by Parker Grey
“Sir, you need to—”
I feel like a thousand elephants are stampeding just below my skin, like I could fly apart with rage and terror and sheer nerves at any moment.
“No. You don’t fucking get to tell me what to do, you get to tell me where the princess is and you get to tell me right fucking now,” I say, fighting to keep my voice down. It doesn’t really work.
The bitch stands her ground.
“This is a private wing, sir, and I’m afraid that information is available to family only—”
I walk away from her, down the hall, head swiveling from side to side as I try to move quickly while glancing through hospital room windows, checking them for Aurora.
I think I’m falling apart. My hands and feet don’t feel connected to my body any longer, my heart a twisted black mass. She’s here somewhere, she has to be. She has to be, because every alternative is worse, because not two hours ago she was moaning with my tongue in her pussy.
In the back of a car. In the back of that car.
“Sir!” the nurse calls again, and I completely ignore her, pacing along the hallway faster. She can fucking call security if she wants, I don’t care. They’ll have to tie me up and bodily drag me out of here before I’ll leave, so I hope whoever comes is ready for a good fight.
“You can’t be back here, I’m afraid I’ve got to ask you to...”
I round a corner, still ignoring her. These rooms are empty, beds white and waiting. There’s something gut-wrenching and final about an empty hospital bed, and I force myself not to think about it.
As I walk, ignoring the nurse, the call echoes through my brain.
Princess Aurora was in an accident.
An accident?
A car crash, sir.
But she’s all right.
Silence.
She’s all right, isn’t she?
The man calling from the palace paused, cleared his throat.
She’s in the hospital, sir. I’m not sure of her status.
I threw up. I was outside, having just gone for a walk, and I knelt on the grass and heaved my lunch up until there was nothing coming up but bile.
Then I came here.
“Sir!” shouts another voice, this one deeper, male.
I still don’t respond, just check another room.
“We’re going to have to escort you out, if you’ll just—”
One of the guards grabs my wrist, and I wrench it from his grip, snarling like an animal.
“Don’t you fucking touch me.”
“You’re not allowed back here—”
“Then tell me where she is!”
“Just come with us—”
“The fuck I’m going anywhere until you tell me where Aurora is!” I shout, absolutely at my fucking wits’ end.
The guard doesn’t answer, just grabs my arm. I wrench it free but there are two of them, and then they grab my arms together, twisting them behind my back.
The pain’s blinding, but I struggle, gasping and panting.
I’m on my knees before I realize it, shouting, “You have to tell me where she is!” but one of them puts a foot between my shoulder blades, the pain sizzling down my spine until I gasp for air.
“Tell me,” I still growl, teeth gritted, eyes closed.
And they stop. It still hurts but it stops hurting more.
I gasp, on my knees, cold sweat dripping down my forehead.
“It’s fine,” a deep voice says, and my head snaps up.
King Maxwell, Aurora’s father, is standing ten feet in front of me, looking ten years older than the last time I saw him.
They release my arms, and I fall to my hands and knees, body shaking with the echoes of pain.
“Thank you,” I manage to whisper as the guards retreat down the hall.
“Come on,” he says.
He doesn’t take me to her. He takes me to a waiting room, and even though it’s expensively appointed — carpets, windows, paintings, even a small library, it’s the worst place I’ve ever been.
I sit in a plush chair, and for hours, I don’t move. I don’t speak. Grayson’s whole family — parents, Ella, baby Stefan, their cousin Bianca — are all there, but no one says a word once they’re finished telling me what happened.
Aurora’s limo was stopped in an intersection after the car in front of them suddenly rear-ended someone. While they were there, an elderly woman tried to stop, swerved by accident, then mistook the gas pedal for the brake and hit the side of Aurora’s limo going full-speed.
She’s still in surgery. There might be internal bleeding. There might be brain damage. She might be in a coma and never come out, or she might be fine in a week.
No one knows. No one can tell me anything.
I just sit in silence. I wonder, idly, if I should tell her family that I want to marry her, but it’s not the right time, so I say nothing and let the empty hours tick by.
I’m there all night. I’m there into the morning. At some point, breakfast is brought into the room, and I manage to get down half a bowl of cereal before I lose my appetite completely.
I try to read a magazine. I try to read a romance novel, try to watch some television program, but it’s all noise.
Midmorning, a doctor comes in. She looks tired too, her graying hair back in a bun, a clipboard in her hands. Everyone hushes when she comes in, her eyes steady behind her glasses.
“I’ll say this all as simply as I can,” she says. “Aurora has some very bad injuries, and frankly, we won’t know the full extent for a little while. But she made it through the night.”
The doctor swallows, the room stone silent.
“However, she hasn’t yet woken up,” the doctor finishes.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Declan
It’s evening before they let anyone see her. There are very strict rules, two at a time, no one can stay for more than a few minutes.
She hasn’t woken up. Meaning that she’s now officially in a coma, not still simply out from anesthetic. Meaning that they don’t know when or if Aurora is going to wake, or what she’s going to be like if she does.
