Page 47 of Bound By Thorns
I was no longer the woman for Logan. I couldn’t be. I didn’t deserve his concern. I didn’t deserve his attention. I was still reeling with pain when I entered my room. The anguish gnawing at me. My abdomen burning from the inside.
It felt as though my insides were rotting away.Everythingwas rotting away.
I was no longer the Kaylan before the horrors of Ravenrock—untouched, whole. Before all that shouldn’t have happened, happened.
I stayed awake the whole night. And then when the morning hit, I didn’t have the courage to get up and face him.
Sleepless nights stretched endlessly as I secluded myself, each day blurring into the next. Gratefully, Sebastian arranged for meals to be delivered to my room until even the desire to eat abandoned me.
I called up my doctor’s office and arranged for a subtotal hysterectomy. There was no point in trying to save something that was already desecrated. The chances of survival for mytubes and ovaries was close to nothing. What was the point anyway?
Logan didn’t show up either. He didn’t knock on the door, or tried to talk to me. Perhaps he was as mortified as I was, maybe even more. Why wouldn’t he be?
I got my release and when it was time, I teared up.
Another thing to feel guilty for.
Two days before my operation, I stepped out of the Blackthorn building for the first time in a week, heading straight to the hospital where I’d face the mutilation of my body once more.
Dr. Sander stopped by my room to explain the procedure. They’d try to save what they could, she said, but if things looked bad, they’d proceed with the hysterectomy.
I wasn’t allowed to eat for eight hours before the surgery. Not that it mattered—I hadn’t had much appetite lately.
Alone, with no one to accompany me, I had listed Sebastian as my emergency contact. Someone should know if things turned south.
As the hour drew near, I was ushered into pre-op where a nurse tried to lighten the mood. Her cheeriness bounced off me. I felt nothing but numb as I was rolled into the operating room, surrounded by a team ready to begin.
That’s when the reality of it all hit me hard.
“Take a deep breath for me and count back from ten, okay?” the anesthesiologist instructed, looming over me with a mask.
Terror gripped me as the mask descended, the room spinning slightly as my nerves peaked. I counted back from ten as I was told.
Ten.
Nine
Eight.
Seven.
Logan
I hadn’t seen her in days. She seemed to vanish into her room, a ghost behind closed doors. I lingered there often, my hand raised to knock but always stopping short. Fear that she no longer needed me—fear that I had caused her enough pain—kept me from tapping that door.
She skipped meals, avoided the gym, and the little interaction anyone had with her involved returning untouched food trays. My concern deepened when I watched her leave in a car Zane had prepared, with Sebastian giving her a comforting hug. A familiar sting of jealousy hit me—not out of suspicion, but envy that they could be there for her, see her, talk to her, hear her.
When she didn’t come back after two days, anxiety took over. I needed to know she was alright. I stormed into the command center where Zane was immersed in his work.
“Zane,” my voice might have been more demanding than I intended, “Can we talk?”
He swiveled around with a measured smile. “What’s up?”
“Do you know where Kaylan is?”
His expression tightened, and he turned back to his screen. “That’s none of our business, Logan.”
Frustration surged through me. I leaned in, unable to mask the urgency in my tone, “Listen, Zane. I need to know. Where is she?Please.”
