CHAPTER NINE
“Lola! Lola, wake up.”
Someone is tapping on my face gently, and I open my eyes before focusing on Cole. He’s leaning over me, his beautiful eyes crinkled with concern and he leans down, kissing my forehead gently.
“Thank fuck,” he mutters before lifting me in his arms, but I cry out at the pain that reverberates through me, every bone and shred of skin aching at the contact.
“Fuck me,” he mutters before loosening his grip.
The light is blinding, and I shrink from the open door, glancing back to see the hole I’ve been in for I don’t know how long, the dark shadows mocking me.
I shiver involuntarily, and Cole glances down at me with a frown before I pass into oblivion once more.
When I come to slowly, I hear the low warble of voices nearby. My head aches and my limbs hurt, but for the first time in I don’t know how long, I’m lying on something soft, and I’m warm. Even better, the acrid stench of shit doesn’t permeate the space, and a soft glow shines behind my eyelids.
I’m alive. Fuck.
Tears sting my eyes, but I’m just too tired for my body to follow through, and they subside. Something pricks my arm and I crack my lids to find an IV attached to the bed with something flowing steadily into my veins.
It’s still too bright, and I glance around the room with my eyes at half-mast because the soft glow is an obnoxious glare after the pitch black I experienced for days.
I’m in a bedroom, not a hospital, and I feel a distant sort of ease in my body at the realization that I might actually be safe. The voices draw my attention once more, and I swing my eyes toward the foot of the bed where a doorway leads into a hall. Two men stand outside it with the door cracked, and I can’t see out, but I can hear every other word or so.
“It’s the only . . ., Cole, the fuck . . . can we do?” I think I hear Enzo’s deep voice growl.
“ . . . fucking . . . dammit.”
Movement from the corner of my eye draws my attention, and I gasp when I find Marie standing over me with a pair of scissors in her hand. My heart surges into my throat, but before I can freak out any further, she lowers the scissors and says softly, “I thought you might like to shower. We need to cut the clothes off you.”
Her sweet voice is low and soothing, and I sag to the bed. I don’t trust Marie, but I don’t think she has it in her to be a Shepherd. Besides, why would Cole go to the trouble of extricating me from the hole just to drop me here at the mercy of someone intent on hurting me?
He wouldn’t, at least not on purpose. He’s way too honorable for that.
The mention of a shower reminds me of my disheveled state, and I gaze down at myself, cringing at the sight of my clothes, stiff from dirt, sweat, and other unmentionable things. Holy shit, Cole held me in his arms and smelled this—me. Ugh.
Looking back at her face, I nod and croak, “Yes, please.”
I’m still weak, and she has to help me lift my arms and legs to pull the scissors through the material. I fight off embarrassment at the smell that wafts off my body, but exhaustion pulls through me, and I find I just don’t fucking care.
“I’ve run a bath for you,” she murmurs, and I turn and study her face.
She’s pretty with her pale brown eyes resembling soft, gooey caramel and arched brows. She tends to wear long skirts with a t-shirt tucked into the waistband, and although everything about her screams plain at first, her sweet demeanor overrides all her physical attributes.
After removing the IV and with some struggle, we manage to get me out of bed and into the bathroom, but I have no extra energy, and she’s small, so we have to make up for it with the sheer force of will. By the time I’m undressed and hovering over the tub, our combined will gives out, and I drop unceremoniously into the water with a splash.
“Sorry,” I pant when the water soaks the floor.
“It’s okay,” she says softly before leaving me to it.
I’m grateful because the last thing I need is her sponging off my body. I can’t help the curl to my lip at the horror that is my life at this very moment because Cole’s sweet, shy girlfriend just helped me cut off clothes layered in dirt and excrement before taking the brunt of my weight and assisting me into the bath. Fuck me.
I lay there for a few minutes with a sigh, trying to catch my breath and regain some energy. The warm water loosens my muscles, and I groan at the ache that it produces, dumbfounded that laying in a hole and slowly starving to death could make my body hurt so much.
I don’t know how long I was in that hole, but when I take stock of my body, I can see my ribs through my skin. My legs are spindly, and my arms look like fleshy sticks. I’ve lost a lot of muscle mass and any lingering body fat that the beginning of the end of the world hadn’t already stolen from me. Now I resemble a survivor of a damn death camp. It’s a painful truth, but I think Shepherd planned to starve me to death, and I’d still be in that hole if Cole hadn’t found me.
I’m so exhausted, both mentally and physically, that I just lay there in the water until it starts to cool before I summon all my energy and scrub down my body as best I can.
With slow strokes, I lather my hands and trace my skin, tears falling down my cheeks at every bump and ridge that wasn’t there before. I’m also so fucking weak that I’m panting with the effort as agony screams through my body, but I persevere and clean my feet, legs, arms, and lady parts before slathering my hair with soap and dunking.