Fatally Yours

Chapter 59

•INDIANA•

The next few hours passed in a blur, like fragments of a dream I couldn't piece together. I remembered flashes of voices—shouts, distant and garbled.

Cold hands gripping me, lifting me, carrying me through spaces where everything was too loud and too bright. 

The sharp smell of antiseptic hit me like a wall when I was wheeled into the hospital, the blinding fluorescent lights overhead making my head spin. My body felt heavy, too heavy to fight the pull of exhaustion.

I barely registered the doctors' and nurses' voices above me, their words sounding muffled and distorted, like I was underwater.

Someone said something about blood loss, about bruised ribs, about needing stitches. 

I wanted to tell them to stop, to leave me alone, but no words came. Everything inside me ached—the pain a dull, deep throb radiating through every limb.

My ribs screamed with every shallow breath, but the pull of unconsciousness was stronger. I let it take me, slipping into darkness as the chaos of the room dissolved around me. 

When I woke up, it felt like I was surfacing from the bottom of the ocean. My eyelids felt too heavy to lift at first, but I forced them open, blinking against the soft, dim light of the room.

The harsh brightness from before was gone, replaced with the sterile stillness of a hospital recovery room. 

I stared up at the ceiling, white and clean, the quiet hum of machines filling the silence. I didn't know how long I had been out, but the stiffness in my body told me it had been a while. 

Slowly, I turned my head to look around, wincing at the sharp pull in my side. I was lying on a hospital bed, patched up and bandaged, my body now wrapped in fresh gauze and a thin hospital gown.

Stitches tugged at the skin along my brow and cheekbone, but it was my ribs that hurt the most. Each shallow breath sent a sharp ache through my chest. 

I tried to sit up, my arms trembling as I pushed against the mattress, but I barely managed to lift myself before collapsing back onto the bed.

I gritted my teeth, frustration bubbling up alongside the pain. My entire body felt like dead weight—weak, useless. 

That was when I noticed the two figures standing just outside the room. Two officers, their backs turned to me, stationed at the door like statues. 

I let out a shaky breath, my body sinking back into the bed as I reluctantly gave up. There was no escaping this room. No running now. 

My gaze drifted toward the window, where faint moonlight filtered in through closed blinds. The quiet pressed in around me as memories rushed back—Dominik's face as he stared me down, the gun in my hands, the SWAT team closing in, and the sound of Hailey's muffled screams echoing in my head. 

Tears pricked at my eyes, and I blinked hard, willing them away. But it was useless. 

The tears came slowly, warm and silent, trailing down my cheeks as I stared up at the ceiling again. My chest tightened as I thought of Hailey—of her terrified face, of her being pushed into that car.

Where is she now? Is she safe? 

I told myself she was. 

I had seen it in Dominik's eyes before he left. Despite everything—despite the betrayal, the lies, the anger—there had been something there. Something unspoken. A flicker of hesitation, of care.