In the Clinch: A Kira Brightwell Novel

Chapter 8

8

It was dark.

Her skull felt too tight. Her pulse seemed to throb at her temples in a steady rhythm that echoed in her ears in a series of beeps. She uttered a moan. Her hand fumbled upward to land against her aching head. Her arm felt strangely heavy. Her fingers brushed against a strange, smooth surface just beneath her nose.

Her eyelids fluttered open. A gummy substance on her lashes made the process more difficult than it should have been. Bright light assaulted her vision. She blinked, her eyes watering.

Huh. I guess it’s not dark after all.

She probed at her face some more and discovered a tube feeding oxygen into her nostrils. She looked down and discovered more tubes coming out of her right hand. Her wrist was circled by a plastic bracelet. Her green eyes followed the trail of tubes to a metal rack of fluid bags hanging beside her. A heart monitor stood beside the rack. She suddenly realized the sound of her heartbeat was the steady beeping she had heard.

She craned her neck against the pillows with a wince. She was in a small, white room with fluorescent lighting, lying in the metal frame of a hospital bed. The room had the sterile scent of rubbing alcohol, mixed with the delicate fragrance of… flowers?

She caught sight of a glass vase on the table beside her bed. Spikes of pink—gladiolus? Her mother would know—had been bunched with delicate, white sprigs of Queen Anne’s lace. They were accompanied by a florist card with her name on it that read ‘Get well soon.’

A man with curly, blond hair was slumped forward in a low chair beside her. His head rested on the bed, pillowed by his arm. His handsome, tanned face was turned toward her, his eyes closed.

She looked him over carefully. She had the strange sense that she knew him, but her thoughts felt as if they were wrapped in cotton wool. He wore a tight, blue polo shirt—too tight really. He had clearly chosen it to show off his muscular frame to its best advantage.

Did that mean something? It felt like it should.

She opened her mouth to say something to him. Her throat was parched and her breath tasted sour. All that came out was a congested wheeze.

The man bolted upright. His blue eyes flew open. They were the same shade as his shirt, which seemed another unlikely coincidence.

“Kira?”

She recognized his voice, but it felt like a distant memory. She cleared her throat and blinked at him as she struggled to remember.

A flicker of worried uncertainty crossed the man’s features. “Kira?” he said again, speaking slowly. “Do you remember me?” His blue eyes seemed to plead with her.

She blinked again. Her mind seemed to be working so slowly…

“Trevor.” The name came to her after an agonizing moment.

The man named Trevor seemed to wilt with relief. “That’s right, it’s me, Trevor. Trevor Wright.” His voice took on the bright tone a person reserves for young children, and those who are mentally ill. “The doctor will be happy to know you’re awake. It’s been hours…”

The words seemed to tumble from his lips until he checked himself. “Do you remember what happened?”

She frowned. Running… She had been running.

Scattered images assaulted her in a jumbled blur.

“The highway.” The words came out slowly. “I was running on the gravel.” She could remember its crunch beneath her shoes.

“That’s right,” Trevor said with an encouraging nod.

She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment as she tried to focus. She had been flying through the air… It was the last thing she remembered. She had been surprised about something. Someone in a truck.

“The truck hit me. There was something about the driver…” As hard as she tried, the image wouldn’t come. She opened her eyes. “I think I knew him. I don’t know how though.”

As she spoke, more pieces of her memory seemed to fall into place as her brain started working again. Of course. She had left the cabin for a run to clear her head, which had turned out to be something of a lost cause. First there had been the honking frat guys, then the old woman, and then…

“It was a beige pickup truck.” Her brow furrowed. Her mind stubbornly shied away from any images of the driver. “I don’t know why, but he definitely rode me down on purpose.”

“Good.” Trevor patted her hand. His expression hardened. “We can tell the police so they can hunt the bastard down.”

“How did I get here?” she asked as she struggled to sit up.

She gripped at her right side with a gasp as a stab of pain went through her abdomen. She prodded her right side with her fingertips and uttered a gasp of pain.

“Careful.” Trevor reached behind her to adjust the pillows as she tried again. “You’ve got a cracked rib. Between that and your concussion, they’re going to keep you here overnight for observation.”

