SWNOVELS The Sacrifice: Chapter 55
We pull up to the back of the facility, and just like Gavin promised, a man waits for us. He lets us in.
“Where is she?” I demand, my heart is in my throat. I’m not sure what I’m more afraid of. It not being her, or it being her and seeing what kind of state she’s in. Why here of all places? If they wanted her hidden, they could have found better places to hide her. That’s what makes me think this is a trap, but it’s not going to stop me from falling right into it. Or it’s a way to keep me chasing my own tail. They don’t want her found. No, they want her to themselves. My biggest fear is that she’s already out of reach.
“She’s down here.” He points down the hallway that we enter. “Third door on the right.”
I barge into the room to find a brunette lying in a bed. All she wears is a hospital gown that’s open down the front. Her arms are down to her sides, brown leather cuffs wrapped around them to keep her restrained. Her legs are also pulled open with matching leather cuffs around her ankles. Another comes across her bare chest, pinning her down to the bed. She has bruises on her gorgeous face and a small tube down her nose. There’s no blanket to cover her up.
“La-ke.” My voice cracks when I run over to my wife. My hands cup her face, and her skin is ice cold. “Lake, little darling, I’m here. Wake up,” I say, shaking her a little bit but nothing. Her eyes are closed, and I pry them open to see they’re dilated. “What’s wrong with her?” I demand, letting go and starting to remove the restraints around her wrists. Ryat works on her ankles. Gavin picks up her chart that is attached to the end of the bed.
“They’ve got her sedated,” the guy who snuck us in answers.
“Why?” I snap, placing my arm under her back and lifting her limp body up to mine, trying to close the gown around her for what little warmth it may provide. “She’s freezing,” I bark out, and Ryat goes over to a cabinet. Opening the door, he finds a blanket and hands it to me to wrap around her.
“I don’t know. I’m not on her case,” the kid rushes out.
“Why didn’t you help her?” I demand.
“I couldn’t touch her.” He shakes his head quickly. “She has a very strict team that was assigned to her when she arrived. I wasn’t even aware of who she was until Gavin called me,” he urges. “They’ve had someone watching over her most of the time.”
“Get me the nurse who is here and assigned to her,” I snap at him. He turns and runs out of the room.
I lay her lifeless body back down, tucking the blanket up underneath her and running my hands up and down her to warm her up. “I’m here, Lake. I’m here.”
The door opens, and the guy returns with another man wearing blue scrubs. “You can’t be in here,” he growls, looking at her and then to us.
“Is her jaw broken?” Gavin asks.
My head swings to him. “Why the fuck would you ask him that?”
“Is her jaw broken?” he asks again, looking up at the man in scrubs.
“No,” he finally answers, squaring his shoulders as if he’s getting an attitude.
Gavin looks back down at her chart. “Then why is her jaw wired shut?”
“What?” I snap. I turn back to my wife and pull up her top lip, and my heart stops at what I see. It looks like braces. Individual brackets on her teeth with wires running up and down diagonally, keeping her upper teeth tied to her lower teeth.
“She was biting,” the guy responds. “Drew blood.”
I lift my head to look at him.
“Restraints?” Ryat growls. “She’s sedated, for fuck’s sake.”
“She was combative.” He lifts his chin.
I grab the nearest thing to me, which is a silver tray sitting on top of a rolling cart, and raise it, slamming it into the side of his face. “I’ll show you combative.”
He’s thrown backward where he falls to the floor, landing on his knees, and I kick him in the face, blood splatters everywhere. I pick him up by his hair and slam his face into the end of the footboard, making it rattle. Falling to the floor, he cries, holding his now busted face.
I stand to my full height, breathing heavily. My adrenaline racing. Gavin walks over to Lake and looks at her mouth. “Can you get them off?” I ask, trying to calm my racing heart.
“Yeah. There doesn’t seem to be any screws. It looks to only be on the outer surface of her teeth. But I’m going to need help.”
