"With a bat?" Just the thought made me physically ill.
The brutality of it.
The violence .
"Was he insane?" "Of course," he snapped, a deep line of pain between his brows.
I backed up a half step.
"I'm sorry."
"No, don't.
Shit.
I'm - " His eyes closed.
"I'm exhausted."
Just then the nurse came in wearing scrubs decorated with cartoon tongue depressors and animated stethoscopes.
She was young and pretty, with dark hair and sloe eyes.
She checked Cary over, took his blood pressure, then pressed the button on a remote wrapped around the guardrail.
"You can self-administer every thirty minutes for pain," she told him.
"Just press this button.
It won't dispense a dose if it's not time, so you don't have to worry about pressing it too often."
"Once is too often," he muttered, looking at me.
I understood his reluctance; he had an addictive personality.
He'd traveled a short ways down the junkie road before I kicked some sense into him.
But it was a relief to see the lines of pain on his forehead smooth out and his breathing settle into a deeper rhythm.
The nurse looked at me.
"He needs his rest.
You should come back during visiting hours."
Cary looked at me desperately.
"Don't go."
"She's not going anywhere," Gideon said, reentering the room.
"I've arranged to have a cot brought in tonight."
I didn't think it was possible to love Gideon more than I already did, but he somehow kept finding ways to prove me wrong.
The nurse smiled shyly at Gideon.
"Cary could use more water," I told her, watching her pull her gaze reluctantly away from my boyfriend to look at me.