“Fluids,” Rome explained in an easy voice. He still held out a hand to me and when I set mine in his he gave my fingers a gentle squeeze.
“We’re back in Braxton Harbor.”
A nod.
A shudder passed through me and I leaned forward. He moved so I could press my head against his shoulder. The care he took in putting an arm behind me, hand on the bed to brace me. It all made me want to cry.
“Doc’s clinic.” It wasn’t a question or even a guess.
“Yes,” he said when I didn’t look up. I sighed. “Do you feel better?”
Did I? “I don’t know. Maybe?” My heart was still taking time to calm down. I hurt down to my bones. “So tired.”
“Sleep.” He touched his lips to my hair like he was just resting them there. Kind of like I was leaning into his shoulder. The contact, careful and light.
“I don’t want to sleep in—” I started to say hospital bed or a hospital of any kind. This wasn’t that. It was a clinic. Didn’t matter. I wanted out of here. “Can we go back to the apartment? Or something? No. We can’t go there.” I answered the question myself before Rome could say anything. “He knows about Liam’s. He knows I was there.”
The last place I wanted to be was where my uncle could find me. He knew about the Vandals too. He’d had all those pictures of them.
“You’re safe.”
Two words. They carried so much weight.
“Not if he knows where I am.” A tremor went through me. In my desire to get away again, to come back, should I have not? Maybe I shouldn’t have let them bring me…
“Starling.” A request and a command. I raised my head and glanced up at him. “You’re safe.”
He meant every single word.
“Trust us.”
Squeezing his hand, I nodded. “I want to.”
“Good.” A knock on the door distracted him for a moment and he let out a sigh. “Doc wanted to see you when you were awake.”
I made a face. Did I want to see him?
“You don’t have to.” It was like he read my mind. But when he met my gaze again, he shrugged. “You needed a doctor. They made you sick. Doc can help. But if you don’t want him, we’ll find someone else.”
He meant that too.
"Don’t leave me alone?”
"I promise.”
That helped. I was digging my fingers into his hand, not that he’d complained. Still, I forced myself to loosen the grip a little.
“Come in,” Rome called.
The door opened almost immediately and even braced for it, I wasn’t ready to see him. The room shrunk as Doc entered. It shrunk even smaller when Liam followed him inside. While Rome stood right next to the bed, Liam parked at the door.
“Where is Freddie?”
“Got him hydrating, just like you, Little Bit.” Though I’d directed the question at Liam, it was Doc who answered. But the answer worried me.
“Is he all right?”
“He’ll be fine.” Doc had stopped about halfway to the bed, but I focused on the wall to his left. The last time we’d been alone—well, it didn’t matter. I was here because he was a doctor. “Right now, I want to ask how you are.”
“I’m peachy.” I flicked a look at him, then shifted on the bed. I didn’t want to be lying down or even sitting. In fact, the longer I sat here, the more I wanted to leave. “How long before I can go?”
A frown tightened his forehead and he snagged a rolling chair and sat on it as he came closer to the bed. It put his head more on level with mine. Well, no, it was a little lower. I shifted a little and then looked past him again.
The last thing I wanted to see was pity in his light brown eyes. “Soon,” he promised. “The guys told me you’ve had trouble keeping food and water down.”
I shrugged. “I was really hot and—uncomfortable. My meal choices have been limited. The food was probably too rich.”
“Well,” Doc said slowly. “That’s possible. Or it could be the medications they had you on.”
Shock stiffened my spine. I shot a look at Liam. He gave me a small shrug. “He knows, Hellspawn. We needed his help to get Freddie in there.”
“Does everyone know?” I ignored Doc.
“Yes,” Rome said. “It doesn’t matter.”
It mattered to me. The spit in my mouth went away.
“Little Bit…”
“Don’t call me that.”
Doc frowned.
“It’s not my name. Apparently, Emersyn isn’t my name either, but it’s better than the other.” I didn’t want his pet names. Not after… I shifted. “Look, it doesn’t matter, what do I have to do to get out of here?”
I really wanted to go.
“Okay,” Doc said slowly. “I’m going to stand up. I wanted to do a physical exam, but I didn’t want to do it without your permission.”
“I don’t want you to touch me.” I dug my fingers into Rome’s hand and he held fast. “I just—they didn’t beat me or anything.”
Not that I remembered.
“It’s not like before.”
“Okay.” Everything in those two syllables told me Doc didn’t believe me. “Emersyn, you were a patient at a facility that possibly used psychotropics, antipsychotics, antidepressants, and other pharmaceuticals in your treatment. Probably sedatives. While not all of those medications are addictive, they do have mind-altering properties which can cause issues when you come off of them cold turkey.”
“It goes away.”
Liam sighed. “Hellspawn… Let Doc do the exam. It’ll be over and done with, then we can go. You’ll feel better if you know.”
“Will I?” I asked, rebellion curled in my stomach. “Will I really feel better if I know? Cause I know a lot of things… I know how I got these.” I held up my free arm. “That doesn’t make me feel better. I know where I was and I know why—that doesn’t make me feel better either. The medication—the drugs—it goes away. If you stop taking them and you let it get out of your system.”
“Speaking from experience?” Doc asked, his gentler tone had hardened.
“Leave her alone.” Rome shifted to step between me and Doc. He never once let go of my hand. “You asked. She said no. Move on.”
With a groan, Liam ran a hand over his face. “Is there a test we can run? Something else we can do to find out if there’s something she needs?”
He sounded so very aggrieved. “There were shots and pills and IV bags,” I told them. That much I remembered. “Some were blue. Some were pale white. A couple were yellow. Sometimes they made me feel really floaty, other times—other times it just took all the noise away.”
I didn’t look at any of them as I spoke. The chill icing through my system seemed determined to spread frost everywhere. If not for where Rome touched me, I didn’t think I’d ever be warm again.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters more than you know,” Doc said, the gentleness back in his tone again. “I have some uncomfortable questions for you.”