Bitter Kisses (It's Just High School #3) - Thandiwe Mpofu Page 0,77

luckily, she doesn’t feel it in her anger. “What?” she shouts. “That’s what you care about, you selfish, ignorant sonofabitch! You’re the reason Mia is fighting for her life!”

“Uh, is there a problem here?” the doctor questions, unsure and definitely uncomfortable with the mounting tension I can slice with a knife.

“Just answer the question, doctor or you become useless here. Will she remember or not?”

“For God’s sake, didn’t you hear what the doctor just said?”

“Nicky, you’re only here by my grace. Don’t make me change that.”

Silence.

He’s threatening her. That much is clear. Anger flashes in my system as hate blooms in my chest.

“Well?” Nathan’s voice booms in the room.

“Mr. Montague, like I said several times before when you asked, there is a possibility that Mia might suffer a brain injury but there is no way of telling right now with her state of unconsciousness. She is responding to stimuli, her cerebral cortex seems to be functioning. When she wakes up, we’ll run some tests and see from there.”

“But amnesia is not a possibility, isn’t it?”

I hold my breath, listening intently, clutching the bed sheets to my body as much as I can without showing that I’m awake. I hold on to them for dear life as a tremor of what happened to me on that warehouse flashes in my head.

“Maybe, maybe not. A form of amnesia is possible, among other things, or she could be hundred percent physically fine. Anything is possible.”

“But you can stop it right?” Nathan demands, his voice panicked all over again. “You can cure the amnesia.”

Well holy fuck. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think he doesn’t want me to forget anything. Well, then…

“Mr. Montague, please understand, we have to wait until she wakes up and work from there.”

I hear grumbling, but I don’t care. This changes everything. Especially if they all think I’m not aware of what they’re saying.

“Physically?” Nicky whispers. “What do you mean by that?”

“It means we have to take into account every facet of her well-being. Physically, mentally and emotionally… you must prepare for all possibilities for when she wakes.”

“Oh Mia, if you can hear me baby, everything’s going to be just fine,” Nicky whispers close to my ear, her voice hoarse and strained. Then she presses another soft kiss on my forehead and whispers in my ear, “Whatever it is I have to do, I promise you this, no one will hurt you ever again.”

Oh Nicky… my… my mother. Yes, that sounds right. Nicky is my mother. Though that doesn’t extinguish or replace how Nancy raised me as her own.

“Thank you, doctor, that will be all,” Nathan declares suddenly, breaking the melancholy that has fallen over me.

I feel Nicky tense up beside me and I hold my breath, waiting for what’s about to happen as the door shuts. But there’s just silence.

A heavy, tense silence so oppressive, I feel like I might actually slip into a coma from the violence that hangs in the room.

“You have a mouth on you,” Nathan says, his voice deceptively soft and eerie.

“What the hell are you planning?” Nicky demands, letting go off my hand in a rush, stepping away from my bed.

“What makes you think I’m planning anything?”

“Because I know you, you shady piece of shit!” Nicky seethes, her words shaky as she cries. “I know you caused this, now look at her! Look at her face! Look at the bandages wrapped all over her frail body! You did this.”

“Ooh, what unfounded accusations. I could never hurt my own child.”

“No, you’d do so much worse!”

“You don’t have any proof of that”

“Proof?” Nicky seethes. “Why were you asking about the possibility of amnesia? Are you hoping she remembers so you can use her again? Yeah, that’s right, I know you forced her into some kind of deal, you asshole!”

There’s a low, humorless chuckle that makes the blood in my veins freeze.

“Well, Courtney did warn me that you know,” Nathan says, not even bothered by those words. In fact, he sounds amused. “Here’s the thing your pea-sized brain doesn’t know, Nicky. Mia has her own role to fulfill in all of this. She agreed and then she broke that agreement. I already told her what would happen if she did that and so what happens now is all on her shoulders. Either way, I win.”

My father has already messed with Julian and me in the cruelest way possible. I won’t let him touch Liam or Cole.

But one thing is clear. Nathan has a sinister plan in