Page 8 of Saving Sparrow (Slow Burns & Tragic Beginnings #2)

The fierce urge to remain asleep had a grip on me.

It took all the willpower I possessed to pull myself from the pit of unconsciousness I’d been living in.

Opening my eyes was a challenge, and the medicinal taste now filled my entire mouth.

Slowly, I craned my stiff neck up toward the IV pole, wondering again what ran through my veins.

I still wore a hospital gown but somehow knew it wasn’t the same one. It smelled too freshly laundered. He’d cleaned and changed me again.

My nose had been too swollen to breathe through properly the last time, but I inhaled deeply without issue now. Reaching up to touch it, I winced. The swelling was almost gone, but it still hurt.

Closing my eyes and breathing in again, I stilled. My stomach growled, clenching around the emptiness. The hearty scent of soup traveled up my nostrils. A steaming bowl of it rested on the nightstand, right under the soft glow of the lamp. I choked back my sob.

“I can’t do this,” I whispered into the room. I couldn’t play this game Sparrow seemed to be playing with me. Why offer me food? And why did I have no recollection of anything he’d done to me after the beating? I was never a deep sleeper.

Frustrated, I tore the IV line from my hand, blood splattering over the blanket. I bunched the quilt up, using it to apply pressure to the insertion site. I turned my head back to the soup, licking my dry lips as I waited for the bleeding to stop.

Gingerly, I sat up, my hand going to my sore ribs. Lifting the gown, I took in the purple bruising there, barely able to see. I needed my glasses. I needed something brighter than the damn gloomy lighting in this house.

I tapped my head against the headboard, waiting out the dizziness before reaching over for the soup. The bowl wobbled in my unsteady hands, the spoon handle rattling against the ceramic edge.

“Dammit,” I hissed after scalding my tongue. I’d forgone the spoon, forgotten to blow, and dove face-first into the hot liquid. I was careful the next time, but the need for food overtook all other thoughts, and so I ignored even the nausea to eat.

It wasn’t until I was full that I questioned why the soup had been so hot to begin with. It was as though it’d just been cooked and brought in, as if no time had passed between Sparrow setting it down and me waking up. That was when I felt it. Felt him.

Sparrow watched me from the armchair near the fireplace again. I scrambled back, the headboard banging against the wall.

The flames made his gem-like eyes sparkle, but he still looked tired.

Even after all he’d done to me, I wanted to know what kept him up at night.

Was it the absence of sunlight? Loneliness?

Did his demons keep him awake? I wanted to tell him I’d guard him from them, that I’d hold him while he slept.

As if he picked up on my sympathy and hated it, he straightened his shoulders, and the exhaustion vanished.

“You didn’t kill me.” My voice sounded as rough as sandpaper.

“Yet,” he replied coolly.

“H-how long have I been here?” I braced myself for his answer or his silence. Either would’ve been equally traumatic. The former because at the rate my wounds had healed, I knew it had to have been a while. The latter because if he’d left me to guess, I would’ve imagined the worst.

“Two weeks.”

My heart tripped over itself. “Why?” I breathed. Why are you doing this to me? Why are you so cruel? Why not just let me die?

I answered the question myself when he wouldn’t. “You want something from me.” Sifting through my muddled brain, I tried to pinpoint what I had to offer him. What could Sparrow possibly want from me? Four words floated into my head.

“We loved you too.”

“You don’t have his memories.” I wasn’t sure when deciding to come here. I’d taken a gamble that he didn’t, because if so, he would’ve sought me out. He wouldn’t have just left me there to begin with.

“Maybe you used to, but at some point, that ended, didn’t it?”

Sparrow sat unmoving with the discipline of a monk. Not a hair out of place, not a wrinkle to be found on his uniform. He oozed control, even in the moments when he lost it.

“I can tell you all about him. About us.” A spark of curiosity lit in his eyes before it was gone.

I slid my hands under the covers to hide how much they trembled. Ignoring the voice in my head warning me not to bargain with a dangerous man, I continued. “But I need something from you first.”

I wouldn’t ask for my things. That felt too big of a request considering he likely didn’t want me having contact with the outside world.

Who even knew if I could? Besides the cut landline, getting a signal way out here had to be impossible still.

Beyond the window, the severe weather had turned the horizon white.

It didn’t matter anyway. I wouldn’t leave, even if I had the choice to.

I considered asking for an exchange of information because I wanted to know about him just as much as I assumed he wanted to know about my past with Elliott. But that request felt even bigger than the previous one. It felt even more impossible, too.

I went with something simpler but equally important.

“No more sedation.” I recalled waking a handful of times in the two weeks he claimed I’d been here, and only in short spurts.

I thought about the taste filling my mouth when I woke up, and the cloudiness in my head.

I stared at the plastic tubing dangling from the bags hooked to the IV pole.

“You can tie me down if you need to, just please… I can’t lose any more time. ”

Sparrow’s jaw worked. He’d tended to my wounds and physical pain, bathed me, nursed me back to life. I had leverage now, and it killed him.

“Promise me.”

Sparrow’s nod was so subtle I thought I’d imagined it. “What’s your real name?” he asked.

“Miguel Ramirez,” I answered, knowing from here on out he would accept nothing but the truth.

“Ramirez,” he mused as if it rang a bell. I remembered the chest in the closet and the wallet inside. He seemed even more curious now.

When Sparrow spoke again, his words held both contempt and a vulnerability I knew he’d later make me pay for. “Start from the beginning,” he demanded.