Page 7 of Saving Sparrow (Slow Burns & Tragic Beginnings #2)

Now

Pain radiated through my body. My eyes were too swollen to open any wider than slits, my arms and legs too battered to move.

So, I lay here on the cold floor for hours, maybe even days, hoping Sparrow would show mercy on me.

He never did. Each time he returned, he brought with him more anger, more paranoia, and a deeper need for vengeance.

My body paid the consequences for them all, each and every time.

“You’re nothing to him. You tried to kill him. You wanted him dead.”

The accusations hurt more than the numerous beatings he gave; the pain in my heart more acute than anywhere else.

It hurt to breathe, but not breathing felt like dying, and I couldn’t die without saving Elliott first.

I tried to remember the last time I ate or had something to drink—other than my own blood—but couldn’t. The pain kept me distracted from my hunger and thirst, though.

Blood crusted my swollen lips, the inside of my cheek still sore from where I’d bitten into it after Sparrow’s gun made repeated contact with my head. I wasn’t missing any teeth, but the blow from his fist left one of my molars loose.

A piece of glass from the shattered nightstand lamp was embedded in my finger from when I hit the floor and tried to crawl away.

My ribs were inflamed, and I knew if I had the strength to lift my shirt, I’d see the imprint of Sparrow’s boot there.

My eyes stung with the need to cry, but I was too dehydrated to produce tears.

The wind whistled through the darkened room again, the curtains flapping about. My body twitched involuntarily from the cold—or fever—causing me to lose control of my bladder.

Sparrow would be upset. This would be the second time he’d have to drag my body to a fresh patch of carpet to scrub away my blood and filth. I almost panicked, but then remembered I rested on a piece of tarp now.

The door opened, and I cracked my eyes open as best I could.

Sparrow’s tall, lean frame filled the doorway, the dim light from the hall backdropping him.

He didn’t hold a gun or a bat, and his fingers weren’t ensnared in brass knuckles this time.

My heart picked up speed anyway. Weapons made him more deadly, but Sparrow was dangerous with or without them.

He stepped in, closing the door behind him and sealing us in darkness again. I tried to quiet the rattling in my chest so I could hear where his footsteps carried him.

His boots hit the tarp, and pain shot up my spine when I tried to inch away. “P-please,” I wheezed. “N-no more.”

He crouched in front of me, as dark as a shadow.

“Are you ready to tell the truth now?” Sparrow wanted me to confirm his suspicions about the event that brought us here.

If circumstances were different, I’d have appreciated the irony in his search for the truth.

Sparrow wouldn’t accept my version of the truth, though.

Not without hearing our full story first.

“Wait!” I cried out, agitating the cut on my bottom lip.

Blood trickled to the corner of my mouth.

Sparrow’s fist halted, suspended in mid-air.

“What if you’re making a mistake?” I took a second to catch my breath.

Talking intensified the pain. “What if hurting me will hurt him? What if you’re making a mistake? ”

Sparrow grabbed me by the throat, lifting my upper body off the tarp. “You were there when I woke up. My only mistake was not making sure you were dead before I left.”

Flashes of blood filled my mind’s eye; my ears rang from the sound of shrill screaming and gunshots.

“Y-you were there?” I croaked out, uselessly attempting to pry his hand off me. Sparrow dumped me back on my side. I coughed, my ribs protesting.

“Why?” His detached tone didn’t match his violence. “Why did you hurt him?”

I didn’t know how to answer that. I didn’t hurt Elliott—not in the way Sparrow thought. I hadn’t protected him, though. We hadn’t protected him. Our love hadn’t been enough.

I gave Sparrow the truth, but not the version he’d concocted in his mind. “Because I wasn’t strong enough.”

I didn’t see the blow coming. Pain exploded through my face, but I had to get one more thing out before the dark chasm embraced me.

“We loved you,” I whispered. We loved all of him, which meant even the part of him we didn’t know. “We… loved you too.”

Fire tore at my body as I came to again. I could hear the flames incinerating me, the crackle of my bones snapping and burning, and could feel my skin melting away. I was in hell, right where I belonged.

I pushed past the excruciating pain to open my eyes. Tears sizzled against my temples as they rolled away. I couldn’t move my head to see beyond the ceiling, but I was lucid enough to realize the shadow flames dancing there came from the fireplace, not my body.

