"Your injuries were superficial, we just had you in an induced coma in order to. assess if you'd sustained any brain damage, but from the looks of your scans, you're good as can be expected. You'll be released this afternoon."
Thank god.
I had been stuck in the stuffy hospital room for a day and a half, and while I was unconscious for most of that time, I was still driving myself insane with needing to get out.
Reed, Lucas, and Lydia's parents had all come to visit, and Amalia had even FaceTimed to make sure I was healing up okay.
The police came by and took my statement, and when I told Lydia who had hurt me, she sighed in relief, but then panic overtook her features once more. I didn't get a chance to talk to her about it in great detail, though, because we were never alone with constant doctors, nurses, and policemen, not to mention officials from my team coming to assess my condition to make sure I'd be in good shape to start football camp the next month.
Lydia had been amazing- holding my water up to my mouth with a straw, doting on me hand and foot, and even though she didn't have to do all of those things, the fact that she cared enough to do so warmed my heart more towards her, if that was even possible.
I'd been ring shopping a few days prior, but I hadn't pulled the trigger on it yet, but the minute Lydia left to go and speak to her school I called the sales associate at the store and set up a time for my manager's assistant to go and pick it up.
I was done waiting.
She was the love of my love, and I never imagined our lives becoming any less complicated than they were in that moment, but that didn't change the fact that I wanted to marry her, more than I had wanted to join the NFL, more than I had wanted to exceed my 'parents' expectations of what I had become...
The harsh fluorescent lights twitched and flickered as my nurse, Jane, came in to take my blood pressure and temperature.
"Can you ask my girlfriend if she can come back inside?"
Her brown eyebrows pulled together on her forehead, the nurse's confusion echoing across her dark features.
"Your girlfriend, Lydia? She actually just left, and in quite a hurry, too."
"What? Did she say where she was going," I asked, wondering if maybe she'd escaped to go and take a test that she was late for. I didn't jump to the worst conclusion, I couldn't do that. Not yet.
"No, but she looked pretty upset, I think I saw her crying. I thought you two had had a fight, actually," she responded, concern etched onto her face as she had come to know me in the short time I'd been under her care.
"Thanks for letting me know," I told her as I reached for my phone on the swiveling side table by the hospital bed, the IV cords still dangling from my elbow and getting caught in different wires.
I cursed as I struggled with the hospital gear until finally I swiped my phone open to a brand new text from Lydia. At first I was relieved, until I saw its contents.
Lydia: I love you so much, I just needed you to know that. I have to do something, for you and for us, and I guess for me too. Please don't hate me, no matter what the outcome is. I couldn't live happily with you knowing about this shadow hanging over our heads, please know that I'm not doing this to hurt you. You are everything I've ever wanted, and maybe I could've even lived forever with you, but not with him still out there haunting us. Please forgive me.
"Jane?"
The nurse popped her head back into my hospital room, her eyes already widening as she noticed me trying to extract myself from the bed with my still sore muscles protesting every bit of the way.
"I'm not being discharged this afternoon. I'm leaving now."
I shivered as the cool Boston air slapped into my previously warmed skin, the frigidity of the atmosphere swirling with my exhalations as I stepped up my pace to make it to my ride share on time.
The detectives wanted me to meet them at the police station, as their bait trap had worked.
I'd given them full access to my social media accounts, and the messages that they'd sent to Christian had worked. He finally messaged back.
He believed that it was really me and that I wanted to meet up with him in person, under the guise of asking him to leave me and my friends/family alone.
What he didn't know was the army of policemen and detectives and SWAT teams that would be after him when he finally did show up.
If he showed up...
I didn't want to think that way- I couldn't. He'd show.
The dimly lit police station smelled of light mildew and water stains decorated the ceilings and drab walls, the paint peeling in more places than it covered.
Everything was foggy, the detective's voices meshing with the roaring of panic and terror behind my ears.
I clung to the hope that once this was over that I could go back to living my normal life, that Christian couldn't terrorize anyone else ever again once I did this.
I'd do it for me, for Emmett, for Amalia, for every woman that was in trouble if he was out and roaming free, not to mention anyone that might stand in his way.
"Lydia? Are you alright? You sure you want to go through with this?"
My phone began ringing continuously, the texts coming in at a ferocious pace. Of course Emmett would be trying to get a hold of me to try and get to me before I did something stupid.
