Never Dig Beneath a Grave - Page 225

“Haven’t decided.”

He looks as shitty as I feel. The dark circles under his eyes tell me he hasn’t slept in days, much like the rest of us.

Hannah was in that church for a total of eighteen hours. In that time, Christian flew in from God only knows where, Logan and I kidnapped a maximum security prisoner, and I nearly lost my fucking mind before I got her back.

I never imagined shit could hurt this bad until my heart started walking around outside my body in the form of a little redhead with the prettiest fucking smile I’ve ever seen.

“Because I have to say it,” I murmur, leaning back in the chair, holding tight to Hannah’s hand on the side of the cot, even if she can’t feel me. “I’ll fucking kill you if you hurt her.”

His jaw feathers and he looks down to Hannah before looking back at me.

“I’m doing this for her.”

“We going to see you again?”

He pauses, his shoulders stiff. “Probably not.”

And then he leaves.

I don’t know how much time passes because my eyes are threatening to close on their own, but when a soft hand startles me awake, I lurch, nearly toppling the chair over in my haste to whirl on whoever got into the room.

But it’s just a nurse.

“I’m not leaving her.”

She purses her lips together, giving me that stern motherly look as if she wants to scold me.

Then . . . her gaze softens and she places a hand on my shoulder.

“I was just going to let you know we’re bringing a cot for you to get some rest. Can’t have you sleeping in that, can we?” Her gaze racks over me. “You’re pretty big. It might be a little small, but you won’t have to leave her.”

She gives me a knowing wink before she disappears out the door.

A few moments later, an army cot is wheeled into the room and set up against the wall by the window. I fight sleep for another hour because I don’t want to let go of her hand, but when I nod off again, nearly falling out of the damned chair, I concede.

I move it closer to Hannah’s bed, just so I can fucking be near her and force myself to lay down. I watch her for awhile. The steady rise and fall of her chest. Like if I close my eyes, she’ll be ripped away from me again.

Unfortunately, my body isn’t on board.

The nurse was right. The cot’s small, but it doesn’t take long for me to close my eyes and finally, after more than twenty-four hours, I fall asleep.

Hannah

There is an incessant beeping somewhere around me.

The first of my senses to return is my hearing and that beep settles a migraine in my forehead that feels like a woodpecker is beating the inside of my skull.

The second in my sense of scent.

The hospital.

—Explains the beeping.

The last time I woke up in a “medical facility” it wasn’t any fun.

Now, when I open my eyes, it’s to the dimly lit room of anactualhospital, complete with every monitor known to man.

My vision is blurry, but as it returns and I take in the room around me, my heart nearly stops in my chest.