Chapter Twelve

"Oh, my baby." Mama cries as I wake up.

My head is pounding and the bed I am in is way too small to be mine. I open my eyes to darkness. The only light I see is from an alarm clock. Not my alarm clock, my heart begins beating rapidly. The room has a fresh aroma of flowers and coffee.

There is a numbing sensation where the chair leg went through, and I have a sore throat.

My mouth is incredibly dry. Just then I notice my mama staring at me. She looks at me with so much fear and then joy. She quickly gets up to say,

"Nurses, she's awake." She shouts it and I wince in pain.

I look at the room around me; the dark brown wall and pea-green decor. The machines, I am hooked up to IVs, watching someone else's blood drip into me, watching man-made chemicals fill the tubes as it goes inside of me. I can feel the bandage is a little tight. The doctor rushes in. He is tall, with dark hair and brown eyes. Wearing a wedding band and a name tag that says Charles McCain MD.

"Alicia you weren't supposed to be awake," he says in shock checking my charts. He flips through them and I look at my arm. I feel like absolute poop, so I close my eyes hoping that will relieve the tension.

My mama gives me a glass of water as she wipes her tears. I take a swallow and say,

"This is all my fault. I should have said yes." My mama and the doctor look at me confused.

"If it wasn't for that fire, it would have blown up anyway. There was a bomb there. Whoever started the fire saved you all, it's all over the news." The doctor explains as I look dumb as hell for admitting to a crime I didn't commit. Nothing was my fault, but it sure does feel like it.

"You lost a lot of blood, have a major concussion, and won't be able to use this arm for a while." I feel nauseous, he gives me a few pills. I take them and Mama starts crying some more. Tears run down her angelic face as she looks at me. 

"I thought you were going to die. Oh my gosh. A boy is waiting out there for you. Do you want me to bring him in?" She asks with a wicked grin.

"Yeah, sure." I say because it could be Blade.

She leaves and five minutes later, with two cups of coffee in her hand, Blade walks in. I still feel sickly, my head is pounding.

"I need to call the boys and tell them you are awake. You were out for two days." Mom is leaving to give us privacy. I know that now. Especially with the way she winks at me when she closes the door. When her eyebrows shoot up and down and she winks, I know she is trying to play matchmaker. 

"You saved my sister," he says, looking at me as if I am an adorable puppy. He sniffles and the corner of his mouth twitches when I grin at him.

"My body just so happened to be there trying to help her from the fire," I say probably looking like actual hot garbage. I haven't dared to look in the mirror yet.

"If that chair leg didn't go into your arm it would have been in her head. I saw the footage." I panic, there is footage of that horrible event. It's possibly all over the internet.

"Well, looks like we were both lucky." He laughs and sits down next to the bed in the doctor's spinning chair.

"You call being in a hospital bed injured luckily?" He looks at me and I look at him. For a split second, I forget all my injuries. 

"I call being alive lucky." I say honestly.

"Thema went home to rest, her brother just had a huge operation removing the rod. He is doing fine. My sister just had a few scrapes and cuts. Oh, and her ankle is fractured. But everyone survived which is amazing. My sister went home yesterday. She won't tell me much of what happened." He looks very concerned the emotions float in his eyes.

"She will tell you everything when the time is right." He kisses me on the forehead.

"I have to get to work, see you tomorrow." He says and then walks out of the room. I keep my eyes trained on his firm butt as he does so.

My mama walks in and says, "Oh, he is a cutie." I can feel my cheeks blushing.

"Yeah, he is." 

"I can't wait for you to tell us about him. Oh, I know I'll invite him to a family dinner next month. He says he lives next door to you." 

"Mama no not yet, we have only been out once. I don't even know if we will go out again." I say a bit worried I won't get the man of my dreams.

She looks at me and says, "There is no way that boy is not going to take you out again." 

"Thanks, mama. I feel really tired. I think I am going to go to sleep." I yawn and would love to lay on my side, but one is injured and the other one has IVs in. So I lay there uncomfortable until I fell asleep.

"Good night my love," my mom says as she lies in the hospital chair.

I wake up again and Thema is there. "Girl, I could have lost you both," she explains, crying.

"Don't you dare do that again?" She says pouting and stomping her feet adding to the dramatic effect.

"I will try not to have a club explode and send the bouncer's chair leg through my arm." 

"Good," she says, pulling me into a hug. 

"How is Thomas?" I ask because I am super worried he isn't doing so well.

"He is doing good, he lost a lot of blood, a good thing I was a match. I donated some." Even though she has sex with different men she has never caught any transmitted diseases. Which is a good thing.

