Billionaires At War

CHAPTER LXI

Harrison looked around the room, his movements restricted by the brace on his neck. It wasn't a pretty sight to wake up covered in casts and gauze with a needle poking a hole through his arm. At least his mother was by his side, face down on the bed beside him. She looked tormented even as she laid on the palms of her hand, her face to him with a finger touching his injured arm. His breathing was deep and slow, but each time he inhaled, the plastic end of the tubes in his nose scratched at his nostril, making him all the more agitated.

He didn't need a doctor to inform him that he had broken more than just a few bones because breathing made his ribs and spine ache; it was a wonder he was in so much pain. All of his right hand was swallowed up in a cast, with only his fingers getting a little bit of wiggle space. It didn't feel broken though, it felt destroyed. All he could remember was landing hard on the floor and hearing the bone snap as he did. The sides of his face felt swollen. There was nothing around for him to check his face.

No sound left his mouth but everything around him flooded into his consciousness. He didn't remember much of anything after the accident, just that Cassandra had been freezing cold when she tried to keep him warm. There had been blood. He could still smell it in the air, his blood soaking into him while Josephine just rode away. God, Cassandra must have been so terrified, and he still didn't remember if he had been any help to her at all. What if she was hurt as well, Harrison wondered to himself, his eyes falling back to his mother.

Trying his best to draw his mother's attention, he reached forward and wiggled his free finger against her own, his teeth clenched at the action that made his shoulders burn. It took a while, but it paid off in the end when his mother moved her fingers and turned her head up to look at him. Her eyes remained with his for such a long time that he was beginning to wonder if she fell asleep with her eyes open.

After her brain communicated with the rest of her body, she jerked up, throwing herself gently against him, making sure to lean only on the uninjured side of his body. Her laughter shook him a bit, but he laughed the ache away in his mind as he welcomed her touch. She was crying; he could feel her tears as they dropped on his neck. The small bandage of his left arm allowed him to raise it high enough to wrap his fingers around her elbow.

"My baby." She chuckled, wiped the tears from her eyes and palmed his face, lowering her head to rest against his. Her fingers busied themselves in his hair as she continued to smile at him, singing to him softly. She hadn't done that for a long time, he realised how much he missed it. He wanted to tell her so, but somehow, he still couldn't make out the words to do that. The next best idea was to tap against her arms to get her attention.

When she traced what he was pointing at, she kissed his head and sighed. "Your skull took a pretty good hit, and I have no idea, but somehow your jaw had to get some reconstruction. It's still healing. The injuries were so much the doctors didn't know if you would make it."

It surely felt like he wouldn't make it. His eyes made a desperate attempt to stay open while he consciously fought not to go back to sleep. His jaw felt disgustingly horrible if anything could be used to describe the throbbing on every area of his body. Nothing in his life had ever made him feel more helpless than in that moment when all that seemed to move on his were his fingers and eyes. He couldn't say a thing, couldn't tell his mother how much he wished she would stop crying.

Without more words said, she leaned forward to kiss his head, and his weakness took over; his eyelids began to fall over his eyes. He felt her breath across his cheeks when she whispered something to him that he couldn't pick.

He must have dozed off after that because when he woke up, his mother was at the far corner of the room, and a penlight flashed into his eyes. Still, even if he was irritated by the poking and prodding that woke him, what could he really do? He could only move one arm and not with the same energy and force that he wanted. He was sure if he pushed it, he would snap whatever bone was being held in place.