Page 149 of Traded

I reach for the comforter with a low, sorrowful keen. “It’s wet.”

“Yes.” Lauren sounds weirdly nasally as she hauls my soaked limbs away from my tiny little heat nest. I eye it mournfully as she nudges me back against the wall. “Because you padded the bottom of the shower with every piece of fluff you could find and turned it on. You nearlydrowned.”

I frown hazily at the room around me. “Is that why everything’s wet? Why is there a peg on your nose?”

“Because you smell like hormones and sad vibes.” She holds up a can of de-scenter. “Why the hell does your closet have an entirewardrobefilled with empty bottles of this crap?”

Touché. Wait. “What the fuck were you doing in my closet?”

We stare at each other in a way that makes me think this could be a very long twenty-four hours.

My face crumples. “I—”

She crawls up beside me and wraps her arms around me, squeezing. My fingers tangle in her damp, elegant, crumpled mess of a dress, clinging to her. “You came back.”

“Yeah.” She strokes my hair again, and more tears squeeze out of my eyes. “It’s been what, four hours since we left? When did it start?”

“Right after you left.” I close my eyes. It’s not the same as Carter, but it helps. “It’s going to get a lot worse.”

“Right,” she croaks. “Here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to get you into your nest. Get you changed and settled. And we’re going to get you through it.”

“I apologize in advance for whatever I say,” I mumble.

“I’m petrified.” She slips her hand over mine. “It’s going to hurt like hell, but it’s not forever.”

I can feel the haze dropping already. “Hurts.”

“I know,” she says grimly. “Time to move.”

***

Agony.

Unending, unceasing, increasing agony as my body bucks and twists and begs for something that isn’t there.

Cool hands force water down my throat. Painkillers. A hot water bottle when my body starts to shake, and ice packs when sweat rolls off my skin in a feverish dream.

There are words. Soft, and quiet, and coaxing, and occasionally snappish as I fight and buck and twist against every raw pulse of need, begging for relief that isn’t coming.

But I am not alone.

My scent soaks into the bedding, the walls, the blankets tucked carefully around me that I snatch and tear and rip and scream at because they smell like too much and not enough, faint echoes of cloves and leather and vanilla brandy that grip my throat with icy fingers of fear until they’re far away from my safe space.

I scream at her, too. The interloper. She smells strange and sterile and metallic.

But shestays.

***

I can’t see.

My hands flail out.Oh my god—

Oh. Never mind. They’re actually… crusty.

That is disgusting.

With great effort, I manage to peel one open while patting down my body to check I’m still in one piece. It feels as if someone shoved me into a meat grinder to make little Rosie patties and then tried to slap me back together.