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Bothit in ainst the war movement all around me, but my attention is only on her “Hadley Sweetheart Wake up”

Her eyes flutter “Ryder,” she barely whispers

“You’re safe,” I tell her, my chest finally

relaxing, letting ot you”

Chapter 18

Hadley

Beeping and voices is what I wake to, but sleep has dug its claws into h it’s like a thick blanket rests over ht comes in, but mostly the darkness remains

It’s not until the fourth time my eyes open that I realize all the noise has stopped The view through the ith the yellow curtains tellsat that Raindrops beat rhythainst the , as I turn my head on the pillow to face the doorway That’s when I find tar better “Hi,” I say to Ryder

He gives s spread and elbows resting on his knees “How are you feeling?” he asks, voice soft

“Well…” I take an inventory of e is on e there’s a deep throb at the back ofthe room from the hospital bed

Blank yellow-painted walls, horribly unco; apparently, I’ to recall what’s happened I re and wrestling withinto the a blank “What happened?”

“You bashed your head pretty good when you fell,” he explains, watching me oh-so-carefully There’s an emotion in his eyes that I can’t quite pinpoint, as he adds, “They gave you ten stitches when you got here”

That bashed-up head is also a little fuzzy, and when I feel the bandage around my entire head, I try to remember what happened after I attempted my first, and hopefully last, tackle “God, it’s all a blur I don’t re to the hospital”

“That’s because you were knocked out cold and lost a lot of blood They gave you a transfusion to top you back up” He pauses as a couple of nurses walk by ave you some more medicine to knock you out in the ambulance to ave you some more when the doctor stitched you up After what you’d been through—”

They didn’t want to hurt you more is what Ryder can’t say