Page 127 of Reaper

I crack my eyes open and groan again when the bright light sears into my eyes. Fuck. Maybe I did overdo it last night and to add insult to injury, left our curtains open. But, fuck, what is that beeping noise? I don’t remember setting an alarm.

“Lark,” a voice tinged with a southern drawl calls out and I frown as I try and open my eyes again. “Shit, let me get the lights.”

I blink again and the room starts to come into focus. Loki’s sitting in a chair and his hair is sticking up as if he’s been running his hands through it constantly. His eyes are bloodshot, and he looks rattled. Really rattled. What happened?

“Loki? What are you doing here? What am I doing here? What happened?”

I look down at myself again. Why am I in a hospital bed? Then bits and pieces of the night come back to me.

“Fuck,” I curse as my breathing picks up.

The black roses on my car.

Realizing my break lines were cut.

Going into the ditch.

Hitting the tree.

Atlas…

Atlas!

“Is Atlas okay? They didn’t cut his lines too, did they?”

Loki shakes his head and scoots his chair closer. “No, they didn’t, but he did cut his hand a bit when he had to bust through your back window to get the doors unlocked. He and a few others are in the waiting room.”

Relief flows through me that his truck wasn’t tampered with.

“Does Reaper know?”

Loki nods. “Yeah. Atlas called Cannon to rally us and then he called Reaper. Shit, here I am yapping when I should be getting the nurse. I bet your head is killing you.”

He reaches over and hits the call button. I wince as a loud voice comes over the speaker and he gives me an apologetic look.

A moment later, a nurse comes in and smiles. “Hello, Miss Thompson, how are you feeling?” she asks as she looks over my vitals on the monitor.

“My head feels like it’s being split open, my neck is killing me, my arms and back hurt, my right hand hurts, and the rest of my body is just sore.”

She nods as she makes a note in the computer. “I can bring you some medicine for your headache and I’ll let the doctor know you’re awake. He’ll be in momentarily.”

The nurse steps out and I look back over at Loki and I frown. I’ve never seen him look so rattled before.

“Loki? What’s wrong?”

He swallows hard a few times as he rests his elbows on his knees and stares down at his hands.

“I…” he starts but then he snaps his mouth shut as the doctor comes in followed by the same nurse from earlier.

“Good to see that your awake, Miss Thompson, I’m Dr. Cooper. How are you feeling?”

“Please, call me Lark. I feel like I’ve been run over by a truck. My head feels like it’s being split open, my neck is killing me, my arms and back hurt, my right hand hurts, and the rest of my body is just sore,” I repeat.

He nods as he makes a note on his tablet and looks back up at me. “That is definitely to be expected after what you’ve been through. Your friends filled us in on what happened and it was confirmed by the authorities that your break lines were cut. As for your injuries, you have a slight concussion and a pretty bad goose egg on your forehead. You also have about an inch-long cut along your hairline and we elected to use skin glue on it rather than stitches.” He pauses as he sets down his tablet at the foot of my bed and steps closer. “Now, I wanted to do a physical examination of your neck, shoulders, back, and extremities before you got any medication.”

I lift my chin in answer, wincing a bit as I do. He feels along my neck and shoulders and walks me though a few motions, seeing how much I can move. Then he checks my back where it’s tender and does the same for my arms and legs.

“Well, that lines up with the tests we ran while you were unconscious. You don’t have any fractures or dislocations, and there is no damage to your ligaments, muscles, or intervertebral discs. However, based on your tenderness and limited range of motion, you are suffering from whiplash. Medicine and time should heal it, but if it doesn’t, you’ll need to go to a physical therapist.”