Page 42 of Ramshackle
“She’ll wake up,” he answers with so much confidence that I almost believe him.
Almost.
“I agree with Dane. There must be something Cassandra missed,” I argue hotly.
Jack’s gaze shifts from mine back to her. “She’ll wake when she’s ready. It’s not fair to rush her just to make us feel better.”
My teeth snap together. Asshole. That’s not how I meant it.
“If you’re both so worried, I’ll call Cassandra in to check on her.” Aiden lifts his phone to his ear. The bastard is just as concerned as us and was probably waiting for an excuse to call her. “Would you mind stopping by Raegan’s room to check on her? No. No, she hasn’t. Thank you.” He stands from the air mattress. “She’ll be right in.”
We wait in silence until there’s a knock at the door. Aiden lets her in, and she strides directly to Raegan’s side. I frown when she shoos me out of her way.
Cassandra holds her hands to either side of Raegan’s face and closes her eyes. Aiden and I move next to Jack’s chair to watch her. Dane leans forward on the bed from the other side as if he thinks he’ll see something on Raegan during Cassandra’s check.
A minute passes, and Cassandra exhales and leans back. “I don’t detect anything new. I’ve healed as much as I can.”
“What does that mean?” Dane rushes out. “What aren’t you saying?”
He and Aiden share a secretive look that puts me on edge. What the hell aretheyhiding?
“I healed the fresh scars that were on her back, but the older ones…I can’t undo them. The body has already healed itself with scar tissue, so there’s technically nothing there. You’d have to…” she hesitates.
“Go on,” Aiden orders.
“You would have to cut the tissue from her skin, and then I can tell her body how to heal itself without leaving a scar.”
Fuck that.
She nods. Probably agreeing with the shared look of horror on our faces. “Right. It’s the same with her knee. Whatever happened to it shattered her kneecap, and then it healed with the bone fragments not put back where they belong. It’s difficult because re-breaking her knee doesn’t guarantee that all the previous bone fragments will break free, and it can create new ones. It would just make it worse. Unless someone can go in and break each individual piece from where it’s healed, I can’t fix it.”
My chest swells with heat, my limbs quivering with the need to pummel something. No, not something. Someone.
That Gordon fucker did this. He destroyed her knee and scarred her back forever.
“Are those injuries what’s keeping her from waking up?” Dane asks, his forehead pressed against his hands around one of hers.
Cassandra tucks a bundle of red curls behind her ear. “No, those were already healed as much as they could be by the time she got here. My guess is that her body’s still exhausted. Or…”
Aiden’s voice is tight. “Or?”
She hesitates, her voice thin when she answers, “She may have suffered so much trauma that she could be in a self-induced coma. She may notwantto wake up.”
Dane’s hands tighten over Raegan’s. He shoots a panicked look at Cassandra. “Did you find something? Was she—”
“Dane!” Aiden snaps.
What the hell?
“Was she what?” I demand. “What the fuck are you two hiding?”
“Vera told me—” Dane begins, but Aiden interrupts again.
“Cassandra, thank you for your time. Kell, come with me.” He strides past me to the door without waiting for a reply. He’d better be planning to fill me in on whatever secret he and Dane have been keeping about Raegan.
We stop in front of the second room we’ve taken for our own next to Raegan’s.
“What’s going on?”