"I think mama went home, to be honest." My brows come together in worry. My arm starts to hurt a bit. The bit that is supposed to hurt.

"No, the hospital gave her a room to sleep in. They have been nice to all the bomb victims' families." She looks at my arm which is all wrapped up.

"Do you think there will be a big scar?" she asks, as she looks at the hospital food menu.

"Yes, do you want to order some food? I am hungry, I haven't eaten in like a day and a half." They must have been giving me fluids to help with my hunger because I don't remember eating.

"Yes, I heard they have promising food here." She starts reading off the vegetarian options.

"They have a garden salad, black bean burger, fries, tater tots, they even have that silk milk you like." 

"Black bean burger sounds incredible, I want two and a load of fries and ketchup." She dials the number and orders the food from the kitchen downstairs.

"I have never seen you eat two burgers." I laugh because it's kind of funny to me.

"Why are you laughing?" I honestly don't know.

"Because I can." 

The food gets brought up on a tray, thirty minutes later. I finish both of the black bean burgers, fries, and three fruit cups. By the end of the meal, I am stuffed.

"I brought you some clothes to change into so you can clean up." I look down at the hospital gown which now has a ketchup stain. 

"Can you help me wash up? I honestly can't reach everything with one hand." She gets up to help me and we get into the bathroom that is in the room. It's a walk-in shower with a bench so I sit on the bench and get undressed. We put a cover on my IVs and arm, and she grabs the towels and helps me wash dried blood from my sides. My knees scraped, and every inch of me feels much better as I get cleaned. We wash my hair, the water turns a brown color due to the ash from the building exploding. I go to look in the mirror and my face has a few cuts, one on the corner of my left cheek and the other on my forehead.

"Damn and your elbows were the only things that got scrapped, that's it. I am glad you didn't get beat up like me," I look over at her and she smiles.

"Yeah, I am glad my injuries are not severe because I can help you and Thomas. " She squeezes out the water from the washcloth and throws it in a hamper.

"How is Trevon?" I ask as I slip into clothes that are a lot more comfortable. A t-shirt and a pair of gym shorts.

"He is completely fine, dad and he is working on finding who did this. It wasn't Sam," she says this and I doubt it wasn't, it had to be him. Or was that why he called me? Someone is after him and he needs me to do something about it. 

"I think he is in trouble, people are tracking him and he is not safe," I explain, really wanting to be at my desktop computer so I can look at everything. I sigh and then blow my hair out of my face.

"When did the doctor say I could go home?"

"You should be fine enough to go home tomorrow." She says, walking over to fix my pillows and then pouring me another glass of water.

"Please tell my mama you are coming home with me to take care of me because I can not stay there when things like this are happening. I can't risk their lives." She nods and calls my mama.

My mama tries to insist on doing it for me and even offers to stay at my place. Thema has a way of talking to her and she agrees to not come home with me. We used the excuse the boys are supposed to do their boy scout stuff and she is and has been since I was a little girl she has always been a scout leader. 

"Yes, mama Divya." She makes a kissing noise and hangs up.

"There. Now all you have to do is get better." She puts her phone back in her purse and grabs out her lip gloss. She puts some on and then looks at me.

"By the way, the cops have your phone as evidence it was destroyed probably during the exploration." I don't freak out because I have it all backed up.

"When you leave to go home today, can you pick me up a new phone? Here is my card and I have a warranty. I almost upgraded my phone last week thank goodness I didn't." She takes my card and grabs out her wallet to put it in. 

"I will also tell dad what you think is going on, it makes sense." She walks over to hug me and leaves to go and visit her brother because he should be out of surgery.

 She leaves and I turn on the news, hoping not to see anything from that explosion. Thankfully the news reporter is just reporting a heatwave and to stay inside. A heatwave in Arizona is hell on earth and this hospital will be crawling with people suffering from heatstroke and or being overworked. Tomorrow when I go home, I am going to take a nice bubble bath and listen to some kind of music that makes me feel comfortable. Probably a lot of the Weeknd, Ariana Grande, and Selena Gomez. I get out of bed to go pee. My head starts to feel like it is spinning and I almost fall on my way there. I hit the nurse button as soon as I finished going pee. That is when I notice the trail of blood in the bathroom. The bandages are drenched in red sticky blood and I start to cry. The nurse comes barreling into the bathroom.

"Doctor, come quick!" My vision blurs and I can see a somewhat silhouette of the doctor.

"We need to get her back on the operating table. Stat." They carry my lifeless body and give me something because the world fades away quickly.