Page 79 of Forbidden Eyes

“I’m here, sorry. What do I do?”

“Stay with Carter. Go with him to the hospital. I’ll call Quinn and let him know. He’ll meet you at the hospital. Fia, don’t go anywhere until you’re with Quinn, understand? You stay at the hospital until he comes for you. And don’t talk to the police until Quinn is with you. He’ll take care of you.” Her voice holds the same serious note it had when we were saying goodbye, and I know she’ll do whatever she can to help me because that’s her job. “Did you shoot your father?” This question is soft, and I can hear the worry for both of us in it.

“I’m sorry. I love you.” I sob the words, not sure if they are for my mom, for what I did, or for Carter.

“I love you too, baby. We’ll get through this. I promise.”

Twenty-Three

Ifeel fingers on me.

My brow twitches, uncomfortable with the sensation. It’s painful, a deep slicing pain cutting through my ribs. And my head hurts. Why does my head hurt? I try to rub it, try to use the muscles in my arms to move, but it’s all aimless, like my body won’t cooperate. Black, then shadows and faint white flashes, all of them starting to increase in speed and ferocity. I can’t breathe, can’t take a breath. I’m shaking, something in my veins making me tremble and claw for breath. There’s something inside me, searching, reaching, pulling me and pushing me somewhere. An impact, rigid and weighty, knocks my head back.

Pain.

So much pain.

My shoulders push me back against it, my body trying to get away or attack.

Attack. Yes. Fight. Forward. Never run. My fists tighten, summoning the strength to protect something, someone. And then the blood flows, swimming and swarming through me to bring it all out. Teeth gritting, eyes focused and trying to see the threat through the haze of white and black eruptions. So fucking black. Got to get out, trapped. Held down.

“Fuck you,” I mutter, my hands trying to reach them. I’ll kill them, all of them. Whoever they are, wherever they are. “Stop.” But they don’t stop—the pain, the violence. It keeps coming until all I’ve got left is to kill. Feral. Savage.

Everything inside me explodes, fists and body driving into threat as if it will never stop. All of them dead. With my hands. No weapons. I snarl and focus some more, intent on seeing who is in the distortion. Eyes, that’s what I want. I need to look them down, show them who they’re playing with. I’m incensed, furious inside this fog. I shake my head, centring again, and lash out. At everything. Teeth bared and logic dismissed. Fucking hands—so many fucking hands on me.

I knock at them, spinning myself in their hold to get them the fuck off me, and connect my fist into something. The bellow that comes back makes me smile and try to find him in the dark, misty outlook again. More. My hands wave them in, all of them, until a sound disrupts my thoughts and makes me wonder where the hell I am. A voice. Familiar. No, no one’s a friend here. Here is pain and aggression and hate.

“Fuck’s sake.”

Who was that?

“Hold him down.”

Fuck that.

“Carter, calm down.”

Quinn?

Something happens in my brain, firing it into spin mode and sending the feeling of nausea reeling around me. A tunnel forms in my line of sight, still flashing whites and blacks and confusing me. And these damned hands won’t leave me the fuck alone. They’re smothering me. I swipe at them, unsure what the fuck is going down, and I fall. I’m falling, hands grabbing out at anything I can cling onto. Something, anything. Bile races through me, forcing its way up my guts until I’m heaving and retching. Gagging.

“Get it out.”

Quinn again.

I let the hands hold me this time, unable to fight them off, and heave again, hands braced on the floor. It all comes out, sending me delirious with the need to catch a damn breath, until I force myself back up under the hand and raise myself to my knees to breathe again.

“You’re okay. Calm down. Deep breaths.”

What the fuck just happened?

A body slides around me, warm hands solid on my face to wipe my hair back. “Carter?” I blink, trying to gain a line of sight. “You’re in the hospital. You’re okay. Calm the fuck down. Focus.”

Hospital?

I finally do and find Quinn looking at me, half his suit covered in vomit and the rest of it in a container at his side. My vomit.

He rubs his jaw, eyes like he's just been hit and is ready to kill for it.