aterovis_bleedinghearts.pm6 by Arlene Chance Read Free Book Online Page B

bed.
    “Are you okay?” she asked me.
    “I’m not sure,” I told her truthfully. The meds had me pretty groggy.
    “Of course he’s okay,” Dad barked from his chair across the room. “Don’t baby him. He’s sixteen for God’s sake.”
    Mom looked into my eyes, and our new bond let me know that she was still concerned for me. In the interest of domestic peace, however, she moved away from the bed and sat back down.
    “What I want to know is what you were doing with that fag anyway,” Dad went on as if we were in the middle of a conversation. “Your mother said you went out for a walk. You weren’t meeting him were you?”
    I closed my eyes and hoped he’d get the hint. I didn’t feel like dealing with him right now. I hadn’t even taken in the fact that Seth was dead, and I had come too close to dying myself. I was still in the freaking, hospital for God’s sake, and all he could do was start interrogating me.“Killian,” he went on when I didn’t answer, “If somebody hadn’t seen that guy run out of the woods, then you would be dead. I want some answers.”
    Join the club, I thought. I fumbled around for the call button with my eyes still closed, found it and pushed the button.
    “Were you meeting him there in the woods?” He was relentless. I mean I was in a hospital bed, with a stab 50

    Bleeding Hearts
    wound, and he was grilling me like a defense witness at one of his trials.
    “Gary,” Mom interrupted, “He’s tired, he’s hurt, why don’t we just let him be for now? You can ask him all these questions later.”
    “Did I ask you?” he said to her in his I’m-so-calm-it-hurts voice.
    I was about to page the nurse again when I heard someone come into the room.
    “Did someone need me?” she asked in a chipper voice,
    “Oh, I bet I know who it is!” Oh great, a perky nurse.
    Just what I always wanted.
    I opened one eye and couldn’t help but open the other one too. She looked amazingly like Britney Spears in a nurse’s uniform. I wondered if the meds they were giving me were causing me to have hallucinations. If so, I think I’d rather deal with the pain.
    “Are you hurting again?” she asked me. If she only knew how much, I thought. Then she went on before I could even answer, “Well, we just gave you some pain medication not that long ago, so I can’t give you anymore right now. I think you just need some rest.” She turned towards my parents and smiled brightly at them.
    “He really needs his sleep, maybe you could come back later and visit with him.” I liked her better already.
    Dad glared at her for a second, then stood up and motioned for Mom to come with him. She started after him but paused by my bed for a second, rested her hand on my arm, then followed him out of the room.
    Nurse Britney turned her thousand-watt smile on me once they were gone. “Is that what you wanted maybe?”
    she asked.
    I managed a chuckle but immediately winced.
    “You’re good,” I told her.
    “Thanks, but you’d be surprised how many kids use that thing to get rid of their parents.” she laughed and 51

    JOSH ATEROVIS
    started back out the door, “If you need anything else, don’t hesitate to page me.”
    And I was alone with my thoughts finally. I was still a bit groggy from the pain medication, but I needed to think. Seth was dead. Someone had killed him and come very close to killing me as well. From what Dr. Murray had said, the police had pretty much closed the case; saying that I had interrupted a mugging. Somehow that didn’t make sense to me. I thought about how the killer had frozen when he saw me clearly for the first time. It was right after that when he ran away, almost like he knew me. He’d even cursed. I racked my brain trying to see if I could recognize the voice, but I had been too scared and the voice had just been a whisper.
    Then my mind turned to the unthinkable. Why would someone want to kill Seth? Maybe it was just a random killing. It was easier to think about that than think he had been killed for personal reasons.