Once Kira had settled herself upright, she met Trevor’s concerned gaze. “OK, but how did I get here? I don’t think the guy in the truck mowed me down just so he could take me on a trip to the hospital.”

Trevor’s lips twitched and the underlying wariness seemed to go out of him as she spoke in a voice more in line with her usual dry tone.

“Some guy found you on the side of the road and brought you in.” He shrugged.

Kira toyed with the hospital bracelet on her wrist. “He must have seen what happened, and the guy in the truck freaked out. He didn’t hit me hard enough to kill.”

Trevor’s expression darkened. “He came close enough.”

Kira’s mind continued to work on the problem while the identity of the truck driver remained on the back burner. “The other driver would have had to be coming from the opposite direction. There was a big hill… The truck driver might not have seen him right away.”

Trevor gave her an exasperated look. “Can you let it go for at least a few minutes? You just woke up.”

“Trevor, I—”

Kira’s rebuttal was cut short by the opening notes of Darth Vader’s ‘Imperial March.’ She looked over and spotted her phone on the bedside table with the mangled remains of her headphones. The screen was cracked, but it seemed otherwise unharmed. She gave it a bewildered look as the meaning of the ringtone sunk in.

“Why is Rob calling me? He should still be pissed.”

Trevor’s eyes shied away. “I, ah, might have texted him after I got to the hospital.”

Kira blinked.

Trevor picked at the thin, hospital blanket. “I thought he would want to know, OK? I knew he was probably still mad, so I texted him instead of calling, so he couldn’t ignore me. I also needed to get some info from him, since your phone was locked.”

Kira stopped paying attention about halfway through and picked up her phone.

“Hello?”

“Jesus Christ, Kira, are you all right? I’ve been calling your phone every ten minutes for the past hour and a half.” Rob’s voice was a mixture of annoyance and relief. “I didn’t want to have to rely on a certain meathead to remember to contact me when you woke up.”

“I’m fine, I think. Relatively speaking, anyway.” The corners of her mouth twitched. “Besides, that meathead let you know I was in the hospital in the first place, right?”

“I thought it might be a sick joke at first. But then he sent pictures…”

Kira’s gaze hardened on Trevor. “You took photos of me while I was unconscious?”

Trevor’s blue eyes widened. “What else was I supposed to do? He was probably too busy looking at dudes going at it on his laptop to be bothered with a text from me. I had to get his attention.” He deliberately pitched his voice loud enough for Rob to hear on the other end of the phone.

“I heard that,” Rob said.

Kira sighed. “Yes, I know.”

“Tell that self-centered t**t he’s lucky I don’t send any photos of ‘dudes going at it’ to his phone.”

Kira rolled her eyes. “Do I need to put you on speakerphone so the two of you can catch up?”

Even though she was careful to use her usual, dry tone, she had trouble not breaking out into a grin. She and Rob were talking again!

Who would have thought I would have Trevor to thank for that? All it took was getting hit by a truck…

As long as neither of them mentioned Kevin, the Procurer, or Rob’s sisters, she could at least pretend everything was back to normal. It was the most relieved she had felt in ages. It was as if a large weight had been taken off her shoulders.

It wasn’t meant to last.

A light tap at the hospital room door shattered the moment. Kira’s eyes widened in startled panic as an older blond woman in dress pants and a tailored, Oxford shirt burst into the room in the company of a sturdy-looking nurse.

“Oh!” The nurse’s wide face stretched in a smile. “See?” She said to the other woman. “She’s awake.”

“Mom?” Kira blurted the word in startlement, her phone still held up to her ear.

“Oh, boy…” Rob’s voice suddenly sounded far away. “I’ll let Trevor explain that one. Bye!”

He hung up before Kira could formulate a reply.

She managed to put the phone down just before her mother threw herself at her and began to sob.

“Now, now,” the nurse tutted. “Be gentle.”

Kira’s eyes sought Trevor’s over her mother’s shoulder.

Trevor gave her a guilty look. “I got her number from Rob. I mean, she is your Mom, right? I figured she would want to know something had happened.”

He flashed her one of his charming smiles, but there was a desperate quality to it.

Kira gave her mother’s slim shoulder a reassuring pat while staring daggers at him.