The Void Between Stars: Book 4 Of The Orion Series

Friends?

I stumble, seeing stars. I've had my nose broken enough to know it was broken. For a moment my head swims, and I nearly topple over. It's then I notice blood absolutely pouring from my nose, like someone turned on a faucet. I cup my hands around my nose, but it takes merely seconds before my hands fill and blood drips from them.

"Oh fuck," Jake says, done screaming. He rushes over. "Oh my God, I am so, so sorry--"

"You broke my nose, you fuck!" I scream at him, but it comes out all nasally and muffled.

Jake is in an absolute panic. "Uh--what do you need? What do I do?"

"Get me some fucking paper towels or something," I say.

"Okay," Jake begins to rush away. He rushes back after only a few steps, putting a hand on my shoulder. "Are you okay?"

"Jacob!"

"Right." He's gone.

Once he came back with an entire roll of paper towels, we sit on the couch. I try really hard to not get blood on his couch, but it's difficult because there's so much of it. He sits next to me, anxiously, as I pull off paper towels by the fistful and press them to my nose.

Finally, after a good five minutes, my nose slows down. I sniff a few times, gagging on a blood clot as it goes down my throat. Jake looks alarmed and my nose starts bleeding again.

"F-fuck," he says, voice trembling, "do I need to take you to the hospital?"

"I'm fine," I tell him with a glare, even though I sound like Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer when he's wearing his black nose. "Could I just have some water? Please?"

Jake jumps to his feet. "Of course," he says as he rushes out of the room once more.

He returns with a glass filled to the brim with water. I take it thankfully, shutting my eyes tight as I try to wash away the blood that was dripping down my throat, too. When I'm done with that, I carefully sniff a few times, press paper towel to my nose to make sure I've stopped bleeding, and then look around the room.

That got way out of hand. I gawk, looking at the shattered table, the broken art piece, my blood everywhere. I can't help myself; I laugh suddenly. Jake gives me an incredulous look.

"It looks like someone was murdered in here," I giggle.

Jake looks around. He runs a hand through his hair, and even though I can tell he doesn't want to, he kinda smiles. "It does, doesn't it?"

We fall back into completely awkward silence. It doesn't take long before I can't take it.

"I'll pay for everything," I blurt out. "I'll pay for your carpet to be cleaned, too--"

Jake waves his hand. "Don't worry about it."

More painful silence. I bite my lip, hard.

"Jake..."

He closes his eyes. "Don't. Okay? Just don't."

But I can't help myself. "Simon said I was dead?"

Jake sighs heavily. He's not looking at me, he's looking at the ground. "Yeah. He was in such a hysterical panic he didn't know up from down. He thought he had killed you. I finally got it out of him that you were being rushed to the hospital. I didn't know which one though, so it took me a while to get that information."

For a moment, Jake glares at me, and I don't blame him at all. "I had the fun task of calling everyone and telling them to go to the hospital because you were either dead or dying."