Straight through the Heart

Chapter 37

I wake up in a hospital room. For a second, I panic and have the urge to escape. Then, I see my brother in the bed besides me as he's typing on a computer.

"Took  you long enough." He glances up once from his screen before going back to his work. 

"How long was I out?" I remember falling asleep in wherever I was and that's it.

"Apparently, we were both out for two days. I woke up around two hours ago." He pushes his new glasses up his nose. I notice the multiple, new bandages wrapped around basically all his body.

"You look like a mummy." 

"You look worse than me." He chuckles.

"I glance at all the bandages around me. "I guess I'm all set for Halloween." 

"It's not even October. It's April." Rob mentions.

"We were gone for that long?" I frown and try not to think about what happened. 

"So what are you working on?"

"Homework." 

"Seriously?" My wide eyed expression makes him burst out laughter. Then, he cringes and coughs really bad immediately. I get up abruptly to grab the glass of water for him, but I stumble onto the ground once again. 

Clumsy me wins again. 

"What is going on here?" My mom barges in with an angry expression. She grabs water for my brother and slowly lifts me up to my bed. 

"Stay in bed, Naomi." She glares at me as I struggle to sit up and move around. I freeze and nod obediently 

"You two will have to stay in the hospital for at least a week, so if you need anything, let me know?" My mother says as she checks our vitals. Her watch buzzes in a repeated pattern and she gets up. "I'll be back."

As she leaves the door, she adds, "Naomi, don't move around when you're body is healing!" I freeze and look around the room. I wonder how she noticed me trying to move out of the bed again. I guess it's a mom thing. 

"What type of work are you doing?" I glance at Rob, who is gazing intently at his screen. 

"Well, since we missed out on so much school, I need to catch up and fix my grades. Mom and dad withdrew us from our classes and even the quarter. They made it seem like the two of us were traveling abroad and taking a break. I'm also catching up on what I missed."

"Anything interesting?"

"Besides the usual useless entertainment news, political nonsense, and fake news, I think we didn't miss much." 

"Where'd you even get that laptop?" 

"Dad brought it over." 

"Cool."

I look around the room as I get distracted. I'm a little bored too because I can't really do anything but sit in this stupid hospital bed. I tap my fingers against the bed handles and wonder what I can do to keep myself company.

After a couple minutes, I run out of ideas. "Do you happen to have your phone?" I ask Rob. 

"Nope. Both of our phones were probably destroyed long ago by Barsetti."

"Oh." I frown as I forget that the whole kidnapping thing happened. It seems very surreal to be alive and here right now. 

"You okay?" Rob's worried eyes watch me carefully as he pauses from his work. 

"I will be." My small smile wavers just a little. It might take a while to get back to my hundred percent self. 

"You?" I feel repetitive asking these questions back and forth everyday.