My head hurts, my body is sore from the weird ass position I fell asleep in, and I just know that there’s an embarrassing red mark on my face from where my head was pillowed against my arm. I blink, ready to steel myself with irritation that he woke me up and found me like this, but...I feel weird. I open my mouth to tell him to fuck off, but it’s so dry that I can’t seem to make my tongue work, and I’m a little dizzy.
“I said I would come back today, and I did. Sinclair, please don’t be—” He pauses, stopping in his tracks. “What the hell? Why are you bleeding?” he demands, his nose flaring as he takes in the scene.
A bag of something drops to the ground, and suddenly Rook is down on the hard floor next to me, his hands cupping my face. “What happened?”
He looks down at my leg, and I follow his gaze. The bandages that I wrapped around my cut are soaked in crimson, and there’s a drying puddle of my blood next to my leg.
Did he say today? Damn, how long did I pass out for?
“Did you do this?” Rook asks, and I have just enough wherewithal to roll my eyes at him.
I close my mouth and open it again to speak, but it’s as dry as the Sahara, and I croak more than talk. “You clearly think a little too highly of yourself,” I tell him, my voice all sand and gravel. “It was a tunnel-digging accident,” I explain, oddly out of breath.
What the hell is wrong with me?
His lips press into a thin line. “Come on, we need to get you looked at. Everything in this fucking prison is toxic, and you’ve lost way too much blood.” Rook scoops me up off the floor with minimal effort, and I’m impressed and pissed at the same time. I gather all the waning strength that I have and try to push out of his arms. I don’t budge an inch.
“You are not taking me back to that doctor. She’s a fucking psycho, Rook. Promise me you won’t take me there.” The words feel like glass in my throat as I utter them, but my eyes plead for him to listen.
He studies me for a second, and I can see the debate in his gaze. I shake my head no, and he exhales a defeated breath. “Fine. I won’t take you there, Sun—” he starts, but I glare at him, not wanting to hear the nickname that’s now tainted with disappointment and loneliness. “Sinclair,” he corrects. “But you need help, which means I’m going to have to patch you up. Can you stop hating me long enough for me to do that?”
I tilt my head yes, and then despite myself, rest my head against his shoulder as he starts to carry me out of the cell. He moves so fast that I almost feel like I have motion sickness. I close my eyes to help combat it, but that just makes it feel worse. My leg throbs angrily, and I have a serious crick in my neck from sleeping on my elbow and knee for so long. I meant to take a little rest, not lose a whole day.
When I open my eyes again, Rook is carrying me into a large, clean, white-tiled bathroom, with several private shower stalls. It’s too nice to be a block bathroom, but I can’t imagine he would have taken me to the guards’ locker room either.
Rook looks down at me, and he must see the questions in my eyes. “It’s a new addition to Nightmare Penitentiary. It’s going to house more criminals of the white collar variety,” he explains in answer to my unvoiced question.
I look around again with that new information rolling around my mind. Figures. If you’re white collar, then you’re used to certain perks and privileges. Why should prison be any different? I suddenly want to smear ogre blood all over it. Let them bathe privately in the smell of cat piss while their lawyers get them out on technicalities and they laugh smugly together about all the shit they get away with.
Rook sets me down on a cool tiled bench, and he pulls his support away slowly, like he’s expecting me to fall. Psh, I’m not some weak ass. I totally don’t need his help to—whoops! That ground sure is tilting funny.
Rook catches me before I can face-plant, and he sets