The Wildflower (Completed) (Southern Nights)

Chapter 27

“The Heart of a Wildflower”

2013 Copyright © All Rights Reserved

Chapter 27

 

 Elizabeth winced.  Her head hurt.  It felt like a jackhammer was being drilled straight through the center of her skull.  Her eyelids felt heavy and laden and her tongue was so dry it tasted like sand paper.

Forcing her eyes open, she blinked in the bright light in the unfamiliar room.  Where am I?  What happened to me?  Her brain felt like it was wading through a dense London fog.

Staring up, she could make out a chipped grey ceiling.  None of this made any sense.  Her stomach began to churn uncontrollably and suddenly Elizabeth had an overwhelming urge to puke.

She tried desperately to sit up but the only part of her body that would move was her head.

“What the hell?” she mumbled to herself as she fought to clear her head.

The room was slowly spinning around her and everything seemed blurry and out of focus.  The continued spinning facilitated her urge to puke.  Unable to move, all she could do was turn her head to the side and empty her stomach on the bed that she was laying on.

Gagging, Elizabeth turned her head to the other side.  The putrid smell of her own vomit lingered in the air and she wasn’t any closer to understanding what the hell was going on.

She pulled on her wrists but they went nowhere.  She glanced down and noticed that her wrists were tied securely to steel posts on the side of the bed.  She jerked on them again and there was no leeway; the rope wouldn’t give.

She jerked her feet and again, there was no movement.  She lifted her head groaned in irritation when she saw that both of her ankles were shackled in the same manner.

“Ugh!” she screamed out in frustration.  This was not happening, she told herself.  It couldn’t be.  It had to be a very bad dream.

But then she looked back at her wrists and knew this wasn’t a dream.  This was real and it was happening to her.

Her head fell back against the bed and she tried really hard to remember how she ended up in this room.  Her mind drew a blank.

Trying a different tactic, she focused on the room she was in.  Maybe she could find a clue; something that would tell her what was going on.

The first thing she noticed was that the room was small, not much bigger than a walk-in closet.  The walls surrounding her were painted a bright white.  She spotted the one fluorescent light above her head and the constant buzzing sound coming from that light was beginning to grate on her last nerve.

“Why can’t I remember anything?” she spoke aloud.  Her weak voice barely echoed in the empty room.  Suddenly she felt so alone.

Her thoughts started to back build and form into a storm of emotion.  Where was Zeb?  Where was Brandon?

The last thing that she could remember was the sweet card and the pink rose that Brandon had given her.  She pictured his face in her mind and could see so clearly how proud he was when she opened his card.  She could even recall the touching saying that had been typed into the card.  Tears sprung to her eyes. She hoped they were okay.  She didn’t think she could survive if she had to go through losing either one of them a second time.

Sniffling, she told herself to focus.  She needed to remember.  She glanced around the room again looking for anything that might jog her memory.  She inhaled deeply and bile rose up in the back of her throat.  She forced the feeling back down and tried to desperately redirect her focus.