Crave - Teresa Mummert Page 0,49
eyes finally starting to adjust.
“Welcome back to the land of the living,” Elijah joked as he rounded the raft. I wiped my eyes trying to determine if what I was seeing was real.
“Elijah, what are you doing here?” I asked in a whisper. His body was a dark, golden brown from the sun and his eyes sparkled like I had never seen them before.
“Are you alright?” he asked with a look of concern, then spiked a volleyball over my raft to the other side of the water. “You don’t look so well.”
“You’re in the sun.” I called out with such enthusiasm that my raft capsized, sending me swirling in a sea of water. My lungs burned as I struggled to find my way to the surface. I gasped for air as I shot up, water dripping from my face.
***
“You don’t look so well,” I heard again, blinking my eyes open to see Elijah’s concerned face. He patted a wet washcloth across my forehead, pushing my hair from my face. “You’re burning up,” he noted as I held my hand up to block the blinding fluorescent light overhead. My stomach twisted in knots as the pain shot through me.
“Your hand is warm,” I mumbled.
“You had a fever dream,” he whispered.
“Where am I?” I asked, searching the room for some clue to my whereabouts. The heavy door to the room pushed open and a young woman in a white lab coat walked in, my chart in hand.
“Mr. and Mrs. Malakai?” she asked as she leafed through the pages. “My messenger,” she said with a smile, glancing toward Elijah.
“Excuse me?” I asked with genuine confusion and irritation. How dare this woman hit on my- whatever he was right in front of me?
“That’s what Malakai means, correct?” she asked, proud of herself. Elijah nodded and smiled politely. “Well, what seems to be the problem today?” she asked as she finally glanced my direction.
“My wife is sick. She is running a fever and is complaining of terrible stomach pains,” Elijah explained, his fear wafting heavy in the air. I replayed his words over and over in my head. My wife. It would have made my cheeks blush red if I weren't already from my fever.
“Is there a possibility of pregnancy?” The doctor asked, writing in her chart.
“None,” Elijah replied. I noted a sudden sadness in his eyes and it briefly passed through the air like a breeze. A male nurse in sky-blue scrubs entered the room and smiled as he fumbled with cords and wires from the machines beside my bed.
“I’ll run tests just to be sure. I’m sure we will have you up and out of here shortly,” she said, finally glancing up from her papers to shoot me an insincere smile.
She left the room and the male nurse took a seat on a stool beside my bed. Elijah squeezed my hand and winked at me. I smiled, taking in his handsome, chiseled features under several days of stubble. A sharp pain radiated through my arm and I winced. Elijah shot up from his chair, sending it flying back several feet.
He ran his hands through his dark, messy hair and paced the floor. I glanced down at the nurse who was placing an I.V. tube into the needle he had set in the crook of my arm. Hunger radiated from Elijah’s eyes and I could feel it throughout my body. The nurse noted the commotion and eyed us suspiciously.
“He can’t stand the sight of blood,” I blurted out. The nurse smiled, seemingly excepting my excuse.
“We aren’t all made out for this sort of thing,” he said with a small chuckle. “How about you go get yourself a snack or something from the vending machines, down the hall to the left.”
“Sure,” Elijah replied, leaning in to kiss me quickly on the forehead, his lips cold against my hot skin, and left the room. The nurse smiled at me in a way that made me uncomfortable. I pulled the covers up over my chest and relaxed as he took several vials of blood from the needle for testing. I stared off at a painting that hung on the far side of the room.
“That was almost too easy, Friend,” Reid’s sinister voice called from the doorway as he shut it and twisted the lock. He nodded to the nurse as he made his way to my side. The nurse nodded back nervously, handing him the vials of my blood.
Reid held one to his face and inhaled the