She could have brain damage so irreparable that she’ll be a vegetable forever. She could have reverted to having the mind of a five-year-old. Until she wakes up — if she wakes up — we won’t know any of the answers.
Her parents see her first, the doctor escorting them from the lavish waiting room. I’m sitting in a chair, elbows on my knees, staring at the carpet.
I should have done something I think, over and over again.
Not that I know what the fuck I could have done — she was safe in the car, seatbelt buckled and everything, just a freak accident — but I somehow feel responsible for Aurora, so guilty I can barely see straight.
Maybe if I hadn’t kept her up late most nights.
Maybe if I hadn’t sneaked into the limo for just one more taste.
Maybe, maybe, maybe.
After a bit, Stefan starts fussing. Mechanically, Ella grabs him and starts feeding him, staring off emptily into space as she does. The King and Queen come back — the King’s eyes filled with tears, the Queen openly sobbing.
Grayson stands. He looks at Ella. Ella looks down at Stefan, still breastfeeding, then nods at me.
My gut clenches, like a lead weight’s been dropped into my stomach, and suddenly I don’t want to go. I don’t want to see Aurora unconscious on a hospital bed, tubes sticking out of her. I don’t know what to say to her, in front of Grayson.
But I stand. I follow Grayson to the door, down the hall. We both stand outside Aurora’s room for a long moment, listening to the beeping coming from outside, both steeling ourselves in different ways.
And finally, we go in.
It hits me hard. Harder than I expected, like a baseball bat to the chest, the air rushing out of me. She looks smaller than I thought possible, more fragile, lying on the bed like a broken bird. Her arms are by her sides, obviously placed there, an IV
dripping into each one.
There’s a tube going into her nose, a brace around her neck, and the right half of her face is swollen and scratched so much that she’s nearly unrecognizable. Grayson and I stand there, frozen.
I want to go to her, take her hand, talk to her, tell her everything is going to be okay. Beg her to wake up.
But I’m afraid. I’m afraid that bumping even one of those tubes or monitors could spell absolute disaster, that somehow, I’d be the one to finish destroying the love of my life.
“Can she hear us?” Grayson asks the nurse, his voice rough with tears.
“We’re not sure,” the nurse says. “But it can’t hurt to try.”
Together, we approach the bed where Aurora’s lying. She’s still breathing on her own, at least, and as carefully as I can, I kneel next to the bed and take one of her hands in mine.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, the only thing I can think to say, and I press her knuckles to my forehead.
I stay that way until the nurse comes over, puts a hand on my shoulder. Before I leave I kiss Aurora’s knuckles tenderly, place her hand back on the bed, still terrified I’ll hurt her, and Grayson and I walk back to the waiting room together.
When we get there, he looks at the door, then looks at me, jerks his head further down the hall, and I follow him into an empty hospital room, bright white and reeking of disinfectant.
“When were you going to tell me?” he rasps, arms across his chest. He can’t even look at me, his eyes bloodshot.
I nearly say tell you about what? But then I realize I shouldn’t fucking bother.
“I wanted to ask for her hand,” I say, my voice stark and hollow.
Grayson stares at me. He stares for a long time, his eyes and face blank.
“You’re kidding,” he finally says.
“She wanted me to wait because she was afraid your father would say no,” I go on.
Now I’m the one who can’t look at Grayson.
“She knew you’d both be furious if our — if our affair came out, so she was afraid to risk it yet,” I say.
Our affair seems like the wrong thing to call it, but right now, I can’t think of anything better.
Grayson just looks at me, long and hard, his hands in his pockets as he stares.
“She’s my little sister,” he finally says, his voice barely more than a whisper. “She’s— She shouldn’t be with you, Declan. I know exactly who you are and what you’ve done, and if I had my way, you’d never have touched her in the first place.”
His words are angry, but he’s not. He sounds tired, defeated, the specter of Aurora in the hospital bed in both our minds.
“But I know all about falling in love with someone you don’t deserve,” he says. “If Aurora wakes up and this is what she wants, you’ve got my blessing.”
God, I thought about this moment again and again, about Grayson or his father inexplicably saying yes to our union, meaning I’d get to keep her forever.
But like this, it’s fucking hollow. Right now, I’d agree to never see her again if it only meant that she’d wake up, get to live the rest of her life.
“Thank you,” I say.
Grayson doesn’t say anything, but he reaches out, takes my shoulder, pulls me in for a long hug.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Declan
The days blur together. After two they take some of the tubes out of her. After three, or maybe four, they move her to a new wing of the hospital, out of intensive care. Her face gets less puffy, and her bruises begin to yellow around the edges.
They’re no longer worried that she’ll die. They’re just worried that she may never wake up, a worry that looks more and more like the hard reality every day, and her family begins discussing their options in whispers and murmurs.
I’m still there, at her bedside, whenever they’ll let me be. Sometimes I fall asleep, holding her hand for hours at a time. Once I wake up to find that someone’s put a blanket over me.
