All The Odds

Thirty-seven

"Ms. Wright, you need to wake up."

No, you need to bug off. Bella groaned inwardly, shuffling away from the hands of the intruder trying to shake her awake and clinging unto Iverson's waist a little tighter.

This right here was the most peaceful she had been in weeks! She wanted to lay there and pretend that the world around her wasn't wrong. That her mother hadn't kept a huge secret from her since she was born, that she hadn't spend the best and worst part of her college year with a brother she didn't even know she had. That, that said brother wasn't now lying cold and frozen in death. That the guy she loved wasn't lying in a hospital bed with a large pneumothorax and had only narrowly escaped death himself.

She wanted to lay there for as long as possible, pretending that her world wasn't wrong but some inconsiderate jerk kept trying to shake her awake and back to her cruel reality.

"Please wake up Ms. Wright, you're cramping his space and the doctor is on his way for the routine checkups." The nurse reasoned with her.

Okay, fine. Bella's reluctantly opened her eyes at the mentioned of the doctor, the man had threatened to place a security guard outside Iverson's wardroom if she didn't stop sneaking in and she had no doubt he meant what he said.

Slowly, she lifted her head to look at Iverson. His hand had significantly tightened around her the moment nurse Nazifa started trying to shake her awake, but he was still unconscious himself.

The doctor said he was doing better than expected even though he still couldn't stay awake for any longer than ten minutes because of his inability to breathe by himself.

She had half lied to him when she told him the bullet only poked his lungs, the truth was he suffered a completely collapsed lungs and an inflammation of the larynx, which resulted in his lost of voice and the inability to breathe naturally. He needed all the machines around him, including a chest tube to keep breathing steadily.

Bella carefully extricate herself from him and balanced her weight on her good leg as she stood beside his bed, watching him.

He looked like he'd been to the gate of hell and still not quite back. She gingerly touched his temple to brush his wild and dishevelled hair back from his face, she felt unable to swallow down the lump that seem to have taken residence in her throat these past days.

She could have lost him too, he risked his life for her.

But then again if he hadn't showed up to save her he wouldn't be laying in that bed and Daniel wouldn't be dead.

Bella tensed up at her own thought and watched a frown make it way unto Iverson's sleeping face as if he could hear her disturbing thought. Then his eyes  fluttered open.

She took a sharp breath and withdrew her hand from his face like she was burned by his skin. His eyes roamed around the ceiling above seemingly a little disorientated until he saw her.

"You." Bella gasped, a metaphorical switch going off in her head and she took a step back from his side. "It's your fault Daniel is dead." She declared hoarsely, her voice still irritated from all the screaming she did the day it all came down.

"It's your fault Daniel is dead." She repeated, her heart beating crazily in her chest she was only another breath away from full on panicking. How did she not realize this sooner.

Iverson's looked genuinely confused, his bearded face morphing together in a deep frown and he tried to lift himself up to get a proper look at her.

"Ms. Wright, I'm sure you don't mean that?" Nurse Nazifa called from behind, placing a cautious hand on Bella's shoulder when the steady beeping from the machines started going faster, a sign that Iverson was getting agitated.