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The intermittent memories slide through my mind, one after the other. Hands poking and prodding, nurses and doctors talking to me.

Dylan’s occasional visits.

A hand squeezing too hard. That frightening edge to his voice.

The threat always hanging in the air.

I’ve clung to the fog, knowing that I’m safe there.

Safe here.

And now?

“Lasting damage?” Dylan snaps. “She’s been in a coma for weeks now. That’s nothing if not lasting.”

The doctor sighs. “I know it’s not the news you want to hear, but we’ve done all we can for her here. Now the fight is up to her.”

“That’s bullshit.”

“I have several great recommendations for facilities, and they’ll be able to focus on what she needs when she wakes up—memory care, physical therapy, trauma counseling?—”

“Trauma?” he snaps.

There’s a long pause, and I’m not so deep as to miss the thread of disapproval in the air. “Waking from this type of condition often brings many complications.”

“Well, be that as it may, I’m not dumping her in a facility.” They’re the right words, but the wrong tone.

Even in my fuzzy state, I recognize that.

The doctor seems to as well. “It wouldn’t be dumping,” she says cooly. “It would be getting your fiancée the care she needs in the place that’s best suited to her recovery.”

“The place,” Dylan grits out, “that’s best suited to her recovery isn’t a rehab facility. It’s our house.”

“I don’t think?—”

The sharp edges of his words have softened, gentled, gone charming.

My stomach twists, the monitor’s beeping speeds.

I know that tone, know the coaxing words will be impossible to resist.

I know because I’ve been cajoled and charmed and coaxed into staying, into giving, into bending when I should have gone, should have taken, should have stood straight.

“She’ll be where she’s most comfortable,” he tells the doctor. “Surrounded by her belongings, by the scents and sounds of our home. She’ll know she’s safe and maybe that will help her come back to me.” He sighs and I can practically picture the hangdog expression. The same one that’s kept me tied to this man for far too long. “Because I need her to come back to me. I miss her so much.”

The silence stretches.

Then the doctor sighs and my stomach begins to churn, the beeping on my monitor speeds again.

Because I know what that means.

There’s tapping, as though she’s dismissing the monitor’s alarms. “It sounds as though she misses you too.” The doctor’s voice gentles. “Every time you talk, her pulse increases.”

In fear.

In horror.

In desperation.