Race the Darkness by Abbie Roads Page B

acknowledged him, just kept heading down the hallway.
    â€œWhere are you going? I can have them bring up a meal. Or if you need the bathroom, it’s back there.”
    She turned into the small waiting area with its vending machines full of fake food. Row had saved him by hauling in as much home cooking as she could carry for Dad and him. She’d even gotten him a replacement cell phone and brought him clean clothes.
    Isleen moved across the room and sat in a chair directly in front of a window, staring out at the main entrance three stories below them.
    News vans from every channel in Ohio had staked out the parking lot. Reporters and cameramen milled around, waiting, always waiting for a hint, a glimpse, a morsel of information about the two women held hostage in that trailer. The media had gone manic over their story.
    â€œGoddamned vultures. I’m going to close the blinds, don’t want them to see you.” He pulled the cord, and the vertical blinds folded shut. She stared at the closed blinds, her face a blank slate, devoid of emotion and animation.
    Shit. She was in shock. Didn’t she have a right to be after everything she’d been through?
    Her body seemed to be healing nicely, but her mind had stagnated. She ate when food was placed in front of her. She let the doctor examine her. But she never communicated. When Xander touched her, he felt more than actually witnessed her attention shifting from deep inside herself to him. After what she’d endured, she deserved any comfort he had the strength to give her.
    He sat next to her and took her delicate hand in both of his oversized man hands. Over the past few days, he hadn’t been able to resist touching her. Didn’t know what that was about, only that it felt right to him and seemed to comfort her. A secret, crazy part of him thought his touch was the reason her body had been recovering so fast. But that was a thought his sanity couldn’t afford to think.
    â€œYou’re safe now. You’re in the hospital. You’re doing well. A little shaky at first. Your organs were failing, but now everything is functioning normally. The doctors can’t explain your rapid recovery, but they are thinking of releasing you later today or tomorrow. They just wanted to see you up and around first.” He touched her chin lightly, guiding her face around so it was aimed at his. “I’ve been right here with you the entire time. And I’ll be right here whenever you decide to talk to me.”
    Part of him couldn’t believe the words coming out of his mouth. When it came to her, his gonads had turned into nomads and taken off without him. Somehow, he was okay with that. Deep in his marrow, he meant what he said. He’d wait for her to come around. No matter how long it took.
    He might’ve only met her four days ago, but she’d been inside his head for years, and somehow that made her intimately familiar. Not to mention that she’d waited all that time for him to find her and save her. The least he could do was offer the rest of his life as penance. If she needed time, he would give every second to her.
    Her grip on his hand tightened, like she understood his words, but if she had, then why wasn’t he tuning in to her? He focused on her, waited for anything in her expression to change, an opening for him to squeeze his way inside and help her heal.
    Her room had been kept mostly dark due to her sensitivity to sunlight—being locked in darkness for an extended time had that effect on a person’s optics. Here in the too-cheerful brightness of the waiting room, Xander drank in her features and let them imprint in his mind.
    Her face had started to fill out, no longer seeming as skeletal as before. Her skin was no longer a shade of death, but a pale porcelain. Her hair amazed him—and everyone else. It was a near-perfect shade of white and had grown two inches in the four days she’d been in