“I can,” she contradicted.
“You can’t.”
“I can,” she overemphasized each word. She didn’t want to argue with Ryder, but after so many months of being locked up alone she wanted to have her independence back, she wanted her life back.
“Abs,” Ryder said overly patiently, “I know you, and I know how independent you are, how much you like to do things on your own, but you’re going to have to face facts, for the next few days you’re going to be weak and need help. Now I understand if given our history you don’t want me helping you, but you need someone, so choose, me or one of the other guys?”
Her natural instinct was to keep arguing until he saw that she was right and let her go to the bathroom on her own, but her logical side had already accepted he was right. She’d only been awake for a matter of minutes and already she felt tired enough to curl up and sleep the rest of the day away.
“You, I guess.” She sighed.
Ryder grinned and folded back the covers. “See, accepting help wasn’t so bad now was it?”
“Don’t gloat, Ryder, it doesn’t suit you,” she glowered as he curled an arm under her knees and one behind her back and lifted her up.
Ryder laughed as he carried her across the room and into the attached bathroom, lifted the toilet lid before setting her down, and put the IV bags on the vanity. “I’ll close the door, and you call me when you’re done. If you feel weak or dizzy you tell me okay, I don’t want you being stubborn and keeling over. Hitting your head and knocking yourself out isn’t something your body needs to be dealing with right now when it’s already battling pneumonia.”
Abigail rolled her eyes at Ryder’s mothering side but nodded. “I’ll call you if I need you,” she promised.
Satisfied that she was telling the truth, he turned and left her in the bathroom, closing the door behind him. “I’m right outside,” he called through to her.
“Okay, Mom,” she muttered as she did her business. Ryder turned into such a mother hen when someone was sick, she remembered when they had been together and she’d had appendicitis. Once she was released from the hospital after having her appendix removed, he had fussed around her every day for a week while she recovered. He’d fluffed pillows, cooked soup, baked bread, sat and watched Disney movies with her, cleaned the house, carried her to and from the bathroom when she was too weak to make it on her own, made sure she took her medications on time, and slept in a chair beside the bed so she had space to stretch out.
He had been perfect, so sweet and attentive, he’d cuddled with her, and taken such good care of her. If she was honest he’d been a better mother hen than her own mother had ever been. As a child, when she was sick her mother had subscribed to the sleep it off philosophy. She would tuck Abigail into bed and then tell her to stay there until she felt better, there was no fussing, no hanging around to keep her company.
Finishing up her business, Abigail debated whether she could make it the three or four steps across the room to the sink on her own or if she needed help. Deciding that it was a small enough distance she could do it on her own, she stood on trembling legs and flushed then took a deep breath and gathered her strength and walked to the sink.
There was a mirror above the sink but Abigail avoided it, not sure she was ready to take her first look at herself in months.
Would she look the same?
She’d no doubt lost weight, and her hair was probably a horrible knotted mess, but it was her eyes she was most worried about.
What would she see in them?
Fear?
Despair?
Hopelessness?
Would she see the strength and determination she would need to get herself through this?
Did she have what it took to pick up her life where it had left off?
Could she go back to teaching like nothing had happened, knowing that was where she had been kidnapped?
Did she have a home anymore or had it been sold because she had been presumed dead?
And all her stuff, had it just been thrown away?
She didn’t know when Eric had been told of her abduction, but she knew when he was off on a mission it could be months before she heard from him again. She wasn’t close with her big brother, but she was sure if he could have he would have boxed up her possessions and stored them someplace, but she could have been gone for months before he’d been told.
As the cool water ran over her hands she fortified herself and did it, like ripping off a Band-Aid, she looked up and saw herself looking back at her.
Or a version of herself she hadn’t seen before.
Her skin was a horrible shade of white, the few freckles sprinkled across her nose and cheeks stood out in stark contrast to her deathly pallor. Her hair wasn’t as bad of a mess as she’d thought it might be like someone had run a brush through it, and she wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Ryder had brushed her hair for her while she’d been sleeping.
It was her eyes that gutted her.
They were empty.
There was no spark in them, no life, there was nothing.
They stared blankly at her reflection like she was dead inside.
Was she dead inside?
So far she’d been too sick to really process everything that had happened to her but that couldn’t last.
What would happen when the dam finally broke?
Could she survive that flooding of emotions?
Tears built in her eyes but she held them back from practiced force of will.
“Abigail, you okay?”
The voice outside the door anchored her, kept the lid on her emotions locked. She couldn’t cry here, not with Ryder and the other SEALs in the house. Later, when she was alone, when there would be no one there to hear her cries, then she could fall apart.
“I’m okay, I’m ready for you,” she called back.
Ryder opened the door as she turned off the tap, he gathered her up into his strong arms and carried her back into the bedroom and over to the bed. She watched him as he tucked her in and put the IV bags back onto the pole, he was her own personal guard dog. He’d watched over her in the jungle, and in the shack, he’d kept her safe as they made their way to the helicopter. Could he protect her from herself? From the emotions she was afraid of?
Sleep tugged at the corners of her mind and Abigail gladly gave in to it, thankful for the temporary reprieve it would give her from having to feel anything else.
8:18 P.M.
“How’s she doing?” Wolf asked as he walked into the bedroom, a plate of food in his hands.
“She hasn’t woken up again, but her temperature is down, and she seems to be breathing a little easier. She’d going to have quite a road ahead of her to rebuild her strength and her life, but she’d tough enough to do it,” Spider replied, his gaze fixed on the sleeping woman in the bed. He had faith in her, he just prayed that she had enough faith in herself to get through this.
“How are you doing?” Wolf asked, handing him his dinner then leaning against the wall by the window.
“Me? I’m fine. It’s Night who’s freaking out because he can’t be here with his sister.”
Wolf made a scoffing noise. “It’s no secret that you and Abigail used to have a thing, also no secret that you’ve been pining over her ever since.”