Faker - Sarah Smith Page 0,38

it. I shuffle around so my back is cradled by his front, and in an instant, I’m asleep once more.

When I wake in the morning, I’m still wrapped in Tate’s left arm, but the minor ache in my side has morphed into something worse, like I’m being stabbed with a dull butter knife. I touch my forehead, and my fingers come away covered in cold sweat. Why the hell am I burning up? Momentary shivers cause my teeth to chatter. I try to straighten my legs against the bed, but the cramping worsens. I have to take several deep breaths. Did my concussion cause this?

Tate’s peaceful snoozing tickles my ears, the only source of comfort I can latch onto right now.

“Tate,” I whine.

There’s a soft grunt. “What is it? Are you okay?”

I shake my head. Seconds pass. The more awake I feel, the worse it gets. There’s an invisible vise twisting the side of my stomach, eviscerating my insides.

I feel his warm, firm body peel away from me. The bed rattles, and there’s a thud. Tate jumping out of bed and falling to the floor, I assume. He rounds the foot of the bed and crouches down so he’s eye level with me.

“God, you look pale.”

“That’s rich, coming from you.”

He frowns. “Don’t joke. I’m serious. Hang tight, I’ll be back with one of the nurses.”

Deep breaths help, but only marginally. The ache from the fall, the sore spot on the side of my head, is nothing compared to the invisible machete in my right side.

Soon Tate returns with a nurse I don’t recognize and a dark-haired woman in a crisp white lab coat. The doctor on call, I think.

She leans down over me, then gently presses me flat on the bed. “Emmie, I’m Dr. Tran. Can you tell me about the pain you’re experiencing?” Her deep brown eyes study me.

I explain how it feels like psychotic-level PMS cramps and how it started as a dull ache in my right side a couple days ago. Dr. Tran presses her gloved hands all over the side of my lower abdomen while I bite back squeals of pain. I rack my brain to try and remember if I landed on something when I fell that could have caused an internal injury.

Behind the cloud of pain that consumes me, I hear Tate ask if my fall could have anything do with this. It’s a trickle of comfort in my physical agony that he’s somehow so in tune with me.

The doctor says something about not ruling anything out before turning back to me. “I’m going to order a CT scan to get a better look at what’s going on in there.”

I nod and close my eyes.

“I know you’re in intense pain right now, so we’re going to give you some morphine. It’ll take a few minutes to kick in, but once it does, you’ll feel a lot better.”

The promise of no more mind-blowing pain is the best thing she could have told me. I’m approaching kid-on-Christmas-morning levels of happiness. The nurse administers the morphine and leaves with Dr. Tran.

Tate walks to my side. “You’ll feel better in a few minutes. Just breathe with me until the morphine kicks in, okay?”

“Okay. Thank you,” I say softly. The sharp stab gradually fades back into an ache.

“That’s it. Just keep breathing. Slowly. In and out.” He must notice that I’m death-gripping the edge of the bed, because he places his hand over mine. Instantly, my fingers loosen.

I follow his instructions. The intensity of the ache decreases as the seconds tick by. When it reaches a dull soreness, I almost smile.

“Wow,” I say in a drawn-out whisper.

His eyes widen. “What?”

“I feel better already.”

This time when I close my eyes, I fall asleep. I wake up to the jolt of my bed wheeling down a hallway. A large tan man pushes me into a darkened room filled with expensive-looking medical machinery. A tiny blond woman with a cheery smile and her hair in a bun greets me before saying something about hauling me onto the bed of the CT scan. With the morphine coursing through me, I tell her I feel strong enough to climb up by myself. She nods for the man to stand next to me just in case I fall, but I make it unassisted.

Slowly, my body is slid into the darkened tunnel. It stops so just my head and upper chest jut out from the opening. For five minutes I lie there, staying as still as