Changing You ✦ The Sequel

Chapter 37 {R}

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"You're not supposed to come in here, so we gotta be quick okay?"

I nodded without having registered what Carrie said.

She glanced back at me, her hand already resting on the door handle, and suddenly I couldn't decide if I wanted to stop her or snap at her to hurry up.

She opened the door.

I couldn't move at first, torn apart between wanting to see him and being terrified of what I'd find.

But I needed to see for myself that he was alive, so I forced my body to step inside.

It was not at all what I had been expecting.

I had expected it to seem like he was sleeping. But I had watched him sleep, many times before, and it took less than a second of looking at him to know this was entirely different.

Maybe it was the blunt fact that he wasn't lying in a bed, but on an operation table. Maybe it was because of the breathing mask placed over his mouth, or the tubes sticking out of his arms, hooking him up to several machines that measured his vitals. Maybe it were the wires attached to his head, visualising his brain activity on the screen next to him.

And maybe it was the lack of colour on his face, or the bandages wrapped around his torso, his shoulder, his arms, holding him together like his body would fall apart without them.

I bit my lip, hearing my own breath trembling, faltering in my throat as I scanned over him over and over again, like I missed something every single time.

It took me a while to gain enough courage to step closer, to reach out to him, but eventually I dared to reach for his hand.

I felt my knees go weak at the lack of strength inside of it, his skin cool against mine.

"He's not in pain," Carrie said softly, placing a hand on my shoulder.

"What caused it?" I whispered, blinking so hard against the tears that burned in my eyes it sent flashes of white through my brain.

"It can be caused by many different reasons," she told me. "He's been without oxygen for a while. He lost a lot of blood."

"He was supposed to heal." The tension caught in my throat broke my voice.

Carrie's eyes snapped up, both alarmed and confused. "The bite mark on his arm..?"

I bit my lip, shook my head. "He's supposed to heal. It should have worked."

She swallowed down the questions shooting through her head, but she couldn't hide the shock from her face.

I couldn't bring myself to look away from Zach's unnaturally pale features, his skin so drained of colour his normally rosey cheeks were nothing but grim, his lips nearly blue.

"Is he going to be okay?"

She hesitated for what felt like a lifetime. "Right now the most important thing is that he's picking up on the medication well and he's stable."

"You didn't answer the question."

She shook her head. "We don't know," she admitted quietly. Then she stepped closer and I allowed her to pull me to her chest. "But what I do know is that he's a lot stronger than he looks right now."