“Meaning?” I shout, fisting my already busted knuckles.
“Meaning, I’m going to need an OR. A private one. I can’t take her just anywhere if we don’t want whoever dropped her off here to find out where she went.”
“The Cathedral isn’t an option.” Ryat sighs.
There is a triage set up there underneath the building, but Gavin is right. We can’t take her anywhere that a Lord could possibly find out we have her. And any other hospital will have too many eyes on us. Even if Blackout was still a standing structure, the basement wouldn’t be equipped with everything he’d need for her surgery. It barely had enough when she was stabbed.
“I know a place,” I say, pulling out my cell and sending a text.
ME: I need your help.
He responds immediately.
Anything you need.
“Transport isn’t going to be easy. We need to keep her sedated for now. If I wake her up, she’ll be in a lot of pain,” Gavin goes on. “Not to mention she can’t open her mouth right now to talk. She’ll get upset, and the last thing you want is her sobbing while her mouth is wired shut.”
I kick the guy again just as he was trying to get to his feet.
“I can get you an ambulance,” the man who helped sneak us in offers.
“No. They’re equipped with GPS. That way dispatch can send the closest unit when an emergency occurs.” Gavin shakes his head. “Ryat will just have to drive us.” He looks at the guy. “I need a bag. Get me supplies. So that I can take what I need for her to get us there.”
“Be right back.” The kid runs out, obviously knowing what Gavin is going to need.
The guy on the floor moans in pain, and I kneel down beside him. “Who brought her in?” I demand.
“I don’t—”
“Who the fuck brought her in?” I grip his hair and shove his face into the floor.
He spits out blood. “A man…” he cries. “He carried her in.”
“Who the fuck was it?” I shout, my heart pounding and body vibrating with a rush of adrenaline. I want to slit his throat, but that would be too easy of a death for him. Plus, I need information, and right now he’s my only option.
“I … don’t know.”
“What do you know?”
“She was kicking and screaming. He forced her onto the bed while he had us restrain her. She was screaming for help.”
I punch him again because I can. “Go on.”
“She bit him. Deep enough that he needed stitches. He hit her so hard it knocked her out.” He spits blood out onto the floor. “He demanded the doctor wire her jaw shut and sedate her. She’s been out ever since.”
“So you just did whatever he told you to do?” I punch him again.
He doesn’t answer, instead, he leans forward, blood dripping from his now busted face.
“I’m going to remove her feeding tube and catheter,” Gavin states, and I nod as if he was asking for my permission. A fucking feeding tube? She’s been here what, seven days? My wife has lost a week of her life because they had her sedated and I couldn’t find her.
The door opens and I look up, expecting to see the guy helping us return with a bag, but it’s not him. Silence falls over the room as big brown eyes meet mine. She inhales sharply, looking over at Lake and then back to me. “Tyson.” She holds her hands up.
I want to smile with satisfaction, but I can’t. Not with the state my wife is in. Instead, I lunge at her, and she turns to exit but the door opens, forcing her to stop. I grab her dark hair and yank her back into the room. “What the fuck are you doing here?” I growl in her ear.
She struggles in my grip. “Let me go.”
“Sure.” I shove her into Ryat, and he spins her around, wraps his arm around her throat and holds her in place so I can look her in the eyes. “How did you know she was here?”
Her lips thin, and eyes narrow on me. “Fuck you,” she spits out.
“Let her go,” I order, and Ryat shoves her toward me. I wrap my hand around her throat, and squeeze. Harder than I should, but I can’t stop. No one could pry my hand open right now. I want to see her eyes pop out of her head like a cartoon. “You’ll pay for what you’ve done,” I warn her.
She struggles. Her nails dig into my skin, cutting me. She can claw my eyes out for all I care. I’m not letting her get away with this. For what she’s done to Lake. I will make sure every single person who knew what was happening to my wife pays. Doesn’t matter if they had a hand in it or not.