8. Resa

Chapter 8

Resa

T he dark-haired woman who slips into the room after knocking softly is slim, in her early thirties, wearing a deep blue sweater that almost matches her eyes, black jeans and white tennis shoes. No doctor's coat anywhere.

I let out an inaudible sigh of relief.

"Hi Resa, I'm Sadie." She aims a warm smile at me.

"Not doctor?" I ask.

She shakes her head and lifts her black leather bag. "Not tonight. Tonight, I'm just Sadie, who wants to see if I can help. I brought some supplies. I hope you don't mind?"

Vaughn hinted she might have a problem with my newly awakened stabby tendencies. Vaughn wasn't being honest because she doesn't give the knife I'm gripping more than a passing glance. She's too busy frowning at the small pile of glass fragments on the bedside table.

Vaughn, hovering just outside the room, flashes me a grin before Sadie nudges the door closed.

"What kind of supplies?" I ask.

Hopefully not the drug kind.

"Supplies to deal with your cuts. I had hoped Vaughn was joking when he said he was picking glass out of your feet, but he wasn't, was he?" She lets out a tired sigh and crosses over to me, placing the bag on the floor beside my chair.

My muscles tense at a stranger so close, and I have to exert all my effort not to pull away.

"Please tell me he wasn't doing it with one of his knives?" she says, riffling through her bag.

One of his knives? How many does the guy have?

"No. He had a torch and a pair of tweezers he dipped in alcohol."

She briefly closes her eyes, massaging her brow as she mutters something under her breath. It sounds suspiciously like the sort of curse I hadn't expected a doctor would even know, much less use.

"What did you say?" I ask.

She shakes her head. "You don't want to know. Can I take a look?"

Nothing is making me think she's here for any other reason than to give medical treatment, so I nod.

Sadie snaps her gloves on and sets to work peeling the gauze off so she can examine the soles of my feet. She hums, pulling a magnifying glass from her bag to continue her task. First my right foot, then my left, gets a thorough inspection.

"What is it?"

She says quietly, "He did a good job. Never tell him I told you that or he will do it again. This had to have hurt."

"It was okay," I lie.

She sighs. "It absolutely was not okay for you to go through pain we could have avoided." Then she sighs again. "It looks like he got all the glass out. I can clean the wound and put a dressing on it. Please try not to get it wet tonight. The longer you stay off your feet, the faster it will heal."

That's a problem.

Staying off my feet means staying still, and staying still means staying put.

In a house with alphas.

"I'll do that," I lie again.

"There might be some tiny slivers I can't see. The less you stay off your feet, the more chance they have to work themselves out." She gives me a pointed look that makes me think I need to work on my lying face, then pulls a small bottle and a plastic sealed dressing from her bag. "This will sting a bit, but I need to clean it or it might get infected."

"Okay."

It does a hell of a lot more than sting, but I bite my lip instead of howling like I want to.

"Do I want to know how long you've been walking around with glass in your feet?" she asks.

Ah. She must have seen the dirty bucket of water Vaughn carried out as she slipped in.

I must have walked more in one day than I have in the two years I was a captive. "Probably not."

She mutters something else, and I almost smile at her potty mouth. "And if I ask you to please stay off it and let it heal…"

"You wouldn't like my answer," I say, since she didn't seem to believe me when I lied before.

I study her as she wraps my feet with gauze. There must be some personal history between Pack Lucas and this doctor for her to rush here in the middle of the night. She doesn't look exhausted, but she's definitely tired.

"Is this a regular thing, then?" I ask. "You making late night home visits like this?"

Maybe I'm the tired one. I make it sound like she's stopping in for a booty call instead of to administer first aid.

"I've worked with Lucas Security for several years now. They usually bring patients to me, but when they call, I will drop what I'm doing and come as soon as I can. They do good work here." Sadie finishes a task that hurts almost as much as Vaughn pulling glass from my feet and looks at me. "If you don't think it's safe here, I can assure you that you are. No one will hurt you."

I want to ask her how much they paid her to give me that speech. For them to live in a mansion must have a lot of money, probably as much as the alphas who treated me like a piece of meat.

"What kind of work do they do?" I ask instead.

I don't trust her, but I could learn something important. If she says anything alarming, I'll be out of the window at the first opportunity.

"You should ask them. I'm sure they'd be happy to explain," she suggests.

I've spent the last two years learning I cannot trust a single person around me. This doctor seems nice, but is she really? And my falling in with supposedly the best security in the city. Was that just coincidence or a set-up?

"Vaughn said they do some work for the Council." He told me no such thing. But I watch her closely. Will she tell me what I want to hear, or will she tell me the truth?

