Ephemeral

Prognosis

I fluttered my eyes open to see white ceilings and I could hear an incessant the beeping of a heart rate monitor off to my side. Lifting my left hand, I found an IV that was jutting out from the top of it. My entire body was numb and most of my joints were sore.

I looked around the room slowly to find Isabella glancing over at me from her own hospital bed.

"You had a fucking seizure," she informed me, not cushioning her words at all.

I opened my mouth to ask why –

"You were shot in the head back in the mansion, remember...?" Bella said as she shook her head. "In Russia?"

She readjusted herself and sat up on her bed. I could see her let out a grimace as some of her healing wounds had no doubt stretched from the movement.

"I'm sure, though..." She sarcastically began to say. I could already tell that she wasn't over me keeping a secret from her. Bella was probably more pissed than she had initially been because I had let her stew in her anger and it had grew. "This is of absolutely no relation of going to see him, right...?" Bella rose an eyebrow, knowing that she was right.

I let out a sigh, or at least tried to – it came out as a wheeze instead.

"They had to intubate you," Bella explained.

I slowly sat up on the bed and looked over at her. I didn't know what sort of expression I was giving her, but from her next words, I knew that it was not a friendly one: "Don't look at me like that – I'm not the one with a TBI."

I rose an eyebrow up at that – what the hell was a TBI...?

"Traumatic Brain Injury," Rafael supplied the answer that I had silently asked as he walked in the door with a tablet under his arm. He stood between Bella and I's bed while I glared over at him. I didn't like how often I had seen him lately, even if I was in his place of employment. "You have a decent amount of cranial scarring due to a recent surgery."

"I want..." My voice was scratchy and sore. Rafael was hanging onto my words as though they very well might have been my last ones. I narrowed my eyes, waning to drill the fact into him that I didn't want him around me or my sister. "A..." I swallowed, hoping to alleviate some of the soreness of my throat. "N-New doctor..."

Rafael merely smiled, not at all offended by my words, and walked over to where I was resting. He was now standing in front of me while I was ready to run in case he tried anything -- even if I had to rip out the IV that was currently lodged in the top of my hand.

There were many things that rubbed me the wrong way about Rafael – I couldn't explain it. It could have been a general dislike towards the man but it seemed as though he was hiding something by the way he spoke to me earlier in the week.

Overall...he was shady.

"Doctor Ortiz is okay, Ari..." Bella waved off my worry. "He's been nice to me since I've woken up."

"I appreciate the compliment, Isabella..." Rafael commented as he turned towards her to show off that charismatic, full smile of his. He then looked over at me, maybe hoping that the warm smile would melt my cold exterior towards him...it didn't.

"Arianna," he called my name. "I understand that you are a guarded person," he blinked quickly.

I watched all of his actions – the breathing that he took, the way he would look at me, look off to the side, and then back towards me. I could tell that he wasn't nervous...he wanted to poke at my hard shell and let himself in even if he needed to do it slowly and accurately.