Rouge

Rouge - Chapter Thirty-One

The familiar, plastic smell of the hospital filled Hunter as she awoke. She became aware of the sounds of patting footsteps outside the room, the distant beeping of a heart rate monitor and hospital beds being wheeled through the corridor. Hunter wriggled her fingers and found feeling in them.

She saw flashes of the fire in the restaurant, of dragging Kate out of the building, of pulling the huge shard of glass from her shoulder and of Eli’s unbelieving expression before darkness closed in on her.

Hunter opened her eyes and found herself in a room much like Miss Smart’s. She lay in a bed on the left side, a window open on her right, another empty bed opposite her. Beside her, asleep in the chair, was not Eli. It was Joshua.

His blue shirt was crinkled, rolled up at the sleeves. A throw rug much like the one tucked under her arms lay across his legs. He was deeply asleep, breathing heavily. Peaceful.

But no matter how normal he may have appeared, Joshua was a completely different man now.

After everything they’d been through, Joshua hadn’t let her down. He had promised to protect her, to train her, to be by her side. And he had kept that promise. Yet after watching the film her mother had left, her heart pounded in fear every time she looked at him. Her mother had spoken of ‘strange things’ and ‘odd behavior’. She had never seen him act this way before. Had she been oblivious to it her entire life, or was it only just becoming clear?

Clear was not the right word, however, because the video raised even more questions than she had originally begun with. Now, she was really afraid of him.

Hunter sat up in her bed and instantly regretted it. Her head throbbed and the deep cut in her arm shot pain through her upper body. The bed creaked loudly at her movement and Joshua snapped awake.

“Hunter-” He reached for her hand, his blue eyes wide in panic, but she pulled away from him against her pillow, ignoring the pain it caused her. “Hunter, are you alright?”

She didn’t know how to talk to him. He was the same person - physically - that she’d lived with all her life. Same raven-black hair, same unusually pale eyes and skin, same sophisticated and lanky posture. But he didn’t feel like a friend to her anymore. He felt like a stranger.

“Where’s Eli?” she asked, her voice hoarse. She wanted him to be beside her, holding her hand, but would it still be the same? He knew about her powers now. She’d seen it in his loving green eyes before she ran into the building, and when he told her he would stay with her in the ambulance before she fell into unconsciousness. She was afraid to face him, but at the same time she needed his company. “I have to see Eli.”

“He went home,” said Joshua. “He was with you all night, but when I arrived he said he needed to leave. Hunter-” Joshua’s eyes sparked menacingly. “-what the hell were you thinking?”

Hunter ripped at the IV cord connected to her hand. “I was thinking that I had to save them. Now I’m thinking I want to get away from you.”

“Hunter stop,” he clamped a hand down on hers. His skin was ice cold. “You’ve had a serious concussion. You need to rest.”

“What I need is for you to get away from me. I don’t even know who you are anymore. And I’m not going to listen to you and what you think is best for me. I’m listening to my own head from now on.”

Joshua looked callously down at her, trying to hide his hurt. “If you’d have listened to me in the first place, then you wouldn’t be injured. You wouldn’t have a lot of other problems to deal with either.”

Hunter sucked in a breath. “What does that mean?”

Joshua wordlessly reached for the remote on the television and turned it on. “The news have been playing this on a loop all day,” he said through clenched teeth.