After nearly a week, the bruises on her face are faded enough that she’s recognizable again, even through the purple and blue shadows. She’s lost weight, and there’s a hollow space under her cheekbones, but she’s still the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen.
Visiting hours are nearly over, so I stand from my chair. I kiss her hand, the same way I do every night, place it on her bed next to her.
“I love you,” I whisper, but Aurora just keeps breathing.
I don’t know what possesses me to do it, but something does. Now that she looks less delicate, less horribly breakable, I’m stunned at how gorgeous she is, even like this. She radiates something powerful, something I can’t name, but unconscious or not, Aurora’s got a hold on me.
I bend over her bed, stroke a strand of red hair from her face. She doesn’t move at all, and I let myself trace her cheekbones, so lightly I’m not even sure I’m touching her.
Nothing. She doesn’t move, the machines don’t beep, no one comes in to scream at me.
I kiss her.
There’s no disaster, but strangely, I feel a little better. I miss everything about her, but I miss the feel of her lips on mine, that simple pleasure.
At least I can do this, I think.
“See you tomorrow,” I tell her, touching her hand one last time as I leave before the nurse can come in and berate me.
My hand is on the door before something catches my attention. At first, I don’t even know what it is, but a small voice in the back of my head whispers wait, wait, there’s something, wait.
I pause. I turn and look at her, every sense on high alert, and I stand there and listen.
In a moment, it hits me.
She’s breathing faster. It’s slight, but I’ve been listening to her breathe for a week, and it hasn’t changed until now.
“Aurora?” I whisper, hoping against hope, walking back to her bed.
Her face is the same, but her breathing’s different. Faster, then slower, then faster again.
Suddenly, she coughs.
I swear to God every machine beeps at once, the whole room exploding into an electronic cacophony, and I grab her hand, falling to my knees again.
“Aurora,” I beg, my lips against her fingers. “Please.”
It’s all I can say before the door flies open, two nurses rushing in. They pull me back, out of the way, start doing something to the machines, pulling her eyelids open, poking her and prodding her.
She coughs again. Twice. The nurses talk loudly to each other like I’m not there, but my eyes are just on Aurora.
Please, I think, over and over again. Please.
Please.
Please.
Then her eyes fly open and she gasps for air, coughs, gasps again as she looks around wildly and I think my heart might burst in my chest as I pray wildly.
“What happened?” she asks, her voice nothing but a rough, scratchy whisper.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Aurora
It’s bright and blurry. I try to swallow but my tongue’s in the way, feeling like it’s swollen to the size of a sofa, and I can barely talk.
I can barely move. Everything hurts, everything, but I keep trying because I feel like my joints are stuck in place, so I keep trying to bend, flex, anything to fight off the sensation that I’m freezing in place.
“Shh, shh,” a voice says, big blurry shape says, leaning over me. “Don’t move.”
I ignore her and try to keep moving anyway. Even though it hurts. Someone holds a straw to my mouth, and I latch onto it, sucking, still trying to blink the blur from my vision.
I drink the water until they take it away, and the first blurry shape is back, hovering.
“You’re awake, in the hospital,” she says.
I blink again. The last thing I remember is... headlights. Just headlights.
“Do you know what day it is?” she asks.
I swallow, try to clear my throat. There’s something around my neck that feels weird and unwelc
ome, but like if I tried hard enough I could get it off.
“Is it still Saturday?” I guess.
“It’s Friday,” she corrects me. “Nearly a week later.”
Oh my God. A week. The last thing I remember is from nearly a week ago.
“How was I supposed to know that?” I rasp.
She doesn’t answer, but further away in the room, someone I can’t see yet chuckles.
It’s Declan’s chuckle. My heart seizes.
“Declan?” I whisper.
Strong, warm fingers take my hand, and he leans over me. My vision’s slowly clearing, and I can see the outlines of his face.
“Good morning,” he murmurs, the slightest hitch in his voice. “I missed you.”
Before I can respond, there’s a shout outside the door, and my mother rushes in, practically screaming.
“Aurora!” she exclaims. “You woke up!”
The next week is a blur. A different kind of blur, but after a while, the days in the hospital blend together.
As my swelling goes down, they poke and prod me endlessly. It turns out I’ve got several cracked ribs, very bad bruising, some sprains, and my left shoulder was wrenched out its socket. All bad, but nothing irreparable.
In other words, thank God for side-door airbags.
Even more endless are the cognitive tests. It feels like hours of every day they spend asking me what color something is, having me close one eye and say it again, connect random words to random shapes.
I memorize lists. I repeat them backward. I play word association games and look at Rorschach tests and pretty much do every psych test under the sun.
They all come back clean. Turns out I’m better at verbal reasoning than spatial reasoning, but I think that was always true.
And through it all, Declan is always there until the nurses have to chase him out every night. He tells me that while I was in a coma, he talked to Grayson and got his blessing.
“That means there’s just one thing left to do,” he says, grinning.