Grimly, I clutch his hand and stare into his face, holding onto him for hours before the nurse comes back and forces me away.
Although I saw him rouse a few times, he was so out of it that he didn’t see me.
On the way back to my room, we pass Ramie’s, her name written in black ink on a dry erase board just inside the door. Balking, I insist we go inside by taking the chair's wheels and refusing to allow us to move forward, which by the way, hurts like a mother fucker.
The nurse sighs but complies, pushing me through the doors grimly. Ramie’s alone. There’s no one here to hold her hand or tell her it will be alright.
I know Teddy mentioned his parents a few times, and Ramie spoke of her mother’s death, but now that I think about it, he never really got into the details, and the one time we were at their home, her father lay in his own stink of sour sweat and alcohol.
Sadly, I watch her still form, her eyes closed, bandages wrapped around her neck, up her face, and surrounding her head, her face badly bruised, both eyes black, her lips swollen.
Her once beautiful hair hangs in a jagged edge around her chin. She looks horrible, and my heart pulses in pain for her. Not only was she abused by Ben, horrors I may never know of, but her brother was responsible for multiple murders, kidnapping and currently resides in a fucking insane asylum.
Where her family is, I’ve no clue, but I can't bring myself to leave, not when she’s alone like this. Never.
When the nurse tries to push it, I downright refuse, giving her an evil eye and clenching my jaw in preparation for a dirty fight. Instead, the staff who must feel sorry for her arrange to move me into her room.
We’re now side-by-side in matching hospital beds, and what a pair we make. Ramie sleeps through the commotion of the move, and I doze after the long day, and I’ll admit it to no one, but I’m dizzy from all the action.
Some time, during the night, I wake to a low wail.
Glancing around blearily, for a moment, I’m still back at the campsite, slipping from my tent after a wild animal attacked another and the death cry rang out around us.
I spy Colt across the way and step toward him with a wide smile, but then the memory pops, and I’m back in the hospital, Ramie thrashing violently in her sleep beside me.
“Ramie,” I whisper, but she doesn't hear me. Her dreams are too dark for the light to come through.
“Ramie,” I say more loudly, tears pricking my eyes at the horrible sound of her painful cries.
Gasping, she sits up in the bed, staring around wildly.
“Ramie,” I say again softly.
Turning her head, she blinks at me absently before slowly, she comes into focus and realizes where we are and who I am.
“Finn?”
“Yeah, it's me,” I say grimly.
She nods her head, looking me over sadly, observing the bandages and bruises before turning her stare to the wall.
“I’m sorry,” she says, pitifully, a world of pain and regret in her tone.
“For what?”
“For...Teddy.”
“Oh, Ramie, that’s not your fault.”
Smiling sadly, she wipes a tear from her cheek, “Maybe.”
*****
The following weeks are blessedly quiet. Colt and I spend it alone together, peaceful in the knowledge the ordeal is finally over. Sometimes we go to the lake and lay on a blanket, staring at the sky and holding each other close.
Other times we hole up at home and refuse to leave, and Colt spends the night to which Maggie does not comment.
Even she’s lost the grim quality that’s been dogging us all for so long now.
I’m still recovering from my injuries, but I have a clean bill of health. Maggie lectured me up one side and down the other about going out around town, but I begged her to understand I need normality after all of the crazy.
Teddy’s still in the hospital, where he’s heavily medicated and no doubt someone’s case study on unhealthy obsession. When they searched his room, the police found enough evidence of his stalking to put him away at the maximum sentence.
His room was like a fucking shrine to me, with hundreds of photos plastered on the walls, taped into notebooks, and laying loose on the floor, all of which he must have hidden when we came over that day. Perhaps in the piles, I spied in his room?
Beyond that were notes hastily scribbled on scraps of paper, elaborate trees of dirty secrets he used to keep people in his clutches, and the crazed ramblings of his undying love.
Apparently, in the years before I came to this town, Teddy was a mean little shit who beat up kids and enjoyed torturing animals. After a fatal accident, he lost his mother and his ability to walk in one fell swoop, which didn't stop his rage, only amplifying it.
No longer able to use his fists, he turned to dirty secrets and blackmail.
The list of people he had on his payroll was astonishing, but none more so than Melissa. I guess his ramblings were real, and she dropped her intent to kick my ass because Teddy had a better use for her. When I confronted her about it, she told me grimly he forced her to choose between her mother in the states illegally and me.
Of course, she chose her mother for obvious reasons, including that she’s still battling cancer and needs the modern medicine the states can provide. When Teddy demanded she come on the camping trip to assist him with his last act, she drew the line, and the state trooper I saw when we pulled out of the lot that last day, well he was there because she reported Teddy’s plan to the police. It only took three days and some
