Page 21 of Between Passion and Revenge, Part One (The Griot Chronicles #1)

Dr.Swanson gives me a sad smile. “With Rohypnol, the brain doesn’t encode those short-term memories. So no, it’s unlikely your memories will return.”

I nod slowly, forcing my brain to analyze every word in her answer—and try to accept them.

“You may remember bits and pieces,” she offers, still giving me her attention.

Bits and pieces. Like flashes of a raging storm.

Blood.

…and Storm.

“Yeah,” I reply with a small smile. “But it is what it is, right?”

Dr.Swanson pulls her lips in an approximation of a closed-lip smile.

Turning back to her computer, she taps at the keyboard in silence for a few more moments before scanning her badge and turning to me.

“Someone was looking out for you, Ms.Rivers. Things could have been a lot worse. I’ve seen a lot worse happen.” Her face goes dark. “Take care of yourself. I’ll make sure your discharge paperwork is prepared before you go home tomorrow.”

I nod, not able to say anything to her statement. She’s right. It could have been so much worse.

I was drugged. I was with Storm. We were attacked…Why does all of this feel like a bad Lifetime movie?

Because you know something’s not adding up.

Dr.Swanson exits my room, and I settle back into the pillows, allowing the bed to support me.

I put my hand on my stomach and breathe in and out to the count of four.

You’re okay, Shae. It could have been worse.

I allow my thoughts to drift to Storm—to why he’d save me and put himself on the line when he so clearly blew me off after The Incident. I mean, he obviously has a girlfriend.

I cannot and will not be the other woman.

Okay, delusional. He’s not asking you to be his other woman. He’s asking you to be nothing but a classmate.

For some reason, that thought causes tears to burn my eyes, and I breathe in sharply through my nose, trying to stave them off.

I don’t want to cry. It would be idiotic for me to cry over Storm Sandoval.

Even if he did save me.

A calm knock comes from the hospital room door, and I blow out a breath and wipe my face, preparing for my family’s return. But after I yell out, “Come in,” I’m stunned into silence when no other than Storm Sandoval stands in the doorway.

Neither of us speaks, and it’s like there’s a gulf of unsaid words between us. A gulf of… feelings.

Storm is the first to move, entering the room and closing the door behind him with a quiet snick.

I’m so flustered, I don’t fully register the massive bouquet of colorful flowers in his hands until he places them on the long table opposite my bed.

He adjusts the blooms in their vase, positioning them one way and then the other with his back to me, and I greedily take the moment to look at him.

I watch his back muscles flex in his crisp black polo paired with deep blue jeans.

I don’t know what those muscles are right above his bent elbows, but when they twitch with his movements, I want to drool at the sight. It’s then that I realize I must look a mess, and I don’t even know if anyone removed my makeup from last night.

I fumble, feeling my way around my hair, tucking loose strands behind my ears.

But then he turns, and everything settles. I fall into his moss-green gaze. He looks stressed, but just as put together as he usually is.

“How are you feeling?” His voice is soft, as if he doesn’t want to disturb the air with the question.

I begin to respond, but he shifts, and I zero in on the spasm in his jaw.

“Were you hurt?” I counter.

His face turns unreadable.

“Oh, god, you were hurt!”

His eyes shift to my left before flicking back to my face. “He got me in the side with a switchblade, but it was only a surface nick. It’s just a little sore.”

I cover my mouth. “Oh, god. I can’t believe this happened, Storm.” Those tears I was able to successfully stave off come back to the surface. “Can I see?”

As soon as the question is out of my mouth, I want to claw it back.

“You want to see my stab wound?” he asks, and when he gives me that smirk I didn’t know I missed so much, I find myself nodding.

With refined slowness, Storm covers the few steps needed to reach the side of my bed. Then, he takes the space Dr.Swanson vacated just a few minutes before.

I want to curl up close to him like a cat and bathe in the cologne clinging to his shirt, which is peak unhinged behavior.

I don’t know what to think. I want to come up with something to say, but I also want to withdraw.

Because this is a dangerous tightrope I’m on, and I know this can only end with me falling.

All my thoughts crash into the other when he begins to lift the side of his shirt, leaning away to showcase the long white bandage that goes from his armpit down to his hip.

I gasp again, and it’s an instinctual movement when I reach out to touch it.

“Oh, my god,” I say. I trace two fingers down the length of the injury. “Are you in a lot of pain?”

I’ve been staring at the bandage, but I snap my head up to look at his face when he makes a sound deep in his chest.

