Morgan Sinclair
Half muffled voices yelling over each other pull me from unconsciousness. I open my eyes to the ceiling of what I believe was a truck. I wearily glance around me; Kellan, Chloe, Victoria, Dane, and even Grayson all arguing with each other not aware that I'm awake. Victoria sat near my feet, her hands pinched the bridge of her nose as she took a deep breath to begin arguing again. Chloe holds my hand but she's turned to face everyone. Dane has one hand on my shoulder wound pressing down with a piece of clothing. I notice his free hand is- what the fuck?
"Ahh!"
"Dane will you stop screaming?" Grayson complains.
"I'm sorry is the sage laced bullet stuck in my ribs inconvenient for you?"Oh he's digging around in his body.
"Look we were dealing with the hunters in the lounge!" Kellan continuing the previous conversation from the drivers seat. "We had no clue where she was."
I hear some concerning noises, "Ah! Got it." Dane says then the metal clatter's across the floor of the truck. "Only the people in this truck and Aurelia know, so what the fuck?" He pants.
"No one had eyes on her?" Victoria questions.
"You knew where she was." Dane says at Grayson, gritting through his pain.
Victoria shoots Grayson a quick glare who sat in the passenger seat. "What do you mean?" She turns back to Dane.
"Chlo said she was on the top floor outside the bathroom. She was probably the one he was fucking in the bathroom stall." Dane replies leaving silence in the wake of his statement.
"I didn't know it was her." Grayson admits from the passenger seat.
"You were having sex with her?!" Chloe exclaims.
"I. Did. Not. Know. It. Was. Her. She said her name was Avery and the gunshots went off before we could do anything." He explains.
"Oh that helps." Chloe says.
"Maybe if you answered texts or paid even the slightest bit of attention, you would've known and this whole thing wouldn't be fucked!" Dane screams at Grayson.
"This is fucked because somehow hunters found out about her!" Grayson shouts back.
"Right, and it's even more fucked because you can't keep it in your pants." Victoria says.
We stop at a light, with the street lights shedding some light in the truck I could get a look at everyone. Every last one of them, splattered with blood and wounds all over and yet they were more concerned with everything but. They resume yelling, all their voices muffling together.
"What is happening? Who were they?" Is what I wanted to say but what actually came out was a string of unintelligible mumbles.
"She's awake!" Chloe announces to the group, "You're going to be alright Morgan." She says with a soft smile on her face.
I wasn't too sure about that, memories of what had just transpired flooded back. I remember the guy I was getting with, Spencer, no- Grayson. I remember the gun shots- I was shot. I was thrown off a balcony. Holy shit I was shot and thrown off a balcony.
I can't feel anything. I don't feel any pain. I most definitely should. Why don't I feel any pain? Why can't I feel anything?
Panic floods my veins. The way everyone around me is looking at me, I could imagine that my panic is very visible. I attempt to move- sit up, run, fight, literally do anything, but I got nothing. I was screaming at myself to move but my body wasn't listening to me. I could only manage to lift my head.
"No, Morgan you have to relax." Victoria says as more of a command and less as a comforting suggestion.
I see her hand on my leg but I can't feel her hand on my leg. Chloe with her hand in mine- Fuck I can't feel that either. Danes hands applying pressure on the gunshot wound on my shoulder- Why can I not feel this?
"We got you, you're gonna be fine." Dane says.
I can't feel anything. My breathing speeds up. Oh god I can't feel anything. I frantically look around the truck at the people around me, while I try so hard to force my body to move and control my breathing. Everything went black again.
*****
Waking up in a random bed in a random place, unable to move, knowing you've been shot, and flung off a balcony, isn't the most calming way to wake up. I can see the white thick comforter draped over my legs and yet I can barely feel it. It's as though a ghost of a blanket lays there just slightly touching me.
The IV I just registered in my arm with what I assume to be blood adds to the growing list of concerns. I want to panic but I don't know what to panic about first. I look down at the sweatpants and plain t shirt I'm wearing, which is definitely not the dress I went out in.
Chloe walks in, no longer covered in blood, nor does she have any remnants of any cuts or bruises that should have been on her face. Along with her hair which is blood free- returned to its default shininess and her spotless sweatsuit and lack of any kind of limp or any indication that she was just attacked brings me great worry.
How long have I been out?
"They're mine, I tried to pick the most comfortable stuff I owned." She must've caught me looking at the clothes I'm in a few moments prior. "How do you feel?" She stands at the end of the bed, gripping her own arm.
"What is this?" I rasp. Shit that hurt.
She scrunches her face for a moment. "We'll explain everything after you recover. Can you move yet?"
"No." I say monotonously trying to hide the fact that I just gave my all to try to move literally any part of my body and only getting my fingers to twitch. I glance over at the IV pole, "Did I lose that much blood?"
She shakes her head. "This is gonna help to start wearing off the effects of the..." She pauses for a moment. "Those drugs. It's gonna feel really weird for a bit but it'll all be fine."
"You're detoxing me?" I say, "From what? What do you mean drugs?"
"I mean your... syringe thingys."
I think my eye just twitched. "You mean my insulin?" I ask on alert, pushing through the pain of speaking right now. "The thing I need to live?"
She looks down at the floor briefly. "We'll explain later."
"No, what are you talking about?" I say intending to sit up but instead my head only lifts a little bit.
