Wired Ghost by Toby Neal

Author:Toby Neal [Neal, Toby]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Neal Enterprises, Inc.
Published: 2020-04-29T18:30:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Sophie

Eighteen hours later

Sophie stood beside Jake’s sister Patty outside of the ICU, gazing through the window at her lover’s body on the bed.

“He looks a little better today.” Patty’s hair roots were coming in, the same dark brown as Jake’s hair. Her eyes were gray with a blue ring—Jake’s eyes. Sophie’s heart squeezed in her chest as she met those eyes.

“He’s going to wake up any time.” Janice Dunn, their mother, stood on the other side of Patty. Her voice sounded shaky. The two women clung to each other, and had since they’d arrived the night before. Patty had been warm toward Sophie, but Janice hadn’t spoken to her at all. Sophie could feel hostility coming off the petite woman in waves. Janice Dunn blamed Sophie for Jake’s injuries, and she could understand the woman’s rage.

And as to Jake looking better, not really. if anything, he looked worse.

The wounds he’d sustained while sheltering her during the quakes inside the tunnel hadn’t healed, and he was swathed with bandages. The bruising from the meth gang’s beating had spread unpleasantly, and his facial color was yellow and wan.

His head sagged to one side, and Sophie longed to push it back upright against the pillow.

She turned and went to the nurse’s station. “Jake’s head has fallen sideways. His neck is going to be strained. Can someone go in and check on him?”

The nurse looked down at her monitors and tightened her lips. “He’s status quo on his vitals.” But her expression softened as she looked up and met Sophie’s eyes. “Of course.” She picked up the phone and called for Jake’s attending nurse.

Jake’s mother approached Sophie at the desk. Janice looked haggard, her normally well-groomed ash blonde hair in disarray, her clothes rumpled from sleeping in the waiting room. “Tell us again how you’re fine, and Jake has barely survived?” She narrowed quartz-hard gray eyes at Sophie. “I want to hear the whole story. Why is he covered with cuts and bruises, and you’re not?”

“Mom!” Patty exclaimed. She’d followed her mother over. “I’m sorry. She needs this to be someone’s fault.”

“Don’t speak about me like I’m not even here,” Mrs. Dunn flared. “I want this bitch to give an account.”

“I’m covered with cuts and bruises, too.” Sophie pushed up her sleeves, showed her black-and-blue, scratched arms. “But it’s true that Jake took more damage than I did. He tried to protect me.” She met the woman’s hard stare. “I love Jake. We had just gotten reunited. I’m devastated that this happened to him.”

“Then why did you bring him out to this godforsaken island in the middle of an eruption to do this job?” Mrs. Dunn shrieked. “I wish it were you in there on the bed!”

“I’m so sorry.” Sophie covered her face with her hands. Tears filled her eyes. “I wish it were me, too,” she whispered.

“Mother!” Patty grabbed her mother’s wrists. “That’s enough!”

But there was no stopping the hateful words that spewed from the woman’s mouth. “Felicia was so much better for him.

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