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“Miss, can you tell me what hurts?”

An older man replaces the light, his face crowding over me. His image is blurry, but I can make out tufts of gray hair, a bushy mustache, and pale blue eyes.

I part my lips, but my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth.

Jesus, what did they inject me with? Whatever it was, it’s making me disoriented and dizzy.

“I know you’re in a lot of pain right now, but I need you to tell me what hurts.”

Everything. Everything fucking hurts.

“My… shoulder,” I croak out finally. “My head.”

“Anywhere else? Your chest or stomach?”

“Back,” I gasp, remembering once more being dragged out of my car. My back feels as if it’s been shredded with a cheese grater.

“That all?” he presses.

I nod my head, the incessant questions exhausting. A million other places hurt, too, but my energy is depleted, and I’m so very tired.

“I’m going to put you under anesthesia and get you fixed up, okay?”

Clarity surfaces over my surroundings, and the man’s facial features sharpen. Along with another man standing behind him, who’s shifting on his feet and watching us.

Time to go to sleep, princess.

Dark bottomless eyes and a wicked grin—Rio. He’s the one who had dragged me out of the car. Flashes of that conversation elude me, but I know there was more to it. I can’t think past the relentless pounding in my skull.

Just as my eyes were beginning to focus, my vision blurs once more, and my eyelids grow heavy. I can’t fight the deep pull to just close my eyes.

I don’t want to fight it. Not when it’ll take me away from the pain.

Addie, baby, I need you to fight for me, okay? I need you to survive until I get to you.

“How badly is she damaged?”

The question stirs me out of the endless pit I’ve been drifting in, where only an illusion of Zade’s voice lives. It’s not real—his voice isn’t actually there. But it feels so real. So soothing, that I fight to stay where I can hear him.

“How badly do you think? You ran her off the road.”

Alongside the angry response is a swell of dull pain pulsing throughout my body. I hear a sigh, and then the older man continues.

“She’ll have a few scars along her back from the glass. You’re lucky they were fairly clean, so the scarring won’t be too terrible.”

“That’ll decrease her value,” a voice mutters, too low to discern who said it.

“Shut the fuck up, you’re getting paid regardless. The fuck you care for?”

“Uh, maybe because your dumbass mistake is risking my life? Jesus, Rio, I knew she was banged up but not this bad.”

Whatever Rio was going to say, it’s cut off by the unfamiliar voice—the one who must be the doctor.

“

She has thirty stitches between the two larger lacerations because she was dragged across sharp metal and glass. You couldn’t have expected that not to cause permanent damage,” he says, clearly taking Rio’s companion’s side.

“Goddammit, Rio. You do realize that might be coming out of my fucking pocket, right? I asked for your help, not for you to fuck it all up for me.”