Free Trouble in Tampa by Nicole Williams

wink before the doors sealed.
    I sat there at the ready for another minute—my blood running down my face, my right eye swelling shut, my lower lip bulging—just in case he came back. When Henry’s voice broke through my haze again, I let myself exhale before collapsing onto the floor. The adrenaline was siphoning from my veins, and without it, my body was spent. Every hit, every lash, every part of me seemed to scream with pain. It became too much for my brain to process.
    I felt unconsciousness coming on when Henry’s voice called out again. “Eve? Please. Are you there?”
    Reaching for the phone, I managed to crawl an inch toward it before my energy stores were depleted. “Henry . . . help.”
    “I’m here. I’m here with you. Help’s on the way, okay?” His voice wasn’t quite shaking, but it was close.
    “Stay . . . with . . . me,” I whispered, sure he couldn’t have heard it.
    “I’m here,” he replied. “I’m not going anywhere.”
    His voice—his promise —was the last thing I heard before a darkness so deep came over me, I wasn’t sure if I could ever make it to the surface again.
     

 
     

     
     
    HOSPITAL SHEETS. THEY had a distinctive feel and smell a person could never forget. I was in them. Just beneath the haze of whatever drug cocktail they were pumping into my veins, I felt the dull throb of pain.
    Where was I? How did I get there? Why did I come there? Those were the questions I wrestled with as I struggled to open my eyes. After blinking a few times to adjust to the light in the room, I scanned my mind for my last memory. When I couldn’t find it, I tried searching for others . . . but there was nothing. I saw them, but I couldn’t decipher them. They meant nothing.
    That wasn’t the ideal way for a person to emerge from a who-knows-how-many-days sleep in a hospital. Some memory, any memory, that meant something would have been nice, but every last one of them was almost weightless, floating and meaning nothing.
    Then the door clicked open and in walked a person who managed to give weight to all of my memories. They all fell back into place as he approached me with a worried expression. And that was when my last memory played out.
    Me, reaching for a phone in a hotel hall, hurt and bloodied . . . and a voice calling my name. His voice, promising he’d stay with me.
    And there he was.
    “Henry.” I tried getting out more, but my throat felt as if it had been stuffed with a tower of cotton rounds.
    “Hi, beautiful.” He put on an unconvincing smile and stopped at the foot of my bed.
    His suit was rumpled, his face unshaven, and the hollows of his eyes were two shades darker than normal. I couldn’t decide who looked worse, Henry or me. I had yet to see myself in a mirror. As Henry carefully inspected me, the line between his brows went deeper and deeper. I guessed I won the worst-looking award. Noticing a container of water on the tray beside me, I propped up on my elbows and took a small drink from the straw. After another, the cotton feeling in my throat was gone.
    “Beautiful? You always were a terrible liar,” I said, my voice hoarse.
    Henry came around the side of my bed and sat beside me. He grabbed my hand with both of his. “That’s not a lie, Eve. After hearing what I did on that phone . . . after hearing you scream and cry and those hits . . .” Henry’s eyes closed as he leaned his head into our connected hands. “Seeing you alive and in one piece is a beautiful thing indeed.”
    Given I was the one in a hospital bed, I should be the one who needed comforting. But the opposite appeared true. From the looks of it, Henry had been through more of a beating than I had. I lifted my free hand and combed it through his messy hair.
    “What happened, Eve? Who did this to you? Why did they do this?”
    The memories were back and meant something, so I searched for that one. It didn’t take long to remember what had happened or who’d done it: assault, hotel hall,