The Hunt of Altswood High (The Altswood Saga #1)

Chapter 22 - Encase

Chapter 22 - Encase

"We can't tell her."

I heard the voices before I saw who they came from.

The moment I hit consciousness, my memories rushed back without pause. I knew immediately where I was and what had happened.

I remembered the bullets in my body and the smoke coated in my lungs.

My eyes were glued shut as I fought against the wave of fatigue and panic; every inch of my being hurt and throbbed, but I was alive.

I was alive.

"What do you mean?"

My shoulder was the first thing I felt twitch. I swam a little closer to the surface, my senses reawakening. I felt the roughness of hospital sheets beneath my fingertips, smelled the medicinal disinfectant in the air.

Mostly, I heard two familiar voices.

"It's going to worry Luca. Rebekah was lying."

"And what if she wasn't? Surely, Luca deserves to know."

My eyes snapped open as if the weight holding them closed had suddenly released. Like that, every drop of tension snapped in my muscles. I bolted upright, disturbing thick bandages and thin tubes poking beneath my skin. The machines next to me went wild.

"Rebekah did it," I tried to shout but my voice nothing bigger than a hoarse whisper.

Dad and Gabriel froze by the door. Annabelle bolted up from the chair. The bed sunk lower where she perched gingerly.

"We know," she said gently. Annabelle glanced back at Dad. "Should she be this awake so suddenly?"

There was a tic going off in my left cheek. I reached up and touched charred skin.

Dad hurried over and crouched by my side. He seemed to have put on a few years of age since I last saw him.

"Rebekah's been taken mainland in a holding cell, Loosh. You don't have to worry. How are you feeling?"

I winced. "Not entirely sure."

At that moment, the door opened with a quiet hush, and Jules walked in, followed by a nurse who I had to assume was his father, judging by the fact he looked like an older version of Jules.

"What are you doing up?" Mr. Sodrepena clucked. "Back to bed-" he pressed a button by the headboard and movement shot through one of the tubes, "-this instant."

"No, wait," I said weakly. The haze I had worked so hard to push away from was returning.

"Wait."

I slept.

***

Beep-beep-beep-beep-beep-

***

Opening my eyes to the world this time around felt fluid, the sweep of a blade through water.

"Hi, Dad," I said, turning my head to the side. He had dragged the chair close, resting his chin on his hands.

"Hello, Loosh," Dad replied, smiling wearily. "Glad to have you join the living again."

I tried to sit up, shift higher along, but Dad and another pair of hands stopped me.

I looked to the other side, where a middle-aged man in a white coat was shining a torch into my face. When he made a thoughtful noise and prodded at my eyeballs, I could only assume he was the doctor. My brain was still a little slow.