Page 53 of Blood Ties

Riley

A s soon as I get the chance, I rip the tubes and sensors off of my body and drag myself out of the hospital bed. The machine at my bedside is screaming in protest, but it’s the middle of the night, which means I should have some time before one of the over-worked nurses makes their way over here.

Determined, I hobble out the door and down the hallway, one painful step at a time. Everything hurts. Over the last few days, my bruises and aches have only seemed to worsen, condensing into one giant throbbing ache.

But I’ve endured worse. I grit my teeth and keep moving, peeking into doorways when I pass by. Two old men so still they’re nearly dead. One middle-aged woman whimpering in her sleep.

My breath is coming hard and fast, black spots encroaching on my vision. I don’t have much strength left, and not much time until the night nurse arrives. But I need to find him. I need to see him for myself.

When I open the third doorway, I nearly collapse in relief.

Kai looks so peaceful when he’s asleep. At least from a distance.

As I limp closer, the bruises on his face become more evident.

The worst of the damage is hidden beneath the hospital sheet, but I can still picture him covered in blood every time I close my eyes.

So much blood... I didn’t think he was going to make it.

He still might not. That’s what the nurses say.

“You’re stronger than they think,” I whisper. I brush a strand of dark hair off of his forehead, lean down to press my lips to his skin. “I know you didn’t fight that hard just to die in a hospital bed.”

I half expect him to open his eyes and show me that crooked smile. But he doesn’t. There’s no sign except the rise and fall of his chest — so weak I have to strain to see it — and the beeping of the machine that’s keeping him alive.

I tuned out most of what the doctors said, unwilling to believe it was true, but bits and pieces stick with me. Words like comatose. Traumatic brain injury . Internal bleeding.

I sink into the metal chair beside the bed, groaning as my battered body hits the metal. I reach out and take Kai’s hand into mine.

“You’re not going to die on me,” I tell him. “Not when you’ve barely been able to live yet.”

There’s no answer, of course. His face is so still. I look at his hand instead, gently running my fingers over his scraped-up knuckles. My throat threatens to close up, but I swallow past the lump. I’ve heard that sometimes people can hear you even when they’re unconscious, so I keep talking.

“I told them that you were a prisoner just like me,” I whisper. “That you had been in the house since you were a little kid and we escaped together.” I take a shaky breath, wipe my eyes. “So it’s okay to wake up. You’ll be safe. I promise.”

I pause. Watch the sheet covering him rise and fall once more to reassure myself he’s still breathing.

“There’s so much of the world you haven’t seen yet,” I tell him. “I want to show you the ocean. And snow. I want to drive around with the windows down listening to Radiohead together. I want you to know that life doesn’t have to be cruel all the time. Sometimes it can be beautiful.”

I pause, watch him breathe a little longer. Once, I swore I was going to kill this man. Now, I’d give anything for him to open his eyes again.

There’s still a lot about him that I don’t understand. Like his mother, and the fact that he had somehow convinced himself she was alive. There’s a pit in my stomach whenever I remember, just like when I think about Knox saying that Kai won’t make it in the world outside the farmhouse.

I’m desperate for him to have a chance to prove his brother wrong.

I have to believe that whatever delusions Kai was suffering were just a way for him to cope with the impossible cruelty of that house.

A fiction to escape into, just like the book we read together.

He’s out now, so he’ll get better. He’ll be better.

“You need to live, Kai,” I say. “For me. For you. For...” I take another shaky breath, and a tear slips down my cheek. Carefully, I place his limp hand against my stomach. “For the baby,” I whisper.

“When the doctor confirmed it, at first I was going to ask... what my options were, for getting rid of it,” I confess. “But the more I thought about it, I... couldn’t do it. I couldn’t stop imagining the three of us together.”

Everything else about the future feels terrifyingly uncertain right now. But that was an image I could cling to. It gave me hope, which is something I’m desperately in need of right now.

“There has to be a reason that I survived,” I say.

“When nobody else made it out.” I shut my eyes.

Felix, Caleb, May... It still feels unreal that they’re gone.

And now I’m going to have to face their families.

Tell them what happened. My own parents have been hysterical, and I’m the one who came home.

For days, one of them slept in a constant vigil at my bedside, until I insisted they go get some rest — and give me some space to process everything.

“It’s stupid, but this makes me feel like maybe there was a point to surviving. I don’t know.”

I open my eyes again, stare down into my lap. I’m still clutching his hand like a lifeline, and it still hasn’t given the slightest twitch to indicate he can hear me.

“I’ve always wanted to be a mother,” I say. “And I know you’ll make a great dad.” Even if the baby isn’t technically his, I know that’s true. “Which is why I need you to wake up, Kai.” I squeeze his hand, staring at his slack face. “I need you to come back to me. Please .”

I hear the nurse’s footsteps down the hallway.

I can’t turn off the part of me that is so attuned to the world around me, always on high alert.

When she steps into the doorway, I’m already turned to face her, giving her a sad little smile.

“I know,” I say. I kiss Kai’s palm and set his hand back at his side.

I turn to leave, and—

“Riley?”

I freeze in place at the low croak of a familiar voice. I turn slowly, oh so slowly, just in time to see Kai’s eyes flutter open and fix on me.

“Are we...?” he asks, looking around.

I rush to his side, press myself against him, kissing his nose, his cheeks, his forehead, until he’s wincing and laughing. “We’re okay,” I whisper, holding on to him even as the nurse rushes over to tend to him. “We’re free.”