This wasn't stupid- I was working with the police, I was doing this at their behest. This was for him, for our happily ever after, the final obstacle to the finish line, and I wasn't going to let anything stand in the way of that.
I turned off my phone and gave the detective in front of me a grim smile.
"I'm ready."
Detective Ryan, Melissa as she preferred me to call her, went over the plan over and over again, and I remembered myself nodding but I couldn't really hear the words she was saying until the third and fourth times, when she made me repeat myself.
"I won't glance to where I know you'll all be, because that will make him suspicious."
"Good. And we'll be in your ear the entire time, and you'll have the vest on, so you won't be in immediate danger, and considering his personal attachment to you, we don't think he'd try to hurt you in that way, he would probably try to take you with him if anything, but remember once he makes his move and we have him surrounded, we will take over. All you really have to do is lure him in and get him talking, get him distracted."
Her light brown hair shone in the dim and yellow lights of the police station and I remembered how Amalia's hair had looked that night in the police station back in Texas, after Raphael.
I remembered the defeated and disgusted look in her eyes, the shame that she felt towards herself.
I remembered glancing at my own dull and lifeless hair in the mirror at home, trying to bring some life back into it after what Christian had done to me, how it had lost its luster after Nate, too.
This woman in front of me, this strong detective, maybe she'd had her light stolen from her once before which was why she was in the business of helping victims. Did my appearance give away my brokenness, slowly repaired by time and therapy and the love of someone who didn't know the effect he had on me?
I wasn't sure of those questions, but I knew that I had the chance to put away my abuser, and countless other girls' abuser, for good.
And suddenly we were standing and she was leading me forward, her long brown auburn hair swept to her side.
They had me take my jacket off and taped a wire to my chest as I pulled the neckline down and she allowed me to rope the wire through my shirt myself, and then a clear ear piece was given to me to insert into my ear.
"Can you hear this?"
Her voice came through loud and clear.
I had to take off my over shirt in order to slide the vest over my tank top. The male detectives and policemen left the room for this.
"Detective Ryan?"
"Please, call me Melissa."
I smiled timidly at her request.
"Melissa...thank you for this."
She must have sensed the weariness and determination quarreling in my tone.
"You don't have to thank me. You need to thank yourself."
And then her dark brown eyes widened as something came through her walkie talkie positioned on her hip.
Withdrawing it, she spoke into it and then suddenly it was time to go. I threw on my puffer jacket after placing my shirt over my tank top and bullet proof vest and suddenly felt like the lamb sent off to slaughter, my heartbeat pounding behind my eardrums.
"This is common right? Like you guys do this kind of thing all the time?"
My voice was shaking with fear, and it was almost like Melissa could smell the terror I exuded, my body shaking of its own accord, and not from the cold air we had just stepped out into.
She guided me to my car and I was to drive to the location agreed upon while they followed at a safe distance. I wasn't supposed to get out of my car until I saw the first white van pull into the parking spot nearby.
He'd chosen a public strip mall, nearest to the alley way. He wanted to meet in an alley, typical. At least it was almost midday.
"Everything's going to be fine. I'll be in your ear, remember?"
She squeezed my shoulder and then I was in my car and driving to the agreed upon location.
Here goes nothing.
Author's Note:
This book series is almost over! Two books and my wrists hurt from typing!
That said, however, I have something in store for all of you- I have a NEW BOOK coming out in FEBRUARY!
I'm taking all of December and January to write and the first 25 chapters will be going up the first of February, with daily updates after the first 25 are posted!
I'll post sneak peak chapters leading up to the release!! I can't wait for everyone to read it!
Without further ado...Afterglow!
Description:
An Enemies to Lovers Romance:
When Kate is forced to move back home to the boarding school she despised only to be confronted by the school's infamous bad boy and childhood crush, she is quickly reminded of the reasons she wanted to leave so desperately in the first place- her boyfriend stealing sister being one of those reasons.
Faced with being the center of attention by said teasing bad boy and self proclaimed arch nemesis, Lachlan Brooks, Kate finds herself put in multiple precarious positions with Lachlan and faces questions about their quick changing relationship.
Tortured with past family secrets and the question of her parentage and the danger that accompanies that knowledge, Kate is more elusive than ever, and this blooming romance between her and a boy who used to make her life a living hell isn't helping with her confusion.
Can she push past the reservations she holds against Lachlan and truly let him into her heart, or will they be forever stained by the afterglow of the traumatic past and damage that no one ever thought to repair?
Aesthetic: