Triangle of Love

Knight in shining armor

Opening my eyes I blink a few times and I stare at the ceiling till my vision is clear, I look around and notice I’m in a room and in a hospital bed, a little bit shocked at where I am, I scan the room next to me I see Nikki in the recliner fast asleep. I try to sit up but as soon as I try I am dizzy, my head is pounding and I’m not feeling too well and feeling a bit nauseous. Penny walks through the door and quickly walks over to me to help me,

“Take it easy kid, you’re at the pa…local hospital, you had one hell of a night.”

My eyes grow bigger and my cheeks go red remembering how drunk I was, however I only remember bits of the night and it was the embarrassing bits of dancing. I look down embarrassed, Nikki now awake sits up looking at me laughing,

“Why you blushing princess? hmmm…” he mockingly asks me “Don’t worry your knight in shining armor will be here soon.”

I shoot a questioningly look at Nikki and then at Penny who is giving Nikki the death stare. I go to speak and the sound of my voice is hoarse and my throating is hurting,

“Huh? Sorry…who?” I ask looking at Nikki then at Penny who is still murdering Nikki with her eyes.

“Sometimes you can be so thick headed… like…. learn to shut up sometimes.” Penny scolds Nikki while he rolls his eyes at her. Penny then looks back at me “Don’t speak just nod or shake your head. Do you remember anything after the club?”

I’m looking at her trying to piece together the night, I shake my head in response to her question.

“Hmmm ok don’t worry. Don’t freak out but Dane got a hold of you outside the club and you took a bit of a knock to the head while trying to fight him off.” Penny explains.

I slowly start to remember bits of it but it’s still a bit of a blur, just the mention of Dane makes me want to vomit. My head starts to throb and I can feel tears start to trickle down my cheeks and my hands start to shake. Penny grabs my hands while Nikki stands up and walks out the room coming back with some water and giving it to me. Taking a drink of the water I look at Penny again and softly cry.

“Hey it’s ok now you’re safe.” Penny says and wraps her arms around me gives me a hug, I bury my face in her shoulder and softly cry.

I hear the door open not knowing if Nikki has left or if someone has come in. With my face buried in Penny’s shoulder I calm down and slowly stop crying. Penny releases me still holding my hand I look at her and give her a thank you look, wishing I could say it and how much her being here is helping me keep it together.

Behind her I see a tall handsome man smiling and walking towards me holding food his steps are slow and he’s almost near the bed suddenly the memory of Dane at the bar smiling at me and taking a step towards me hits me making me grip Penny’s hand, he stops and doesn’t take another step, the look on his face drops and his facials look angry mixed with sadness but mostly hurt.

The memory of being dragged away by Dane and being over powered by him sends shivers down my spine reminding me of the fear, I look to Penny for help. I can’t stop my hands from shaking and now my tears won’t stop and my head is throbbing, I put my head in my hands and cry uncontrollably and ask Penny to help me, I start to feel cold and shiver. Penny’s trying to calm me down lifting my head to meet her eyes. My breathing is erratic and I’m trying to focus on Penny, she’s making soothing noise and wiping my tears.

“Nikki! Go take Mase for a run and I’ll take care of Kali.” She orders him without breaking eye contact with me with her hands on my cheeks “Mase go, she’ll be ok.”

Nikki walks over to him then next thing I hear is them walking out, I feel a bit of sadness at his departure and it feels like something is pulling at my heart strings. I can’t stop crying, shaking and I am trying to take control of my breathing.

Not long after Nikki and Mase leave the nurse comes in and checks me over. Penny moves to the side to let the nurse do her job but doesn’t let go of my hand and rubs it soothingly which helps me calm down a bit more. The nurse leaves for a few minutes and comes back to continue doing something by the machine then leaves. A few minutes later I feel relaxed and lay there for some time just looking at the ceiling before falling asleep.

I can still feel Penny holding my hand and talking to me then it’s all silent.

Darkness all around yet ahead there is a speck of light

Soft humming of a tune fills the void in the air

Fingers trail along a cold and rough surface

Coming back to the real world I can hear murmurs of whispers, wanting to open my eyes to see who it is I stay still and rested. My ears listen in on the conversation,

“I said NO!” that’s Penny’s voice and she doesn’t sound too happy.

“We have to try something, he’s going to go insane if he can’t be by her side!” that’s Nikki’s voice. I wonder who they are talking about.

“You saw how she reacted to him. We have to give her a few days to recover. He’s just going to have to be patient.” Penny replies.

Huh? They are talking about me and I'm assuming Mase? the guy that was here earlier. Why would he want to be by my side? That was my first time meeting him when he was here in the room before I totally lost myself in front of him.

My thoughts are interrupted by the pounding in my head I put one hand on my head as if to hold it steady. My eyes open and see those two standing at the foot of the bed. Seeing me move they both walk around the bed, one on each side.

Trying to push myself up with the other hand I feel a sharp pain in my wrist and wince, Nikki helps me to sit up and positions the pillows behind me so that I am comfortable, giving Nikki a smile he winks back at me,

“Stay off of your right wrist, it’s a little fractured. Another nurse will be in shortly to put a cast on it.” He says smiling at me. “You hungry? Mase brought some soup for you, he wasn’t sure-” he’s interrupted by Penny’s pretend cough and gives her a quick glare “as I was saying, my brother thought you might need to eat something that will be easy to swallow.”

I actually do feel hungry, last thing I ate was a fettuccine and that was almost a whole day ago. I smile and nod to let him know I’m happy to have some soup, his eyes beam with excitement turns and does a little skip over to the table by the wall.

“I’ll just go heat this up a little. I’ll be back.” He says imitating Arnold Schwarzenegger in terminator and walks out the door.

I look at Penny and she looks like she is about to punch holes in her phone. Putting her phone away she brings her attention back to me.

“I already spoke to your boss at the library and he said you can take all the time you need to recover. So don’t rush your recovery ok?”

I nod my head in reply.

“Will you be ok if Connie and Amber come tomorrow for a visit? They’ve been blowing mine and Nikki’s phone’s up.”

I nod in reply. Remembering the last time I saw them was before stepping outside. Poor girls must feel bad about what has happened, but it’s not their fault. I feel sorry for them.

The door opens and Nikki comes through with the soup, dragging the hospital table behind and pushing it in front of me placing the soup on the table and takes the seat next me. He grabs the spoon and scoops some soup and brings it up to my mouth, as soon as the soup touches my lips I wince gently pushing his hand away. It was hot and slightly burnt my mouth, Penny looks like she’s about to jump over the bed and strangle him and he’s frowning at me with a sorry look. I just want to laugh at the scene before me, Penny looking like the over protective mother scolding her son.

Nikki blows on the soup to cool it down before giving me another spoon ignoring Penny’s death stare. Opening my mouth to take the spoon the soup is warm this time and tastes nice, I can taste the different spices and lick my lips ready for the next spoon. I finish the soup and rub my belly with my left hand stating I’m full and content. Nikki is happy that I enjoyed the soup and cleans up moving the table back to the wall and returns back to the chair beside me.

“Nikki and I will take turns spending the night with you. Mike and Brett volunteered to stand post at the door. Would you be ok with all of that?” Penny says with a worried look.

I nod in reply. I’m ok with it but I feel it’s a bit much and feel bad that they are have to stand there this whole time.

There’s a soft knock at the door and in comes a old petite nurse. She’s smiling as she approaches the foot of my bed showing me a few things before placing it on the table. Nikki gets up from her chair to allow the nurse to come closer.

“Hi there Miss Smith, my name is Eden and I’ll be your nurse for the rest of the evening.”

I’m shocked that it’s already evening. Realizing I haven’t seen outside due to the curtains being drawn I look towards the window and back at Eden. As if she was reading my mind,

“It’s a little after 6pm.” She says while coming closer and dragging the table behind her “we did a scan on your hand while you were sleeping when you were brought in and it showed some fractures. So what I’m going to do is wrap your hand in this special bandage forming a cast. I just need you to put your hand up here on the end of the table.”

Listening to Eden I do as I’m told and let her do her job. She’s talking away explaining each step while she is wrapping my arm stopping before she reaches my elbow. She’s very gentle and quick.

“Don’t move it for the next few minutes we have to let it set, it will take at least 24 hours to fully set. I’ll clean this up and come back to do the rest of my check.”

Tidying up Nikki helps her and takes everything away.

“That’s his aunt. So you’re in good hands.” Says Penny. She’s looking down at her phone a bit worried, “Hey, ummm Nikki is going to stay the night with you. I’m going to go home get changed and get some things…” Now she mentioned it she’s still in the same black leather pants but wearing a hoodie probably given to her by someone “…you going to be ok? I’ll leave when you fall asleep.”

Putting my left hand on her arm I give her a smile, smiling back in return, she however, is still looking unsatisfied with my answer I give her a thumbs up and giving her the goofiest biggest smile and cross my eyes she gives off a light laugh then rolls her eyes at me,

“One day your face is gonna stay like that.” we both giggle.

Eden and Nikki come back into the room. Sitting on my bed while Eden does her check on me. So far I’m feeling much better and I’m guessing that it’s from the pain relief I've been given, to keep me comfortable. Once Eden is done with her check up she leaves the room satisfied but advised that I get heaps of rest and drink plenty of water and that I can speak as normal but to still take it easy.

For the next few hours we play cards, which we found out Penny is quite serious and doesn’t like losing, Nikki is always changing the rules when he is about to lose and I’m just hopeless at card games but manage to win a few hands. I also listened to them two talk about their childhood and growing up finding out that Nikki and Mase are twins and all three of them grew up together but Mase and Penny are more close. But other than that it’s stories of spending time at the beach, skipping school, all Nikki's stories.

It’s getting late and I can see Penny is really tired so I fake a yawn to pretend I’m going to sleep so she can leave. I pat her shoulder as a goodnight then roll over and close my eyes to pretend to sleep. I stay still and listen to see if she will leave.

Ten minutes of pretend sleeping I finally hear her quietly get up and walk out the room. I stay still for a few more minutes to make sure just in case she comes back into the room.

Now that I am sure she is gone and not back till the morning I open my eyes and look at Nikki who is looking at me with suspicious eyes, I roll back on to my back and look at the ceiling,

“Girrrlll, you are such a bad actress.” Nikki states “But that was nice of you though, Penny can be very over protective. That’s one thing her and my brother have in common.”

Why does it feel like I’m a little bit jealous of how close Penny and Mase are. I sit up and and pour me a glass of water from the cabinet side where Penny was sitting. Taking a few drinks from it and rubbing my neck, I look at Nikki and with a hoarse voice I whisper what I need to ask him,

“Did your brother help me…outside the club?”

“You remember?”

I motion my hand to show I remember some but not all.

“Ah…ok…yeah…ummm yes. Had it not been for my brother turning up at the right time who knows where Dane could have taken you or even worst…done to you.”

Nodding my head and feeling bad about what happened earlier. I give Nikki a sorry look for my reaction this morning. I’m about to ask him a question when a hear howl as if it were a cry. This howl had an affect on me like it was pulling at my heart strings. I look down and a tear drops, I stay silent for a few minutes and just listen to the howl of the wolf.