I asked, my voice so hoarse, “I’m in a hospital?”

She nodded, counting under breath, “Ten . . . nine . . . eight . . .” Once she finished, she wrote a number on her clipboard. “Yeah. Do you know what happened?”

There was pain. Fog. An image of a silhouette, then something big by it.

I winced as I tried to remember. “No.”

“Are you in pain?”

I nodded. “Yes.” Another croak from me.

She reached for an IV and pressed some buttons on a little box hanging from it. “Your morphine must be low. I started another dose.” She reached for a black arm cuff. “I need to take your blood pressure. Are you okay with that?”

I lifted my arm as much as I could, and she applied it. She pressed a button above me, and the cuff tightened until it felt as if it would cut off my whole arm.

She murmured, watching the numbers, “What do you remember?”

I told her as a machine beeped, and those numbers were written down, too. She stared at me a moment. I was waiting for her to fill in the gaps, to explain everything to me, but she didn’t.

“Wh— Hey!”

Gage woke, surging upright. His hand reached for me, and he half-rose out of his seat. “You’re okay?” He searched my face.

“Yeah.”

“Her vitals are all normal.” The nurse gave us both a cheerful grin. “I’m going to let the doctor know you’re awake. He’ll want to talk to you.”

“You’re in pain?” Gage asked once she pulled the door shut behind her.

“She started morphine or something.” I frowned. The headache was still there, and I could not wait for it to go away. “Gage, what happened?”

“What do you remember?”

I told him the same, and like the nurse, there was a baited moment of silence.

“What?” The silhouette, the dark thing by it. Why was it flashing in my memory? “Gage. Tell me. Please.” Fear started to bloom under my ribs, spreading all over.

He just stared at me before squeezing his eyes shut. He let out a pocket of air, and his shoulders dropped dramatically. He nodded. “Okay.” His hand went to the bedrail by me, and his fingers curled around it. “You were attacked—”

As he spoke, the silhouette became one.

“—Matt Carruthers and another guy waited for you to leave the library—”

It was dark. After midnight. There was no one else around.

“—The other guy hit you with a bat—”

The bat swung, and I jerked in the bed as if it hit me once again. I could feel it.

“—then Carruthers kicked you—”

In the face.

I looked up, and a foot was lifted.

I couldn’t move. I was reliving the entire thing. A droplet landed on my hand, and I glanced down. I was crying. I had no idea.

Gage paused, but I gutted out, “Tell me the rest.”

“There isn’t much after that.”

“What?”

He lifted a shoulder. “One of the librarians was leaving and saw the whole thing. She yelled and called 9-1-1 right away. They took off, but campus cameras caught them. They know it was them. I talked to the security officer, but since Dulane doesn’t have its own campus police, the city police is going to be charging them. The one detective stopped by this morning. He said they probably had enough evidence so you wouldn’t have to testify, plus the whole video from before clearly shows Carruthers advancing on you first. It was self-defense, though the cop said you went a little far with it.” A half-grin cracked the heavy mask of exhaustion. He raked a hand over his face. “Shit, Kenz. I was so worried about you. Everyone was.”

I sat there. The whole thing was unbelievable, but I remembered it.

The fear was still there, and I waited. I wasn’t one to be afraid. The anger would be coming, but after another minute’s wait, I frowned. It wasn’t there. It was just fear.

“Kenz?”

Gage was watching me. He tilted his head to the side, his fingers uncurling from around the rail so he could reach toward me. “What’s going on in there?”

I shook my head.

A lump was in my throat.

I didn’t want to be scared.

I didn’t want to be anything.

I shoved it down.

Maybe it was the morphine. Maybe it was me, but I didn’t feel. I was numb, and I smiled at my brother. “I’m fine.”

“You’re lying.” We heard voices nearing the door, and Gage glanced to it. He leaned forward again, dropping his voice. “We can talk about it later, but you have to talk about it. Okay? You have to. You can’t keep that stuff bottled inside.”

The door opened, and a doctor came in behind the nurse. I was poked, prodded, and questioned over the next thirty minutes. They told me I suffered a concussion, and half of my face looked like a giant red onion. Other than that, the doctor said I was lucky that librarian was there.

I suppressed a shiver.

Before they left, after taking another round of vitals, the doctor said I could go home in the morning. He asked Gage, “Are you going to fill her in on everything that’s happened since her attack?”

“I hadn’t gotten to it yet. I will.”

He nodded his approval, saying to me, “I’ll be back in the morning for another set of rounds, so I’ll be seeing you one more time before you can go home. It’s nice to have met you. I have to say it’s been an honor and an adventure all at the same time.”

The nurse laughed softly, following him out.

I asked Gage, “What was that about?”

He sighed. “Shay.”

Shay.

His name was an echo in me, resonating like a bouncing ball.

“What about him?”

Gage’s chest rose and held, before lowering again. He sat up straighter, his hands on his lap, and he started. “Okay. Here goes. You don’t know this, but if you were to leave this room, there are two policemen outside your door.”

“What?”

“Carruthers and the other guy are in the hospital. Those police are out there for your safety, since Carruthers already tried to attack you one time. They figure he might retaliate again, but I don’t see that happening.”

“Did I hit them back or something? Are they here as patients?”

“No.” A quick laughter slipped out. “They’re in here because Shay beat the shit out of them.”

The ball dropped.

“What?”

“The librarian told someone in administration about you, and they called your roommate. Your roommate is an idiot. She told your floor’s RA that you had one friend, Kristina. She knew about me, so at the same time she was calling me, so was Mom.”

“Mom.” I groaned. This would get interesting.

“I wasn’t totally thinking clearly. Mom was on one line, going nuts. I could hear Blake in the background yelling.”

I groaned again.

“I do have to give it to your friend. She was calm. I mean, I could hear how scared she was, but she was calm at the same time. I hung up with her, and I talked to Mom.”

“How did Shay find out?”

He held up a finger, his Adam’s apple moving up and down in a swallowing motion. “That’s why I’m explaining that I wasn’t thinking clearly. I blurted out that she needed to call and let Shay know. After that, I can only assume her phone call to him wasn’t good. The next thing I know, I’m parking outside the hospital. Mom and Blake are on their way, and Casey calls.”

Casey?

Gage continues, “Word spread fast who attacked you, and before the cops could get to Carruther’s apartment . . .” He let me do the rest.

“Shay did.”

“Exactly.” He nodded. “He beat the shit out of him, and he was still there, pounding him when the cops arrived. They were all arrested and brought here to get checked out. Shay knocked Carruther’s friend out cold at the apartment, and the guy woke up here. He said something smart to Shay, and they didn’t have enough cops in the room. Shay went at them one more time. He didn’t make contact, but he tried. He almost did. A nurse stood in the way and stopped him. He would’ve had to hit her if he wanted to hit them, and before he could get around her, the cops were on him by then. They were all separated after that and handcuffed to their beds.”