I tried to make a sound, to cry out for help, but I couldn’t remember how.

My fingers spasmed on the surface beneath me. Carpet fibers. The tarp had been removed. Or maybe I was the one who’d been moved.

Consciousness began to slip from me again. Something about this time felt more frightening, more permanent. I ordered my limbs to move, but they remained heavy and battered, there but useless. It felt like someone had their foot on my chest, pressing harder.

The sound of a wailing siren broke through the chaos in my head.

A fire truck, maybe. I clung to the distant sound, using it to anchor me to the here and now as my eyes closed.

I held tightly to it, wondering if my sanity had been compromised when the sound of a child’s laughter joined in.

I latched on to that too, carrying it into the darkness with me.

The fire in my veins had cooled the next time I woke up. My skin still felt flayed open, but the pressure on my chest had eased a bit. Breathing still took effort, though.

The lingering pain produced a sound I’d never heard myself make before. Part groan and part whine as it passed my chapped lips.

No matter how many times I blinked, I couldn’t clear the fog from my vision. I went inward, focusing on my other senses.

I reclined on something soft, but no less abrasive against my wounded skin. My mangled fingers throbbed, but I flattened my palms at my sides and pressed down anyway. My hands sank into the memory foam mattress. I’d been moved to the bed.

The presence of pain didn’t mean I hadn’t been paralyzed, so I attempted to shift my legs beneath the blanket covering me. A sheen of sweat broke out over my brow, but I was able to move them, even wiggle my aching toes.

My stomach felt hollow, my mouth dry, tongue heavy. I rubbed the pads of my bruised fingertips against the cotton gown barely covering my thighs. He’d changed my clothes, and I no longer smelled like my own filth.

The strain it took to deduce those few details exhausted me. Why had he cleaned me? Bandaged me up? Why wasn’t I dead? I wanted to cry but lacked the energy needed to. Instead, I drifted off to what sounded like the music of a jewelry box, imagining the pretty ballerina twirling inside.

It was easier to keep my eyes open this time around, although one only opened halfway.

The curtains still fluttered, and the fire still raged, combating the cold.

I could make out the dark sky clearly now, but still couldn’t determine if it was morning, night, or somewhere in between.

The not knowing agitated me, and the clock on the wall still ticked even though the hands never moved. How long have I been here?

There was a strange taste at the back of my throat.

It was there the last time I woke up, too, but I’d had more important things to fear.

I could raise my arm now, although it shook and looked near emaciated.

How had I survived this long without food?

How long had I survived exactly? This time when I cried, there was an abundance of tears.

Sparrow had replaced the bedside lamp, and it illuminated the IV line running from the back of my hand to two bags of clear fluid hooked to a pole.

Noting the absence of significant pain, and how lightheaded I felt, one of them had to be a strong narcotic.

I assumed the other was saline. I thought back to something Elliott had said once.

“My mother was a nurse. She used to patch me up.”

“Did you get hurt a lot?”

Elliott hadn’t answered. Silence was what he did best.

The howl of the wind grew louder, and the powdered snow accumulating on the sill made me afraid of what awaited outside. Had the worst of the storm passed, or had it only just begun?

I peered at the hospital gown I wore. It felt different, thicker than the one I had on the last time I woke up. The bedsheets were fresh too, and soap scented my skin.

I lifted the blanket, holding in a gasp at the sight of bruises along my legs, and the empty bedpan situated between them.

I didn’t feel violated. It would’ve been silly to feel that way, considering all we’d been through—whether he knew it or not. But I couldn’t help wondering why he’d gone through the trouble of doing all this to me just to nurse me back to health. Was it so he could do it all over again?

The thought both scared and activated me. I tossed the covers back and sat up too quickly, nearly vomiting all over myself when the nausea hit. I fell back onto the pillows, blinking away the dots clouding my vision.

I lay there panting, one injured leg slipping off the bed as sickness and exhaustion tugged me back into the void.

Like the other times, something vague and distant kept me connected to this world.

This time it was the voice of a young boy crying for his mother.

I tried to reach for him, tried to hold on as the black hole closed in around me.