Page 112 of Heidi Lucy Loses Her Mind
Again.
I’m in a hospital bed…again.
And there’s a hulking giant of a blond man sitting beside me in a chair that isn’t quite big enough for him, fast asleep, his jaw hanging open, a little snore escaping his parted lips.
A sigh of relief escapes me, and my galloping heart begins to slow—like even in sleep my body was worried that something had happened to Soren.
“Soren,” I say quickly, reaching over and tapping his knee. “Soren!”
He stirs, his eyes opening. It only takes a second for that gaze to sharpen on me; he sits up straighter, leaning toward me.
“Heidi?” he says, his voice low and anxious. His hair is anxious, too, strands of it escaping his man bun and falling haphazardly around his face. “You’re awake. How do you feel?”
“What happened?” I say instead of answering. “What’s going on? What happened?”
Except…even as the words leave my mouth, I’m assaulted with a set of memories—Carmina Hildegarde’s bedroom, Elsie’s bizarre smile, Patrice, the confrontation that turned violent.
“Your man bun,” I gasp, my eyes wide, and my gaze moves to Soren’s hair. “You’ve saved us all.” It’s maybe an odd thing to say to my boyfriend’s hair in the wake of a very real trauma, but I’m not sure I’m all there right now.
I do know one thing: I’ll never complain about that man bun again.
“How did we get out of there?” I say. “You don’t look hurt. Are you all right?”
Soren grimaces. “I’m fine. The police were already on their way, thanks to your phone call. But after you collapsed, I sort of—uh—” He rubs the back of his neck, looking sheepish. “I sort of lost it.”
“What do you mean?” I say with a little frown that sends a little twinge of pain through my throbbing head.
You feel pain,I remind myself as I take inventory of my body for the first time. My head is sore, pulsating with a dull ache, but the rest of me seems okay.You feel pain.You are alive.
“I don’t even know,” Soren says, looking weary. He slumps in his chair. “I watched you falling to the ground like it was happening in slow motion, and then I just—went berserk, honestly. I think I was screaming? Phil actually tackled Patrice—”
“Good job, Phil,” I say, surprised.
Soren nods. “And I basically attacked Elsie and lifted her entire body up and justheldher there until help arrived.”
“Wow,” I say, stunned. “Like a caveman.”
“Yes,” Soren says. “I’m not proud of it, but it got the job done, so…”
“And the locket,” I say when I remember. I feel around in my clothes, my gaze darting around the room when I realize I’m dressed in a hospital gown. “Where’s the locket?”
“The police have it,” Soren says, and for the first time since I awoke, I notice a spark in his eyes. “Guess what was inside?”
I shake my head and then regret it as it gives a few dull throbs. “Tell me.”
Soren leans closer, threading his fingers through mine. “The receipt.”
My jaw drops as my hand closes around his. “No.”
He nods. “The receipt. It was folded in there—not the whole thing, because maybe it wouldn’t have fit, so it looked like Carmina had specifically cut the top and bottom to make it take up less space. But it was the receipt that showed Phil’s card purchasing rat poison.”
“She knew,” I say faintly. I relax back into the hospital bed. “Carmina knew—” But I break off as my head continues to clear, as memories continue to offer themselves up—and I hear, as though from a great distance, the foggy echo of a voice.
I close my eyes, squeezing them shut, as I try desperately to cling to the tendrils of memory floating closer and closer.
More snippets of that voice, old and weary. A warm breeze. A sense of panic and the need to act. And—and—
My eyes pop open.
