Stones and Glass Houses (Book 1)

🕷(7) Secrets Within Blood

Brooklyn POV-

If that insufferable beeping didn't stop soon, Brook would have to reluctantly open her tried eyes and kill whatever that was.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

When said noise didn't stop, the girl's murderous eyes shot open, only to see she was in an unfamiliar room. The beeping noise wasn't her alarm, it was a machine, and the beeping it signified was her vitals.

Vitals because she was injured...and had passed out.

Brook noticed had at least three IVs in her arms, and the hospital look was not sitting well with her. Though she'd gotten hurt many times during her childhood, she'd never been in a hospital..but she knew this wasn't one either.

The IVs were familiar though, and enough of an unpleasant feeling that she debated ripping them off, but restrained herself from doing so in fear of triggering an alarm. Brook just had to remind herself that this wasn't the daily medicine she was given as a child. 

This one didn't hurt as punishment, its purpose was to heal.

With groggy eyes, Brooklyn still managed to take a decent look around the room, which looked more like a lab than a hospital room. Her half of the room was filled with medical supplies, but the other looked more like a lounging area with tables full of beakers, microscopes, and metal machines scattered around.

Remembering her injury, Brook lifted the grey blanket from her body, then lifted her gown to see a large bandage covering her stomach with a light hue of red. She'd been stitched up then.

Beside her on the screen, Brook's vitals seemed stable, and the IVs were just anesthetics and nutrients to help her heal quicker. Nothing too serious and likely the reason the pain was nonexistent.

The small table beside her cot had a silver tray with bloody gauzes and tweezers, some of which were not washed yet. The sight of it made her smirk. 

Her injury must have been quite the hassle to deal with.

Taking a look past her depressing room space, Brook realized she couldn't see past the tinted glass wall to her right. The one to her left was plain, with no mirrors that could suggest this was an observation room. 

To her relief, Brook wasn't cuffed to the bed, but her cheap jewelry was missing, revealing the cuff marks on her left wrist. They wasn't as bad as nine years ago, but it turned into a light set of scars that wrapped around her wrist, most would likely never heal from being cuffed to her bed every night since she could crawl. 

If she stared at them long enough, her mind would drift off to that place in Belarus, so Brook covered them up with the blanket and collapsed back on the bed. But it had been too late.

The feeling of the cold seeping in through the underground stone walls. Shouts and screams from sunset to sunrise. Even the ache of her feet after ballet training along with the smell of cigar  from her instructor suddenly turned so real just by looking at some old scars.

But here, the room was warm, quiet, and smelled more like oil and metal tang from the stainless steel in the room...and something sweet too.

Sure enough, there was a bouquet of Hyacinth blooms on the table at the end of her bed. Its sweet scent hitting her nostrils with familiarity, like the flowers her upstairs neighbor grew on his window ledge.