Ms Wilson's Replacement

49: The definition of a broken man

"There are many who don't wish to sleep for fear of nightmares. Sadly, there are many who don't wish to wake for the same fear."
Richelle Goodrich~

Third POV

Quynn's eyes open and in the first few seconds, everything around her is a white picture, but as the seconds pass, the blurriness clears and she realised that she's in a white painted room. There is a window to the side, which the sun somehow manages to penetrate through even with the curtain acting as a barrier. The sunlight as well as the brightness makes her eyes sting and she wince and shuts them for a while and she mentally tries to adjust to this alternate reality.

She cannot remember the last thing that happens and she tries to carefully rethink and understand her situation better.

After coming up fuzzy and blank, she sighs in defeat and her eyes open again but unlike the last time, the pain in her eyes is lesser.

She stares around the room and as she silently observes, she hears a beeping sound right beside her head and she looks up and sees the heart monitor there. Fear grips her to her soul and sweat breaks out on her face even as her heart clenches in its cage, fearing what exactly happened and why she's in a hospital bed. She is about to move around and properly assess her environment when she feels a restraining in her right hand and glancing down she sees it cuffed to the bed.

Her panic multiplies and she begins to pull at the cuff, trying to somehow get free even though that is completely impossible and the metal remains against the bed stand unaffected by her pull.

Why is she in cuffs?!

What did she do? Did she kill someone?

Who did she hurt?

She silently wonders.

She's still lost in her thought when the door to her ward opens and a man in a white lab coat enters and behind him is Eli and at that moment all the memories buried comes rushing back into her head and the guilt, fear and panic returns in great measures. She understands why she's in cuffs now, why she's trapped on the bed and unable to make a run for it.

She remembers Jumai at the hotel confronting her with the truth and demanding that she tell the truth to Eli, she remembers chickening out at the last minute and then being chased by the police and she remembers losing control of the brake and crashing into a tree off the road, she thought she died, but that would have been an easy escape after everything she'd done and even God could not let her have that.

"You're awake, ma'am," the doctors say with a cheerful tone as he walks over to her side of the bed and checked her pulse and observe the heart monitor and Quynn tries as much as she can to not look at Eli who seems to be drilling a hole into her skull with his gaze as the doctor does his inspection.

Once the doctor finishes, he turns and picks up her left hand which have a cuff as well as a drip on it and he carefully examines it. "Her pulse shows recovery and the major damage sustained was to her forehead and that is also healing now and she will be out in no time." He informs Eli who is still standing at the door and not willing to step further into the ward.

"I'll give you two room to talk." He says before taking his leave from the room. Quynn wants to protest to the doctor and tell him not to leave her alone, the last thing she can take is being left alone in the same room with Eli especially after everything that has happened.

Eli remains silent as he stared at Quynn for the first minute and soon she becomes uncomfortable under his eyes and is forced to speak.

"I am going to take it that Jumai told you the truth already, I guess that's why I'm in these cuffs," she emphasises by pulling them and making them smack against the bedstand.