Where You Can Find Me by Fiona Cole

32

Jack

“Please wake up.Please wake up. Please wake up.”

I willed my desperate whispers to reach her past all the beeping machines and the even hum and whir of the machine helping her breathe.

I willed her eyes to open—to have her shining emerald eyes meet mine, but instead, all I saw were the white bandages and black, blues, and purples of her swelling cheek. As if the pain were my own, I ached seeing it. Unable to stand it, I dropped my head to the mattress.

Visiting hours had long gone, but it was the soonest I could make it to her. Seven hours after the three of us had been carted in.

When we first got here, I flipped the fuck out, watching them cart Luella in the opposite direction of me. It was only when they threatened to sedate me that I calmed down enough for them to examine my injuries. I reasoned that I needed to be alert in case she needed me.

Not that I’d been able to do anything when she needed me anyway.

Guilt dug deeper, wracking my body with more pain than any of my injuries ever could.

“Please wake up,” I begged.

It’d taken too long to reach her, but they’d kept me in a room, and it wasn’t until the hospital quieted down for the night that I’d been able to sneak past the nurses and their eagle eyes.

Every move I made had them rushing to push me back to the bed, repeating the mantra that I needed to lie down or I’d rip my stitches. Fuck my stitches. I would have ripped them out with my bare hands if it meant getting to her.

“I need you,” I whispered. “I just found you, and I can’t imagine this life without you. I love you, Luella. Please don’t leave me.”

I clung to her soft, slim fingers with my rough, battered hand, gently pressing a kiss to each knuckle.

The stark bandages around my wrists and hands mocked me, instigating more frustration than I knew what to do with. I’d taken too long to get the ropes off. I’d thought I’d have more time. I’d focused on being quiet and keeping everything in place, so I didn’t leave any hints to my plans. I hadn’t expected Grayson to fly off the handle so quick.

I hadn’t expected Grayson to be a serial killer.

In the end, I’d ripped my hands free, the need for quiet long gone.

“I’m so sorry.”

“Sir, visiting hours are over,” a stern voice reprimanded from the door.

I didn’t bother facing her. I kept all my attention on Luella. “I’m not leaving.” My words for Luella as much as they were for the nurse.

She sighed. “Then I’ll be forced to call security.”

“He’s fine,” another deep voice stated, entering the room.

“You sure, detective?” she asked.

“Yeah. He might be the best thing for her right now,” Shane answered.

“Okay, but not long.”

The squeak of her shoes on the tile faded, leaving just the three of us.

Shane moved to the other side of Luella’s bed to the only other chair, folding his large frame into the too-small seat.

Recalling his words, I scoffed, wincing at the piercing stab of pain. My broken ribs protesting the sharp movement. “Best thing for her? Yeah, right.”

Looking her over, taking in each scrape and bruise, knowing it wasn’t even the worst of the pain she endured, I knew she’d be better off with the Devil himself than me.

“You saved her,” Shane said.

“Not soon enough.”

Remembering those last few moments brought back the same flood of horror and fear. My stomach dropped painfully just for the rage to bring it back up and burn, spreading the fire through my veins and pushing every muscle to the max to break free. Sitting in that chair as I watched Grayson, I slipped further and further away from sanity; it had consumed me.

Until finally, like an explosion, I’d crushed the chair, ripped my hands from the bonds, and attacked.

I’d charged Grayson with every ounce of adrenaline flooding me. Luella consumed all his attention, giving me the opening to gain the upper hand. We landed with a thud, and I turned into an animal. Nothing existed beyond crushing him from existence. He’d landed blows, managed to pull a knife he’d stashed and dug deep, but my rage numbed me—left me focused.

Nothing existed until the door broke down, and cops dressed in black gripped my arms and pulled me back from a barely conscious, bloody Grayson. I’d bared my teeth like a dog ready to rip his throat out when Shane snapped my name.