"We'll all talk later. That IV should help. You should regain feeling in your body soon." She says visibly in a hurry to get out of the room.
"Wait!" I call out, the higher tone of voice really hurt my throat. I forgot I was strangled too. Fantastic.
Chloe stopped in her tracks and turned to me, with sympathetic eyes. I feel tears prick behind my eyes as I ask, "Why can't I feel my body?"
Chloe shuffles back over to me and sits down on the edge of the bed. "Your spine is broken." She mutters.
"What?" My cheeks drain of any color.
"It shouldn't be for much longer now that you're awake, give it another hour or so." She says optimistically, almost casually as if breaking your spine, being paralyzed, and healing in an hour, is all normal stuff.
I take my bottom lip in between my teeth and bite down on it then I ask, "Where am I?" Trying to brush over the fact that my spines broken because if I focus on it too long I'll start crying crying and I don't want to do that in front of another person.
"Tennessee."
I take a shaky breath forcing down tears yet again. Why the fuck am I in Tennessee? What do I do with that? What can I do with that? I literally can't move. "How long was I out?" I continue asking trying to distract myself from my own thoughts.
"Three days." She says biting the inside of her cheek.
I examine her woundless body again, "Three but you're..." I stop that train of thought because a new even more worrying thought crossed my mind. "My parents." My heart thunders in my chest. "I have to call them, they're probably worried."
"Not gonna happen sorry." An apathetic accented woman's voice said from over towards the door. Victoria stands arms crossed in the doorway, also strangely free of any wounds or cuts.
"Well, what about a quick phone call or a text maybe?" Chloe asks.
"No." Victoria states.
"I have to." I say.
"No one can know where you are right now." Victoria says and I don't think I've heard a more alarming sentence. My brow creases. "I know. I don't like Tennessee either."
Am I being kidnapped by my roommates? "Did you all kidnap me?"
"No." Chloe says quickly.
"Kind of." Victoria says over Chloe.
Chloe whips her head around to glare at Victoria who just shrugs at her. "You're not being kidnapped." Chloe turns back to me, "We're trying to protect you so we can't really risk you letting people know where you are."
I clear my throat a bit. "Protect me from what?" I ask attempting to keep the strain out of my voice while I want and need to get up out of this bed and run. Nothing but a twitch of my fingers. I can't explain how frustrating it is to have your body not listen to you, even when you're asking it to do the simplest thing.
"We'll explain all that later just... focus on un-paralyzing yourself." Victoria says. "I'll be back in a couple of hours."
Chloe gives Victoria a knowing look before she walks away. "She has to take care of something."
"What?"
"Her nobles- it's a long story. She'll be back fairly quickly, she has a private plane." Chloe says with a smile. I nod because of course Victoria has a private plane and whatever nobles are? "Relax for a bit, you're gonna be fine. I promise you're not being held hostage and I promise we will explain everything once you're okay. Okay?" Chloe says standing up and slowly backing towards the door.
"Okay." I apprehensively say. She walks out of the door with haste.
I laid in silence, unsure what to think. What do you do in a situation like this? My spines broken and I'm paralyzed but I'm gonna be just fine and dandy in about an hour? I have two roommates that I'm pretty sure I saw kill people last night. Victoria with her teeth? Those two said roommates also may have, slightly, kind of kidnapped me and seem to have some sort of super healing because I swear they had cuts and wounds on them that night. Granted, I was not fully coherent so maybe I was hallucinating it but I don't know. I don't know anything anymore.
Chloe was right, about an hour and a half passed and I started feeling pins and needles in my hands and feet then it slowly spread to the rest of my body. I ended up unintentionally falling asleep for a couple of hours. After I woke up I was able to move but my back hurt like a bitch, as did my head and my shoulder. I sit up on the bed confused as all hell and remove the nearly empty IV from my arm. It's supposedly detoxing me from my insulin injections but it's blood? They're terrible kidnappers if they're just going to kill me right away.
I think it's also making me groggy because I feel absolutely wiped.
"You shouldn't do that." Kellan says leaning on the doorframe. Oh he's here too. I'd like to say that I wasn't the tiniest bit happy to see him but I was. I really shouldn't be, he's participating in my kidnapping.
"No, I think it's exactly what I should do." I respond groaning as I try to stand up on the side of the bed.
I almost dropped to the floor before Kellan basically appeared in front of me to catch me before I fell. I guess my legs are still fucked. There goes my attempt at escaping, I can't stand.
"Easy." he lifted me as if I was weightless, helping me back onto the bed. He sits down next to me with his hand on my back to keep my steady. "Wild night huh."
"No, that was an average night out for me."
Kellan chuckles, "How are you feeling?"
"I wanna call 911 but I don't have a phone and I'm exhausted."
"Also your legs don't really work." He adds keeping those gentle emerald eyes on me, giving me some kind of feeling of ease- even if it was only a whisper of a feeling.
"Yeah thanks." I say rubbing my face. "I just wanna know what's going on."
"As soon as you're completely recovered we'll-"
"Enough with that. Please just tell me what the fuck is going on?" I insist. "Why are we in Tennessee? How are you all fine and healed?- How am I not paralyzed? My spine was broke. Why did that guy know my name? Just..." I exhale trying to calm myself down. "I don't understand what's happening."
His mouth opened but nothing came out. He was holding his tongue, which annoyed the shit out of me. I went to say something but before I could he stood up and faced me.
He held out his hand for me to take. "Come on."