“Last question,” the smiling man said. “Who is our prime minister?”
I grimaced. “David Cameron, unfortunately.”
“That’s really good, Lane,” he said, laughing.
“Where am I?” I asked, bewildered.
“My name is Jacob, and I’m your paramedic,” Jacob said clearly. “You’re in my ambulance, and we’re en route to York Hospital to have you assessed and admitted by a doctor. You gave us a scare there for a minute, but you seem to be doing better. You’re awake and talking, and that is what I like to see.”
What the hell does that mean?
“What happened?” I asked.
Jacob frowned down at me. “Can you remember anything, Lane?”
I closed my eye and thought hard about what could have happened to me that had me in the back of an ambulance and on the way to the hospital. For a minute or two I drew a blank, and then, like the impact of a train, it all came flooding back.
“Jensen,” I shouted. “He hurt me, he tried to – he tried to—”
“Shhh,” Jacob soothed. “It’s okay. He was arrested at the scene and cannot hurt you anymore. Hear me clearly, love, he cannot hurt you.”
I continued to panic, and Jacob looked distraught.
“I have your friend Drew here,” he said, and that got my attention.
“Drew?” I called out.
I heard movement, and then suddenly she was hovering over me.
“I’m here,” she breathed.
Her eyes were red and bloodshot, obviously from crying.
I swallowed. “My family . . . Kale . . .”
“They’ll meet us at the hospital.”
I closed my eyes and swallowed.
“I had to call them, Lane,” Drew sniffled. “You have to understand how scary it was seeing you like that . . . like this.”
I tried to nod, but the neck brace around my neck and shoulders prevented that.
“I know,” I acknowledged. “Thanks, Drew. You . . . you saved me.”
Her eyes glazed over. “I heard you scream. I didn’t know it was you, but I knew whoever was screaming was in trouble.”
Thank God she heard me when she did.
“Why were you in that building?” I asked.
“My friend Carey lives on the third floor,” she explained. “I was leaving her apartment when I heard screaming coming from Jensen’s, so I called for Jack, Carey’s boyfriend, and he kicked the door open.”
My throat clogged up with emotion, so I blinked in acknowledgement that I’d heard her.
“Drew,” Jacob said, “can you retake your seat, please?”
Drew disappeared, and I yelped when the ambulance ride got bumpy.
“Sorry, Lane,” Jacob called out. “We’re just pulling into the emergency bay now. We’ll have you in the hospital in a minute or two.”
I winced and cried in pain when the stretcher I was on was lifted out of the ambulance and then wheeled into the hospital. I stared up at the ceiling, watching light after light pass by. It got a little hard to stay awake then, so I closed my eyes to rest them for a few seconds.
“Room four with her, please,” a female voice said to Jacob, who was pushing me in the direction of the room.
“This is where I take my leave, Lane,” Jacob said when he leaned back over me. “You hang in there, love, okay?”
“I will,” I said. “Thank you.”
Jacob left to go outside to talk to the nurse he was leaving in charge of me, so Drew came to my side.
“Drew?” I heard my mother shout, her voice clearly distressed.
Drew exhaled a huge breath of relief and rushed outside into the hallway. I closed my eyes as she said, “She’s okay. She’s awake and talking.”
“Lane,” I heard my mother cry, closer this time, and then a shadow came over me. “Oh, my baby.”
I felt her hands on me, and it upset her even more that I winced in pain when she pressed too hard.
“Oh, Christ.” Lochlan’s voice was strangled. “Lane.”
“Lochlan,” my father’s voice shouted. “What room do they have her – Lane!”
“No,” Lochlan shouted. “You don’t want to see her like this.”
“Get the hell out of my way!” my father bellowed, and I heard some grunting, then a male cry.
“Baby,” my father whimpered. “Oh, my girl.”
Wake up!
I forced my left eye open, and when my vision adjusted, my parents’ distraught faces came into view.
“I’m . . . okay,” I rasped.
This caused both of them to cry with what I think was relief.
“I’m okay,” I repeated, louder.
My mother leaned down and kissed every part of my face that she could, and I let her, even though it hurt like hell.
“My eye,” I said to her. “I can’t open it.”
Tears were streaming down her cheeks.
“It’s swollen shut,” she cried.
It is?
