Chapter 43
Adam escorts me back to Leah’s hospital room. He closes the door behind me and the other guards.
I try her cell phone.
Adam rings her too.
Nothing.
“She may have the volume off. I had her put it on silent in case you…” he trails off.
In case I tried to bother her, he implies.
I growl.
“Her clothes are here, Adam.” I point to the neatly folded pants and shirt. The shirt still has splatters of blood on it from when she’d been coughing. “If she was going to leave, she would’ve changed and put on shoes.”
“Is it possible she’s still on the grounds?” one of the guards suggests. “Maybe she was hungry or got lost or maybe she just didn’t feel like being cooped up alone in here. It’s not uncommon for patients to wander.”
Adam doesn’t look convinced though. Neither am I.
“Sam,” Adam says to the first guard, “Go down to the security office and review the security footage. Track her movements on the feed.” He looks at the second guard, a slightly shorter, wide-shouldered wolf. “Ralph, check each room on this floor.”
“Yes sir.”
When we’re alone, I cross to the window. It’s dark out and the moon is half full. I still hold the flowers and I don’t know what to do with them. For some reason, I can’t seem to bring myself to put them down.
“How si ck is she?” I ask Adam.
I’m not yelling or demanding or screaming.
“Please,” I say. “I just want to know.”
I can see his reflection in the windows. Adam shakes his head. “She’s dying, Aaron. Even with the treatments, we don’t have a lot of hope. She doesn’t have much time left.”
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LEAH
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Brian lifts me into his truck and buckles me in.
“Hey, I’m not an invalid.’
He tugs on one of my curls, then tucks it behind my ear. “I know. I just wanted to do it.”
It’s a small act. A chivalrous one.
It makes me realize that while things weren’t always bad with Aaron, they were never really great, either.
I didn’t get dates.
He didn’t go out of his way to open a door for me. Or to talk.
Brian hasn’t closed the door yet.
“What are you doing?” I ask a little nervously.
“Just looking at you. You’re beautiful, Leah.”
I blush.
When was the last time someone paid me a compliment?
I’m not attracted to Brian. I mean he’s handsome, perfectly so. But I can’t just switch my emotions so quickly. I appreciate the attention though.
Most days in the mansion, people look straight through me. I roam that big house like a ghost. Aaron…everything I feel for him is twisted up in love and hope and ha te.
I need to spend some time learning to love myself before I can really think about getting involved with someone else.
Still, it’s nice that someone else is taking interest in me. That someone is trying to support me on a day that’s going to be one of the darkest of my life.
Brian had parked in the back of the ER Department, and that’s where he came in, he tells me. He closes the door and then circles around the front of the truck. He climbs inside and shoves the key in the ignition. “Are you cold?”
“No, not really.”
He turns the heat on anyway.
He pulls off onto the road. “You’re sure about this, right?”
I’m not sure about anything.
“Oh, here, I grabbed your medicine.” He passes me a pill bottle. Huh, the nurses brought everything in tiny paper cups. “We still have a few hours. Where do you want to go?”
