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“She’s waking up, Joel. Sloan? Baby, it’s Mom. Open your eyes now, sweetie. Sloan, my baby, open your eyes.”
She blinked. It took such effort and, since everything blurred, didn’t seem worth it. She started to close her eyes again.
“Come on now. Give my hand a squeeze and open your eyes. There you are.”
She felt her mother’s lips press to the back of her hand, her palm, her fingers.
“There’s my girl.”
“Hospital,” she managed. Her throat felt sandpapered, her tongue as thick and dry as a plank.
“That’s right, and you’re going to be fine. Just fine.”
And it came rushing back. The mini-mart, the man at the counter. The explosion of pain.
“Shot!” She tried to push up, barely managed to move her head. “Joel.”
“Right here, sis.”
She saw them now as her vision cleared. Her mother, ghost pale, blue eyes shadowed and red-rimmed, and her partner, looking worn to the bone.
“How bad?”
“Not bad enough to stop you.” He bent down, kissed the top of her mother’s head as he closed a hand around Sloan’s. “I’ll get the doctor.”
“Everything’s going to be fine now.” Elsie Cooper kissed her daughter’s hand again. Tears, two warm raindrops, spilled on Sloan’s knuckles. “Your dad and Drea are close by. We’ve been taking shifts.”
“How long? How long?”
“You’ve been sleeping awhile, and healing. This is day three. They put you in a coma at first so you could just sleep. And here you are waking up. Baby? You feel this button?” She guided Sloan’s hand. “If it hurts, you can press this button for medicine.”
“Okay. I feel… mushy.”
A tear slid down Elsie’s cheek as she smiled. “I bet you do. Here’s the nurse. This is Angie. She’s been really good to you. To all of us.”
“Glad to see you awake.”
The nurse wore her gray-streaked black hair in a bob and had red flowers over the pale blue of her scrubs. Sloan judged her at about forty, and felt a trickle of relief when she noted the woman’s brown eyes smiled along with her lips.
“Dr. Vincenti will come in shortly. Elsie, Joel, why don’t you give me a few minutes to look after Sloan?”
“We’ll be right outside,” Elsie promised her.
“How bad?” Sloan asked the minute the door shut. “How bad am I hurt?”
Angie checked the IVs, the monitors, then Sloan’s pulse by hand.
“Joel said you’d want it straight, so I’ll tell you it was bad. And now it’s better. You’re going to make a full recovery, and you’ll have to stop yourself from pushing that. Dr. Vincenti and the surgical team? You don’t get much better.”
“I died.”
“You’re very much alive.” Angie held a cup with a straw to Sloan’s lips. “Sip some water.”
Because the thirst raged, Sloan obeyed. “On the operating table, I died. They had to bring me back.”
Angie set the cup aside, then took Sloan’s hand. “You had an experience?”
“Did I? They zapped me, didn’t they? My heart stopped and they zapped me. I think three times.”