“Better than losing it,” I chuckled, trying to stop her tears, but I winced in pain when laughing made my chest hurt. “It hurts,” I said to my mother, tears welling in my eyes.
She called for a doctor, or anyone, to come in and help me then. I closed my eyes because the room I was in was bright, and my eyelids were very heavy.
“Lane,” a new male voice called out. “Lane, can you hear me?”
I was really tired, and I groaned in response to the voice.
“Lane, can you open your eyes for me?” the man asked.
I opened my left eye, but only for a second before it fell shut again.
“Is she okay?” my father’s voice asked. “Why can’t she stay awake?”
“I’ve only got partials on what happened – we’re still gathering information – but she has quite clearly received a lot of brute blunt-force trauma to her head. I’m hoping it is mostly cosmetic and her brain wasn’t affected. We will run an MRI and other tests after she is cleaned up and her wounds are stitched closed.”
I need stitches? I wanted to ask the question on my mind, but I could only groan instead.
“I know you’re hurting, Lane,” the man, who I guessed to be my doctor, said. “A nurse will set up an IV line and administer morphine to help get you somewhat comfortable.”
That sounded brilliant.
I heard the different voices of my family as they spoke to me and asked the doctor questions, but one voice stuck out, one pretty loud voice.
“Lochlan?” I heard Kale call.
“She’s down here,” Lochlan shouted.
“Quiet, please,” a voice chastised.
“I got here as fast as I could – oh, my God,” Kale breathed. “Lane. Oh, sweetheart.”
I’m here, I thought.
“I’m going to fucking kill the prick,” he growled.
“Drew,” my father said. “What happened?”
My brain chose that moment to fade into darkness, and I was thankful for it because listening to Drew explain what she saw wasn’t something I wanted to hear. Experiencing it was more than enough.
Four days later, I was still in hospital, but I was awake and fully alert to my surroundings. The first three days after I was brought to hospital, I was in the ICU because I didn’t regain consciousness after I conked out in the emergency room. My doctor assured my family it was due to some very minor swelling on my brain and that the rest would only do my body good as it began the process of healing. The MRI scan and other tests the doctors ran came back clear, which was good news. All of my injuries were simple flesh wounds and a couple of bruised ribs – which I thought was the sorest thing I had ever experienced. It hurt to breathe.
My right eye was still swollen shut, and I had a pretty nasty cut through my right eyebrow that took six stitches to close, and one on my left cheekbone that needed three stitches. All in all, I was expected to make a full recovery, with only a small scar or two to show for it. So the doctor said anyway. But he was wrong. What Jensen had done ran deeper than physical scars. What he’d done would stay with me for life.
“Lane?”
I looked to my nanny when she called my name.
“Hmm?” I murmured.
She frowned at me. “I asked if you were okay, sweetheart?”
“I’m okay, Nanny,” I assured her, then looked to the doorway as my uncle suddenly barrelled into the room, looking the worse for wear. This was the first time I had seen him in three weeks. He’d been on a business trip in Asia and wasn’t due home for another week at the earliest.
He took one look at me, and his face turned red.
“I’ll kill him,” he snarled.
My brothers, father and Kale, who were in the room with me, my mother and my nanny, grunted in agreement. I had never seen my uncle look so angry before, so I raised my eyebrows at him and just stared. He quickly came over to my side and let out a puff of breath at what he was seeing.
“Darlin’.” He swallowed.
I winked with my good eye. “I’m okay; you should see the other guy.”
My uncle appreciated my jab at humour, and he chuckled, but nobody else in the room did. They hadn’t cracked so much as a smile since I’d woken up this morning. It was starting to grate on my nerves. I knew what had happened to me was very serious, and I definitely knew it wasn’t a laughing matter, but I was okay. I was going to recover from my injuries, and the piece of scum who caused them in the first place was in police custody.
Jacob was right when he said Jensen couldn’t hurt me anymore.
“Have you spoken to the police?” my uncle asked after he kissed my forehead.
I nodded. “They were here a few hours ago. They came after I woke up.”
Drew and her friend Jack had already given their eyewitness report of what they’d encountered a few days ago in Jensen’s apartment. Early in the afternoon I gave my statement. It was embarrassing and shameful, but I had to tell them how I knew Jensen in the first place. My father feared Jensen’s defence would play on that and somehow get him off the hook, but the officers assured us that he was tied up by the balls with the eyewitness reports and the condition I was found in.