Her smooth forehead wrinkles. "Really? I hadn't thought they did. I just know about some of the personal security they do, like surveillance and finding missing people."

Missing people… okay, so that confirms what Garrison was saying before about Everleigh asking them to find me.

She didn't step into my trap. Time to try something else.

Before I can test her some other way, she rises. "Garrison mentioned you were pregnant. I could do a more detailed examination at my private clinic, but if you want to lie down, I can give you a quick one here."

Everything in me rebels at the idea.

I would tell her to get out, but this is for my baby. I know I haven't been pregnant long in the grand scheme of things, but every day since I first discovered I was pregnant, I've been getting more and more attached to this life growing inside me.

The first part of making this world into one I'd want my baby to grow up in is ensuring they survive to see it.

I get up and hobble over to the bed, sitting on the edge. Maybe the fact I no longer have shards of glass in my foot is why the pain levels have reduced so much. I glance at the tiny pile of colored glass on the bedside table, and struggle to believe shards so small could cause so much agony.

"I'll start with a basic examination, okay? Your pupil response, heartbeat, temperature. Nothing scary. Then I'll need you to lie down so I feel your bump and lift your dress to check for any sign of bruising. How does that sound?"

Not as terrible as I thought. "Fine."

She shines a light into my eyes, briefly blinding me, then moves on to checking my pressure with a blue inflatable wrap she ties around my arm.

"Everything looks good. Your pressure is a little on the high side."

"It's been a stressful day." I recall my suicidal leap. "More so than usual."

She sets her stethoscope aside and lifts her hands over my belly. "Time to check on the baby now. Are you okay with lying down for this part?"

This isn't the first or even fifth time she's dealt with a wary, trying really hard to hide it anxious patient. She speaks gently, but confidently, as if she knows what to say and, more importantly, what not to say.

"Do you know how far along you are?" she asks once I'm flat on my back.

I don't know. But I should. Don't all women know?

Embarrassed, I lie. "Uh, three months."

Maybe.

Sadie nods, continuing her examination. She says nothing about my bruises on my arms, legs, or on my inner thighs. She doesn't ask why I'm suddenly so tense, but she must know—or at least suspect—how those bruises came about if she's a doctor.

The checkup is over in under ten minutes. If I'd known it would be as straightforward as this, I might not have fought so hard against seeing her.

Finished with her examination, she takes a step back, smiling. "All done."

I slowly sit up. "Everything is okay?"

"As well as it can be. I would like to get you to my clinic and do a scan." I open my mouth to complain. "But I won't push, so I'll leave you my card. You're in good hands here. If you want to talk or have that scan, give me a call and we can do that. In the meantime, I can get some prenatal vitamins delivered here and when you're ready, seeing someone for a prenatal checkup if you'd like?"

For the longest time, I'm not sure what to say. I'm used to being pulled and pushed. But choice ?

I clear my throat, unsure what to say about the reminder that for the entire time I've been pregnant—however long that's been—I haven't taken one vitamin or even thought of it.

There's no blame or judgment, just a genuine offer of something I should have been taking all along.

I don't know what to do with that kindness.

Swallowing the spiky ball lodged in my throat, I wait until I'm no longer so close to tears. "Thank you for coming to see me."

"Happy to." She smiles. "The prenatal vitamins are safe for most women, but any allergies I should know about?"

I shake my head. "Nothing."

"I can have some pregnancy materials sent over as well, if you'd like?" she softly offers. "Might help to answer any questions you have."

The thought of preparing to have a baby, of reading about it, of not knowing I will even survive Nathaniel Lang long enough to do any of the above is like a fist squeezing my heart.

"That's okay," Sadie reassures, confirming that I need to work harder at hiding my emotions. "We can talk about it later when you've had time to recover from your stressful day. No rush to get to everything all at once."

There it is. More proof she's used to dealing with women seconds away from a panic attack.

Sadie pulls a white card from her back pocket. "I'll leave my card here. Anyone can bring you to me whenever you want. Even if it's just to talk."

She places the card on the dresser, gives me a small smile, and walks out.

As I wait for the door to close, I breathe through the overwhelming sense someone is standing on my chest.

I won't shatter.

I refuse to shatter.

"You're okay," I whisper. "No need to freak out now. Everything is fine."

Perched on the edge of the bed, I bend over, tucking my head between my knees as I suck in long deep breaths that don't help even a little.

I'm shaking as a cold chill invades my body, and the sound of Rupert's head cracking like an egg is back to playing on repeat in my mind.

You're okay. No need to panic. You're fine.

But I still can't breathe.