With Crayons and Love (Romantic Suspense) [COMPLETED]

Chapter 29 - Free

My body felt like lead. Heavy and not my own. As my eyes opened, I felt the glare of white, lucid lights. And squinting, I aimed to refocus my vision.

Had I left the windows open throughout the night? Since when had the light in my room been this... overbearing in the mornings?

"Grant," I murmured, reaching out beside me to feel for him, but my hand didn't move. Instead, it stung. "Did-Did I leave... the window...?"

"Tessa." I heard a voice, female and familiar, from somewhere around me.

And that in itself popped open my eyes, sensitive and dilated as they were.

"Mom? What are you..." but the words rolled out of my reach again, and I quieted. She stood right beside me, attentive and smiling softly over me.

"Hey, Tessa, sweetie."

"Mom. You're here early- Ow." I tried to reach out for my head, where a hollow pain reverberated, but even my hand hurt, and I looked down to find it punctured by a needle and connected to a tube. An IV.

The walls around me, a stark white, screamed.

"Goddammit," I swore under my breath. Pieces of the night rushed to me then. His face, those blood thirsty green eyes and the rage of his hands. He threw me, and I was falling. Even now I felt as though I were falling further and further away into my thoughts, which so mercilessly pounded against my skull. Questioning.

But I was at a hospital. My body sore. My head throbbing and my senses weakened with drugs. Where the hell were Grant and Stella?

"Mom. Stella and Grant. Where are they?"

She gave me a soft smile and patted my thigh, then kissed my cheek gently. I could see from the way she was biting her lip that she was fighting tears.

"They're perfect. Grant took Stella to the cafeteria for some cookies. And he's getting himself a coffee. He's been here all night and all day, refusing to get much more than a few moments of sleep. And your father was here just a moment ago, but he went to our house to get you one of my nightgowns to wear when you awoke."

She kept patting my hand, unable to believe that I was truly fine.

But I was fine, wasn't I?

"Why didn't he go to my apartment? It must be closer, right? To the hospital, I mean." It was so difficult to even speak correctly.

"Why, yes. Yes, it is. But your apartment's been closed off by the police department for investigation," she said softly.

I nodded my head, annoyed at myself for missing the obvious. "Of course."

She waited.

"Where is Dominic?" I asked, looking into my mother's eyes without abashment. She had to see that he was nothing to me. That I felt no more fear, and most definitely no more anger, no more pain, because it had all evaporated when Grant saved me.

"They're treating him medically for the gun-wound. But he's been arrested. Grant gave a statement, and the detectives will be coming when the doctor lets them know that you're awake to get a statement from you."

"Right..." I mumbled, more and more inquiries forming inside my head, conflicting me.

"Sweetie," my mother began, her eyes clouding with concern. "Try not to stress your mind so much. It isn't good after a concussion."

"Concussion. That's what it was." I shifted in the bed, whimpering when the onslaught of pain spread throughout my torso.

I remembered his hands, curved lethally into fists. Then flattened. And the bite and brand of his belt over my skin. My body as it hit the floor and bed.