Chapter 19

Chapter

Nineteen

GRACE

T he world was hazy when my eyes opened again. Hazy, dark, and unfamiliar. It took two blinks before I jerked my eyes wide open. Where was I?

I tried to sit up, but a sharp pain in my back had me gasping for air. It was like someone had slammed a knife into the middle of my back or I’d swallowed something too hot and it scalded down my back as it went through my esophagus.

“Easy, Firecracker,” a sleepy voice wrapped around me, and vibrated beneath my ear. “You’re safe.”

A hand brushed over my hip, just a light caress and it was more unsettling than comforting. I scowled into the darkness and pushed upward again. I didn’t want to be lying down or lying with someone .

The man had chained me to a pallet at the foot of his bed. This was me in a bed with?—

My stomach bottomed out, but I managed to get myself up partially by wedging my hand against the bed. The man I’d been using as a pillow shifted beneath me.

“You need to be up?” All traces of drowsy left his voice. The fight to get up vanished as he sat us both up.

Pain raked right between my shoulder blades. It was so intense, I thought I would throw up. As it was, I hissed out a breath as words abandoned me totally.

“Breathe,” Voodoo said, the order penetrating the fog around my brain. “You tore open the wound where the doc took out the tracker.”

“That’s bad,” I managed to push the words out around the bubble of pain trapped in my throat.

“It could have been worse,” he said, in a voice filled with gentle kindness that seemed grounded in practicality. “The blood loss wasn’t ideal, but I got it cleaned out, the bleeding stopped, and resealed it.”

“That must be why it hurts like hell.” I hated complaining, but I was still sitting right there with his arm around me. Beads of sweat popped all over my face even as I shivered.

“How much pain are you in?” He moved behind me, then lifted me like I weighed nothing and shifted me to the edge of the bed as he rose. “Watch your eyes.”

I barely managed to close my eyes before the light came on. It seemed almost red from behind my eyelids. When I squinted them open, I found Voodoo crouched in front of me. The intensity in his dark eyes added another shiver to my trembling. I folded my arms trying to ward off the cold.

“It feels like someone is stabbing me,” I said. “Not that anyone ever has, but if it feels like there’s something ripping into me from my back and hitting so deep, I can almost taste it when I breathe. But I don’t want to breathe at the same time cause it makes it hurt more.”

“Well, that’s about what being stabbed feels like,” Voodoo said. “Usually after the blade comes out. Let me take a look, cause you’re flushed and shaking.”

I raised a hand to check it and it was definitely trembling. Then I looked down at my bare legs and the t-shirt I hadn’t been wearing before. It was far too large.

“I changed you.” He was all business as he rose and he grabbed something from his bag—a little travel toiletries bag maybe. He set it on the bed. “Need me to help you with that or can you lift it up?”

There was vulnerable and then there was on display. Nothing in his manner suggested lust or demand. It was a body. Everyone had one and plenty had seen me in far less.

Not usually in a hotel room—I guessed that was where we were—or when alone with a new captor.

“I don’t know,” I admitted. Those words were loathsome. “Do I need to take it all the way off?”

“It would be easier,” he said. “Here, roll onto your stomach and I’ll lift it in the back, then if we need to take it off, we can revisit.”

That seemed fair—reasonable even.

“Okay,” I said, around another hard breath and he helped me as I tried to turn. Pain seemed to sizzle along my nerves and it was hard to do anything that didn’t pull against my upper back.

Far more breathless than I wanted to admit, I pressed my face against the duvet of the bed. At least it smelled clean.

“Touching you now,” Voodoo warned. The glide of his warm fingers against my skin sent another shudder through me. The air was suddenly chillier against my skin and I swore I was sweating. “Yeah, okay. That’s not pretty.”

“I’ll have you know, that my ass is insured for close to a quarter of a million dollars. I think it’s a little more than pretty.”

“Quarter of a million, huh?” He placed the flat of his palm right over the center of the knife digging into my back. I was really missing that lidocaine shot. Or any shot really. “I think they weren’t going for full value there, Firecracker. But give me a minute and I’ll do a squeeze test. Maybe it’s a little jigglier than it looks.”

I laughed and it turned into a gasp. Oh fuck, that hurt.

“Sorry, Firecracker, I think it’s infected despite what I did. The rest of it is just how raw it is.”

“Do we have anything I can take? I promise, I’m not usually a wuss about pain, but this is bad.”

“You’re not a wuss at all. Stay here.”

The bed moved as he rose and I turned my head to track him. He didn’t go far, though he disappeared into the bathroom briefly. The sound of running water gave me some idea of what he was doing.

When he came back, he had a washcloth in his hand, with care he placed it on my back. It was too cold and not remotely cold enough at the same time. Then he went back to the toiletries kit.

I rubbed my cheek against the cover as he flipped the folded kit open. It was for first aid. Oh, that made more sense. He pulled out small vials and checked each one.

