Page 96 of Shattered Silence Duet

“She’s out of surgery now and has been moved to a recovery room. I can take you to a waiting room on her floor now, if you like?” She motions for us to follow her.

“Can we see her?” Max asks eagerly.

“Not until her nurse comes out and talks to you.”

We follow her in silence to the third-floor waiting room. We’re only there a couple of minutes before another nurse comes in.

“Are you all friends of Mina?” she asks, glancing around at us.

“Yes,” I tell her, eager for information.

“I can tell you that she’s recovering and stable.”

“Thank god,” Jasper mutters, dropping into a chair. A wave of relief flows over me and have to take deep breaths to stop the tears of joy that want to break free.

“She’s really okay?” Max asks the nurse in disbelief.

She nods with a small smile. “She is for now. But since she’s only seventeen, only her parents or guardians can see her and speak to her doctor at this time,” she explains.Bloody hell!This isn’t fair. We don’t even know where her mother is.Weare the ones that are here. We’re her real family now, anyway.

“I’m her husband,” Ben speaks up, making my head whip to him in surprise.

“Oh… But she’s only seventeen.” She looks at him like she doesn’t believe it.

“You can get married at seventeen,” Dom states without pause, like Ben’s statement doesn’t even phase him.

“Yes, alright. Well, you can come with me…”

“Ben,” he tells her as he follows.

“Ben.” She nods, leading him down the hall.

As they leave the room, Dom lets out a bark of laughter, surprising all of us. “I wonder how long he’s been sitting on that plan.”

The tension fades out of me as we all smile. At least one of us can be with her right now, and she’s okay, she’s made it out of surgery and she’s stable. I can finally breathe again.

Chapter 4

Mina

Somehow, I thought death would be quieter. Strange noises surround me, mangling together, in a cacophony of sound. There’s a weird smell here I don’t recognize. I try to look around, but everything is black.Are my eyes closed?I try to open them, but nothing happens.

I start to notice my body hurting… everywhere. At first it’s mild discomfort, but the more I notice it, the faster it grows into a deep throbbing pain, as if I’ve been hit by a truck. I didn’t think you were supposed to feel pain in death. Unless you went to hell, then maybe you would. My mother did tell me that’s where I belong, have I finally died and gone to hell?

Memories flash through my head. My mother.The knife. It all comes flooding back, and one of the noises around me grows louder.

It starts to separate from the others, drowning out all other noise as I focus on it. It’s a high pitched beeping sound, and it’s slowly getting faster and faster.

I flash back to the nightmare of being attacked by my mother again and pain ripples through my body.

The stabs to my shoulders.Beep.

The gash up my abdomen.Beep.

The cuts on my legs.Beep.

My finger.Beep. Beep. Beep.

My eyes grow damp, even though they won’t open.