Veil of Deception: The Replacement wife

My obsession

Scarlet's POV:

(Three days later)
They'd moved me out of ICU finally . Less fuss which is what I really wanted.

A private room on the surgical floor, window facing the river, soft light, quieter machines.

Alexander had a futon moved into the room I suppose he can if he owns the place. He planned to sleep on it every night, boots still on, gun still holstered under his jacket like he expected the sniper to rise from the grave and finish the job.
I hadn't looked yet.

Not really.

I'd seen the bulge of bandages under the gown, felt the pull of stitches when I shifted, watched the drains fill with dark pink fluid. But I hadn't looked.

I told myself it was because I was too tired. Too drugged. Too sore.

Truth was, I was terrified.
Maybe that was an understatement.

Alexander was in the shower this morning, first time he'd left my side for more than sixty seconds since I woke up. I heard the water running through the cracked bathroom door and knew I had limited time.

I had to see.

My hands shook as I reached for the ties at my neck. The gown slipped off my shoulders and pooled at my waist. The air was cold against my skin, raising goosebumps everywhere that wasn't bruised.

I didn't recognize myself.

A thick, angry ridge of staples marched from just below my ribs to the top of my hip bone, twelve inches of railroad tracks holding me together. The skin around it mottled yellow and purple, swollen, shiny with ointment.

Two rubber drains snaked out from the bottom of the incision, stitched in place, dripping into bulb canisters taped to my thigh.

Smaller scars dotted my abdomen where they'd gone in laparoscopically before everything went to hell and they had to crack me wide open.

My left side, where the bullet had entered, was the worst. A puckered, stitched crater the size of a silver dollar, black sutures pulling the skin into a starburst. It looked like someone had tried to erase me and failed.

I lifted my arm to see better and the chest tube site caught the light, another brutal zipper under my breast, still covered in clear tape.

I looked like a war zone.

I looked like someone who had almost died.

My breath hitched. Then shattered.

The first sob hurt so bad I doubled over, arms wrapped around my ruined middle, trying to hold the stitches in, hold myself together. It felt like the bullet was back inside me, tearing everything open again.

I couldn't stop.

I cried for the body I used to know, strong, unmarked, recognizably mine.

I cried for the nights I would never get back, the hours Alexander spent thinking I was gone.

I cried because I was alive and still felt broken.

I cried because I was scared I'd never feel beautiful in his hands again.

The bathroom door flew open.

Alexander stepped out in nothing but low-slung sweats, hair dripping, eyes going feral the second he saw me.
"Scarlet—" he says softly as he noticed my emotional state.

He was across the room in two strides, on his knees in front of the bed, hands hovering like he was afraid to touch me and make it worse.

I couldn't look at him. Couldn't stop the ugly, wrenching sobs.