“Drugs?”

“Nothing that hardcore,” he said as almost an apology. “We don’t tend to travel with the heavy duty stuff and I’d rather have an actual physician handle the dosing.”

That made sense.

“So what are those?” Talking didn’t help with the ache or the cold, but it was distracting me some.

“Antibiotics,” he answered. “If that’s infected, the best thing to do is hit you with some broad spectrum, then give you some acetaminophen for the pain. Do you know if you’re allergic to anything?”

“Not that I know of,” I said. “I was lucky as a kid. Didn’t get sick that much.” We lost so much family to illness. It seemed almost cruel that they got so sick they ended up dying, while I was so healthy. “So I don’t think so.”

“Right—I have one epi-pen, so let’s go for not allergic. I’m going with this one—it’s a cephalosporin. I’m going with a half-dose, make sure you don’t have a reaction then we’ll do the rest.”

He was already drawing up the medicine with a kind of competency that helped me to relax. I wasn’t a huge fan of needles, but I wasn’t scared of them either.

When he had it ready, he glanced at me. “Probably better to do the injection in the soft tissue near your ass.” He was almost apologetic.

“Be careful, it’s very expensive. I wouldn’t want to void the warranty or anything.” It was a weak joke, but he offered up a quick smile to humor me.

“Do you mind if I do the squeeze test before the shot?” Just the barest hint of teasing underscored the words.

I snorted. “Better than doing it after—but thank you for asking.”

He winked, then ran a hand over my hip to my ass then gave one cheek a solid squeeze. Heat raced through me to combat the cold and it felt ridiculously good. Particularly because I watched his eyes the whole time. His expression was an open book of surprised enjoyment.

Then he was cleaning a spot just below the curve of my ass with an alcohol swab.

“Little prick,” he warned and then jabbed me.

“That’s what he said,” I muttered. The shot stung, but it didn’t hurt as much as I expected. It was done soon enough and he got rid of the supplies, then returned to the bed.

“Firecracker, if a man tells you he has a little prick. Believe him. Cause that ass deserves the best.”

I laughed again, the pain so sharp that it bloomed through my back like I’d set it on fire.

“Yeah, I saw that.”

“Not trying to hide it,” I told him around a series of shallow breaths.

He crouched again, then stroked the hair back from my face with care. “Tell me what I can do…”

A part of me just wanted to go to sleep and wake up at home with all of this as a distant memory from a half-forgotten nightmare. The rest of me was too well aware that the ship had long since sailed.

“I need to pee,” I admitted.

“You up for walking, once I get you on your feet, or do you want me to carry you in there?” Somehow, he managed to make the offer sound perfect and it didn’t make me self conscious at all.

“I’d like to try and walk.” I didn’t like not being able to move or breathe or do anything.

“You got it.” He rose and then I went from being on my stomach to my feet with such smoothness, I barely noticed the transition. He didn’t let me go immediately. “Good?”

I nodded slowly. “I think so.”

At my word, he released me but didn’t back off. It was weird, the men were all tall but more often I dealt with them while they were sitting. He seemed huge standing right next to me. Even bigger than when I was lying on the bed.

When he offered me his arm, I didn’t bother with pride, I just gripped his forearm so I could take a step. It was like I’d suddenly become weaker than a kitten. Still, he paced me all the way to the bathroom.

The lights were on already and it was a reasonable sized, standard hotel room bathroom. “Leave the door cracked,” he said. “I’ll be right out here if you need help.”

“Thank you,” I said, taking slower, even breaths to make pushing the words out not sound like an effort.

The corners of his mouth twitched, but I couldn’t evade the way he stared at me. It was like he could see right through to my bones and assessed every part of me.

In the bathroom, the cold tile on my bare feet was magnificent. The chill made the sweat seem much more intense even as another set of shivers went through me. Yeah, I felt so off and staring at myself in the mirror was like staring at a stranger.

My hair was a mess. Strands of it clung to my face, the rest of it disheveled. I looked like I’d been through the wringer. If Am saw me right now, she’d make me go to a hospital.

Then again, I’d be more than happy to go cause that would mean she was right here.

“Firecracker?” Voodoo called.

“Yeah, I’m going to pee. Sorry.” It took more effort than I cared to admit to tug down the panties and pee. When I finished, I gritted my teeth so I could wipe. Reaching of any kind was just painful, period.

After I flushed, I washed my hands, then my face. Then I used my fingers to try and straighten the mess of my hair. Then I ran out of every ounce of energy.

“Voodoo?”

He pushed the door inward before I even finished saying his name. He held my gaze in the mirror. “How we doing?”

“Terrible,” I admitted. “I want to shower but I don’t think I can.”

“I can help you.” The lack of any leering in the offer actually had me considering it. “Or you can rest for a few more hours and we can try then. Whatever you need, Firecracker.”

What did I need?