Rachel's Accident (2 page)

As the pain lessened close to its prior state my breathing calmed down a little bit and I could hear him grunting and grumbling to himself under his breath. I couldn’t make out the words, though.

I took another few shaky intakes before I tried to open my eyes again. Slowly, slowly I made progress fighting through the streaks of pain in my head. When I had my lids halfway open I turned my head a bit, another onslaught of lightning and thunder assaulting my brain. I groaned loudly. Every little stream of light that hit my eyes caused me to utter another round of groans and pained grunts.

“Don’t move too much,” the deep baritone vibrated against my nose, which was now buried at his neck.

Somehow I seemed to know that voice. I sounded so oddly familiar, yet I couldn’t place it.
All I could see was part of a cheek with a hint of stubble on it. Okay, that was way too much effort for nothing. I closed my eyes again and leaned my head even more into his neck.
Might as well take advantage of that.
This position was slightly more comfortable relieving a bit of the pressure in my head –
mmhh
, and he smelled good.

I breathed his scent in and let out another shaky breath. Good, now came the tricky part. Trying to figure out if all my limbs where still attached wasn’t as difficult as I thought at first, though.

I started with my legs since I already knew that my head definitely was still firmly attached to my neck and shoulders. That was not my priority right now. I wriggled my toes a little. Yep, they were still there. Man that hurt straight up to my spine.
Deep breath.

Okay, next round.
Arms.
Moving my fingers a little up and down, I felt another pang to my shoulders and down my spine. I moaned again taking another shaky breath through my teeth and letting it hiss out again.

He moved his arms under me adjusting my weight again, which made
me
moan even louder. I wasn’t the only one making painful noises, though. I heard a low groan coming from him, too.

“Sorry, sorry,” he breathed. “The ambulance will be here in a few minutes. Just hang in there,” he repeated. I opened my mouth and let out a small gasp, my lips not quite able to form any words yet.

What was going on? I couldn’t have had that much to drink to need an ambulance. And now that I thought about it that wouldn’t explain the excruciating pain either. It didn’t seem that I was waking up from a hangover after all. But then, what happened? I couldn’t make anything out very clearly. I let out another grunt of agony. I was so not good with dealing with pain. I was a real crybaby.

“What happened?” I heard myself whisper. Ah, finally something coherent came out of me.

“Don’t you remember?

“No,” I groaned.

“That’s not good. …We had a car accident,” the deep, soothing voice explained, “I rammed you with my truck. I didn’t see you. I’m so fucking sorry.”

“
s’okay
,” I mum
bled for a lack of something better to say and frankly in my state I didn’t want to think of anything intelligent I could counter with. I started feeling dizzy.

A siren could be heard in the far distance. He jostled me a little again when he turned around to face in the siren’s direction. I could feel his muscles tensing, where my body connected with his at the crook of his neck and his chest and his arms.

“The ambulance is coming,” he said relieved, but with a slight strain in his voice, “You’ll be okay.”

As the ambulance drew nearer I had to fight against the spears of pain lancing through my skull. I whimpered and groaned.
Complaining pathetically in my incoherent manner about my miserable situation.

“Sorry,” I heard to my right again. The pain got worse the closer my new transportation got. I couldn’t do anything except screaming out in torment. A second later I blacked out drifting back into blissful unconsciousness.

When I came to again I heard loud bleeping all around me. My body felt numb and cold. There was a dull ache behind my eyes. Nothing I couldn’t handle.
So far, so good.
My throat felt raspy and dry. The smell of disinfectant filled my nose. Huh, I must be in the hospital, then. It definitely smelled like it.
God, how I hated this smell.
I loathed it and would recognize it anywhere, which ultimately meant that I had to be in a hospital to achieve that.

I slowly tried to open my eyes. Blinded by the harsh neon lights from the ceiling I closed them again. I had to try a few more times until my pupils finally adjusted to the new environment and could keep my eyes open. The lights seemed like lasers trying to burn out my brain through my eyeballs. (And I tell that was not a very pleasant feeling.)

I was lying on a hospital bed with a thin, itchy blanket draped over me (no wonder I was freezing) and a hard pillow under my head (didn’t help the headache). My teeth started to chatter slightly. I pressed them together to stop them. Damn, it was cold. Couldn’t they at least have turned up the heating? I gave a shiver and burrowed deeper into the flimsy scrap of cloth the hospital stuff wanted to sell me as a blanket.
Pff
, pathetic.

I let my eyes wander around the room. Spying all the monitors around me that where obviously the source of the constant bleeping in my ears (phew, not my imagination) I studied them curiously. My pulse and blood pressure where a little high, but nothing to concern yourself about. Staring at them too much made my eyes hurt more.

Well, moving on then. I got back to examining the room again. Huh, my own room. That was strange. I never had my own room in a hospital. I just couldn’t afford it. I wasn’t in hospitals that often anyway, but still. Not to mention that my health insurance was completely non-existent. I needed all my money for college, food and a place to sleep.

A motion in the periphery of my vision caught my attention. In the far corner of the room sat a man hunched over in a chair. That didn’t look very comfortable. He shifted again. He had his head in his hands, one was in a cast, and was muttering to himself. How hadn’t I seen or heard him before? I frowned at my lack of observational skills and concentration. Not that this was the first time realizing that, but still.

Who the hell was this guy?
A stalker?
A pervert?
Hopefully, he would be so kind as to tell me and none of the above was mentioned. Otherwise, I had to call the police and I was in no condition to exert myself to such an extent.

When I shifted in my bed he looked up letting his hands fall to his knees. “You’re finally awake,” he said relieved. Ah, I knew that voice, but from where was the question.

