Vendetta

Chapter Fifteen: He's a Goddamn Nurse

I open my eyes to a ceiling. I am on a bed that isn't mine, in a room that I know. Someone's fingers trail over my hands and I swat them away aggressively. Instinct.

'Honestly, it was better when you were out cold.'

My eyes focus on Christian. He is rubbing his arm where my hands smacked him. I sit up, huddle away from him.

'What in the world were you doing to me?'

He rolls his eyes before holding up a tube. 'Antiseptic. You were scratched. Judging by the symptoms, you've probably got rabies.'

My head throbs. I raise a palm to it. My head is swathed in a bandage and it goes all around my head.

'Oh, you probably also have a concussion. Not that it matters in anyway - your head was screwed up before too.'

I don't reply. Instead, I swing my legs over the edge of the bed and stand up. I have taken worse hits than these. I've been shot a couple of times, and I had had a broken leg. Compared to what I've been through and will go through in the future, a concussion seemed like a joke.

'Hey.' Christian stands too, and he is pushing me back to the bed. 'You are supposed to be resting.'

I ignore him. I push his hands off my shoulders and walk to the door. I barely made two steps, before his arms wrap around my waist.

I growl. 'Are you mad, Christian? Let me go.'

'I was not done, okay? Your hands are still bleeding.'

I stop struggling and Christian frees me from his grip. He picks up some cotton and begins dabbing away at a scratch on my forearm. I do not wince as he pours antiseptic over it, and swiftly bandages it, tying it up.

I didn't know that he was a goddamn nurse.

'Looks like you have a lot of practice patching people up.' I say.

Touchy subject. Christian's hands freeze over my wounds and he clenches his jaw. He pushes the antiseptic bottle onto my hands, along with the bandages and propels me to the door himself.

'Hey,' I protest, but he seems to have nothing of it. He pushes me outside and is about to close the door when he asks, 'Who?'

'Who what?' I snap. I am tired of this guy's mood swings. If it were up to me, if only I didn't need him, if only he wasn't even related to Arrigo, he would've had a bullet between his pretty eyebrows.

He gestures to my head with one hand.

'Who did this?'

My eyes darken. 'My battles are none of your concern, Christian.'

He snorts. 'It was Leigh, wasn't it? She didn't like that I took you to the party, right?'

I set my jaw. 'Thanks for patching me up,' I say, before I turn on my heel and leave.

////

Rachel's lying face down on her bed when I open the door and shut it firmly behind me.

'I hate your friend,' I say, moving to the desk. She doesn't respond.

'Rachel? What's wrong?'

I see her shoulders shake. She is crying.

Darn it. Not again.

'Rach?'

I place my arm between her shoulder blades. Gently, with a softness I didn't know I possessed, I pull her up.

Her eyes are red from crying. They are puffy and out of place. Her hands move to my head.

'You are hurt.' She says, grasping my hands.