I jerked my attention to where he was cutting Luella free, a blanket pulled over her bare body. Her head lolled, showcasing the cascade of blood over her already swollen face.

Everything inside me had crashed down to nothing.

“How are you feeling?” Shane asked, pulling me back to the hospital room.

Slowly, I shifted a deadpanned stare his way, making him huff a laugh.

“Yeah. Stupid question. But I saw your x-rays. Punctured lung. Cracked ribs. Fractured skull.”

“Barely fractured,” I interjected. Nothing compared to the damage Lu had.

“Still.” The beeps filled the silence, and Shane’s deep inhale matched the rhythm of the machine moving Lu’s lungs. “What about everything else?”

“What’s everything else? You covered it all.”

“I mean your headspace. How are you handling…”

He faded off, unable to finish the awkward truth.

“That I beat my best friend to death?” I finished for him, going on to add more clarity into my headspace, as he put it. “After watching him torture and rape the love of my life?”

He winced but didn’t say anything.

My stomach rolled, and I focused my attention back on Lu, trying to process any single emotion creating chaos in my mind. They bled together, and I hesitated to look too closely but forced myself to consider his question. “Not nearly as gratified as I should be,” I answered honestly. I should have felt pride and honor in doing the right thing, in getting justice.

But it wasn’t quite as strong as I thought it would be. It was too tangled with everything else, and nothing looked clear anymore.

“He deserved it,” Shane growled.

“I know, and I’d do it a million times over.”

“I wish I could have done it myself.”

I had no doubt of that. Shane worked each case, saw each horror story since it all began.

We sat in silence again, both of us pulling apart the fact that Grayson was gone. He’d been wheeled in just like Lu and me. Hospitals didn’t discriminate against murderers and good people. A life was a life, and they tried to save them all. Part of me wanted him to survive just so he could suffer a life in prison. But a bigger part of me had relaxed when someone came in to let me know he hadn’t made it out of surgery.

“Have you considered talking to anyone while you’re here?” Shane finally asked.

“Yeah, right,” I scoffed. “Besides, I don’t want to leave her side.”

Shane held up his hands, knowing not to push. “I get it.” He stood from his chair and rounded the bed to rest a hand on my shoulder. “I’ll make sure they know you’re free to come and go as you please—police business.”

“Thanks, man.”

Shane left me alone to clutch Lu’s hand—where I stayed for almost three weeks, holding my breath over every fluttery eye movement, every finger twitch, and every breath she took on her own when they removed some of the machines.

Always pleading the same thing again and again. “Please wake up. Please wake up.”

Until one day, she did.

Her hand squeezed harder, more than a spasm, holding on tight. Her eyes fluttered open like they had before, but this time, they shifted and focused on me.

Blackness crept in on the edges of my vision when those beautiful green eyes met mine, and I realized I stopped breathing.

“Jack,” she mouthed, my name escaping as a whispering croak.

The world came roaring back in, and I sucked in a deep breath for much-needed oxygen. Her lids lowered but opened back up again, and I damn near crumbled. The weight of the dread, fear, and pain holding me stiff for the past month rushed free. All of it taken away with the simple croak of my name.

I pressed the call button and gently rained kisses against her hair, telling her how much I loved her. Not stopping until doctors and nurses rushed in, pushing me to the side. I couldn’t look away, even when I sent a message to Shane to tell everyone else.

Her eyes stayed glued to mine, darkened by all the confusion and questions brewing as they explained the coma and how her injuries caused swelling in her brain. I offered her the best comforting smile I could conjure from the corner of the room with water brimming in my eyes. Desperation built, needing to get back to her, to feel her move all on her own, to feel her arms around me.

Euphoria bubbled up at just the thought of it until I almost knocked everyone out of the way to get to her again.

At least until a small break in the chaos had reality crashing back in.

With a million questions flooding her emerald eyes, she asked the one I wanted to explain the least.

“What happened?”