“Who…,” I rasped out. I cleared my throat and tried again. “Who are you?”

“I’m the one getting you in here.” He paused and then added, “I’m sorry.”

That weird sense of déjà-vu hit me again, but still I couldn’t place where it came from. Well, s
o much for wondering who that stranger in my room was. Now I knew
, at least,
that h
e was the one responsible for my being in this state in the first place, but I didn’t really blame him. I wasn’t exactly a
very careful driver and I had to take the stupid exam three times because of that. Or was it four? I couldn’t really remember.
Not to mention that my mind had been a little preoccupied with other things when the accident happened.

And he did do the responsible thing and
had
got
ten
me out of the car and call for an ambul
ance as far as I could remember, which
was a huge point in his favor
.

Now when he stood up and walked over slowly I could see his face clearly for the first time. All I could do was
stare
at him. He was really handsome and a huge mountain of a man. Or maybe it just seemed that way from my point of view on the bed. He seemed to be in his early to mid-twenties, not that I was any good at guessing someone’s age, but he didn’t look very old. He came over to me hovering near the bed. His features showed clearly what he was thinking, the guilt and concern written all over his face.

He had bandages, too, on his head and right arm. The left one was in a cast. I took a closer look at him. He had dark circles under his red-rimmed
, green
eyes and his stubble had grown out. His clothes didn’t look so well either and he was a little smelly, too.

“How long have you been here with me?”

“I’m more concerned about your well-being and you should be too.”

“I’m fine.”

“Hell no, you’re not,” he burst out.

I looked at his hands. “How could you carry me with a broken arm?” I said trying to divert his attention to a different topic. I was so much better at worrying over little details (I mostly missed thanks to my lack of observational skills) and other peoples’ well-being than my own. If I concentrated on my injuries and pain right now I wouldn’t be able to handle it. So, my focus never strayed from him.

“
I’ve
had worse. Don’t worry about it.”

I looked at him. ‘He has had worse than that? What the hell kind of man is he?
Or rather, what kind of monster?
Not meaning in a bad way, though, because he was a very handsome monster. Huh. Maybe the poor guy had been the lab rat to some military superhero experiment or something. Who knew?

“Are you a soldier or something?”

‘Yes, that’s good. Let’s go with the most harmless possibility.’

He chuckled.
“No, far from it.”

‘Ah, it’s worse!’

The ache in my head grew a little worse with each word that was passed between us throughout our conversation. When I frowned at him now there shot a streak like lightning behind my eyes. I winced and regretted it instantly. That had made it only worse. I shut my eyes and groaned.

“Are you in pain?” A hint of panic etched into his voice. I groaned again in confirmation. “Ugh, stupid question, of course you are.
I’ll
call the nurse to give you more pain killers.”

“Please,” I whimpered.

I felt him move around me pushing the call button. When the door opened a few minutes later he talked to the nurse, probably telling her that I was awake and needed more pain medication. The nurs
e hurried away. Th
e door closed with a bang that might have actually been just a soft thud but resounded in my head like a church door being shut with great force.

A few minutes later, that seemed like an eternity, she was back with a doctor in tow. They came over to my bed and my rescuer slash guy-who-was-to-blame stepped back to make room for them.

“Honey?”
I opened my eyes again slowly and turned my head slightly to look at the nurse. While the doctor checked my vitals the nurse talked to me. “This is the doctor in charge of you, Dr.
Wynter
. He will tell you what damage your body took exactly.”

“Hello, Miss.” The doc greeted her. “I’m very sorry to tell you that your body sustained considerable damage, especially your arms, legs and head. Due to a heavy concussion we have to keep you here under observation to prevent any permanent injury from happening should the swelling on your brain not go back or your
brain start
bleeding.” He took a deep breath and then continued on with the ‘good’ news. “Your right arm has been broken in several places as have both your legs. The left arm only took a few contusions that won’t take that long to heal. The fractured bones, of course, are another story entirely.”

All those facts he recounted monotonously from a medical chart, never looking up at her. She could only look at him dazed.

“Do you have any questions?”

“How long ‘til I can get discharged?”

“That depends on how well your brain heals. When the swelling goes down we’d like to keep you here for additional observation that can take twenty-four to forty-eight hours,” he replied in the same tone of voice, seeming very bored. He probably got patients like me every day. “Should you have no one to look after you when you get discharged we might have to keep you here longer.”

“We’ll sort that out later,” the man in the corner piped in.

“Very well.”
With that the doctor left the nurse to do her job.

“Now, honey, in order to give you the right amount of pain meds I need you to tell me on a scale from one to ten how much you hurt.” The nurse went about busying herself looking at the charts and checking the IV that connected to my left arm, the only limb on my body that wasn’t broken.

“Four, maybe five,” I told her. She lightly squeezed my hand and I could feel every nerve from my hand tug and yank at my brain. “Ten, ten, ten
,“
I shouted my voice hoarse. ‘Holy
shit, that
hurt.’
Not only from my hand, but now from the shouting as well.
I heard loud ringing in my ears. That didn’t sound good.

She immediately let go of my hand and started filling a syringe with a milky white fluid. The air wheezed out of my lungs and through my sore throat shakily rasping through my clenched teeth. Every little sound seemed to be cause for more pain.

“Okay, that’ll do,” I heard the nurse murmur. I hadn’t even realized that I had closed my eyes again. I opened them and watched her stick the needle of the syringe into my IV. “There you go, honey. You’ll feel better in a minute.”

With that said the nurse turned and walked out again. I turned my head to the other side to look at the ‘mountain-man’ who had been watching me this whole time. “You should go home,” I told him. I already started feeling sleepy.