I freeze. Everything freezes. Because the look he’s giving me….

Stop. He’s not interested. He has a girlfriend.

I pull my hand back, and with snake-like quickness, he grabs my wrist. The action startles me, but then he gentles his hold. His thumb rubs back and forth on the delicate skin right above my pulse point.

“I’m not in any pain at all at the moment,” he murmurs.

I swallow.

We sit like that for a while, just breathing and staring at each other, when what to say next comes to me.

“Thank you.” I pull all my strength to deliver the words. Besides the slight spread of a small smile, he doesn’t change what he’s doing.

“Can you tell me what happened? I don’t…I don’t remember anything,” I whisper, and it’s like the words break the spell we’re under. He pulls back, and the grin falls from his face.

“You were in a cab, but we saw each other through the window when you were at a stoplight. I was at Noir,” he says. I nod along, but the statement doesn’t settle right in my brain. I saw him at Velour moments before I left. So how was he at Noir a few blocks down the road only minutes later?

“I asked you to leave the cab so I could drive you home,” he says.

“Why?” I respond. He’s silent for a moment.

“I didn’t like the look of the guy you were with,” is his answer. I absorb that, and he doubles down on the statement with a shrug. “Plus, you looked…off. It was clear you were beyond drunk ‘cause you weren’t making any sense.”

I grimace. I had maybe four drinks. Not nothing, but not nearly enough to be as intoxicated as I was.

“Okay,” I reply. “And then the other guy attacked?”

He nods somberly. “We were walking to my car when that guy came from nowhere. He tried to take me on.” He shrugs again, but then his face darkens. “Then he decided to go after you, and I wasn’t going to let that happen.”

The drop in his tone causes a rush of… something to go through me. Something I refuse to focus on too closely right now.

“Thank you, Storm,” I say. “Thank you for being there.”

At this moment, I decide I’m going to trust what he’s telling me. I will live in a space where I’m grateful for Storm Sandoval and his protection during what could have been a terrible time.

And I’m going to let this—all of this—go.

“What were you doing at Velour?”

My cheeks heat. I can’t exactly tell him I was in search of someone to break my months-long dry spell.

“I was dancing. Just having fun,” I choke out.

My heart beats hard against my breastbone, and I’m surprised the monitors don’t start freaking out.

“And did you?” he asks.

“Did I what?”

“Did you have fun? I mean, before everything went to shit.”

His look is so intense, so focused on me, that I find it hard to make sense of anything happening right now.

So I evade the question.

“I appreciate the flowers. They’re beautiful,” I say, purposefully tearing my gaze away from him. I squint to determine what type they are from across the room.

“They’re chrysanthemums,” he says, his voice low. “When I saw you in that dress last night…gold looks amazing on you. And it suits you. Strong. Precious.”

I glance back at him, surprised by the weight in his tone.

Girlfriend. Girlfriend. He’s not that into you.

“And the others are freesias. They’re for resilience. For someone who can withstand anything life throws her way.”

I swallow against the thickness lodged in my throat, a mortifying tear slides down my cheek.

“I’m sorry,” I rush to say, wiping at my face with a plastic smile.

“What did I say about saying, ‘I’m sorry,’ Sweetness?” He grins, but his eyes are serious, and I stutter when he wipes beneath my eye.

Ho. Ly. Shit. Flashes of the last time we were this close—the time when we descended into madness—cause my cheeks to heat.

Girlfriend.

“You have a girlfriend,” I blurt out. “I…this is confusing.” I move away from him—well, as far away from him as I can while stuck in a hospital bed.

His brows come down.

“No, I don’t.”

I give him a disbelieving look.

“Yeah, sure you don’t. Maybe you have amnesia too?

The willowy mixed chick who’s always hanging off you isn’t your girlfriend?

Or is she just a fuck buddy?” Sarcasm laces my words, but I stop and roll my lips inward when I realize I just practically admitted to paying attention to him and who he’s with.

Storm’s face turns even more severe when he opens his mouth to speak, but I hold a hand out. He pauses.

“It’s none of my business.”

The words are barely out of my mouth when he grabs my wrist again…and places it over his heart.

It beats thickly in his chest, slow and measured.

“It’s one hundred percent your business.” His words are clear and hard, and the only thing I can do after several agonizing seconds is nod.

“I don’t have a girlfriend, Shae, and I don’t have any fuck buddies waiting around for me,” he vows, holding my palm to his body and staring deep into my eyes. “There’s no one else.”

There’s no one else.