A shadow fell over her eyelids and a soft hand grabbed her own. "Can you open your eyes for me, now please?"
Knowing that the blinding light was blocked for her, she tentatively opened her eyes and immediately saw a brunette in a white uniform leaning over her. She didn't have time to ask who the woman was before her guest spoke first.
"Do you remember your name?"
Her mouth opened to respond, but nothing came out. Her mind was drawing a total blank.
Starting to become more than a little scared, she searched her mind for something, anything, and still came up with nothing. It was a blank slate where she was sure memories should have been. Her eyes watered with tears as she closed her mouth and gently shook her head no.
The woman hovering above her gave her a kind, but sad smile. "Your name is Dia Connor. Do you know how old you are?"
Her name was Dia? She knew she was supposed to be trying to figure out her age, but she was stuck on the name. It was pretty … and different. Surely she should have been able to remember a name like that? That led her to realize something bad must have happened to her.
"Miss," the kind woman called to gain her attention again. "You're zoning out on me. Do you know how old you are?"
Dia searched the recesses of her mind and still found nothing. Even the thought of her name seemed foreign to her. She gently shook her head no again and started to cry.
The woman took her hand off Dia's and, in a nurturing manner, ran her hand over Dia's hair. "Shhh, don't cry. It's going to be okay, Dia. I'm just trying to gauge if your memory is intact."
"What happened to me?" Dia asked her on a frightened croak. "Why am I here? Why can't I remember my own name?" The questions came out in a rush. She couldn't stop herself as a bubble of anxiety started filling her chest so fast she thought her heart might burst from it. "Who are you?" she finally cried out.
The woman was still trying to soothe Dia with soft hushes and comforting touches, but it wasn't really working. Not that she could tell the lady that past the ginormous clog of emotions she had lodged in her throat now.
"My name is Dr. Bennett, and I work here at Vanderbilt. My job is to take care of you and help you heal." She suddenly looked up from Dia to across the room and spoke to someone who was out of Dia's line of sight.
"Nurse, please give her valium. We're going to need her to relax and sleep some more."
"Wait!" Dia shouted, scared at not knowing what was going on. "Before you go, please tell me what happened!"
Dr. Bennett looked back down at Dia with a stoic expression. "Miss Connor, you were involved in an accident. There was a gas explosion, and you just barely missed the worst part of it. You are lucky to have survived the blast."
Out of the corner of her eye, Dia could see the nurse injecting something into her IV line.
Totally dumbfounded at what she had just been told, she squinted at the bright light around her while asking the doctor, "How long have I been here?"
Dr. Bennett bent back over so she could block the light from her eyes again, "You've been in a medically-induced coma for two months, Miss Connor. Now I know you must have lots of questions for me, but I need you to lie back and try to get some more rest, okay? I'll be back to check on you in a couple of hours."
She watched as Dr. Bennett walked away then stood just outside of the room's doorway, writing on what was presumably Dia's chart. The nurse walked out with her and stopped right next to her, quietly bringing the door to a close. Thing was, she didn't close it all the way. There was a small crack, and as fogginess started to impair her thoughts, she could still hear the nurse talking to the doctor.
"It's so tragic what happened to her and her family. And it looks like she doesn't remember a thing. When are you going to tell her that her parents were killed in the explosion?"
Dia's heart clenched so hard in her chest that, for a moment, she wondered if she was having a heart attack. Even though she couldn't place a face to the thought of having a mother and father, it still broke her heart to know that they were now gone. Dia might never remember them again.
Her heart monitor went crazy as her chest started to tighten even more, and the nurse rushed back in to check on Dia. "Miss Connor, are you okay?"
Tears ran silently down her face as she watched the nurse check the machines that had her heart monitor and blood pressure on it. The nurse turned back to her and said, "You're safe here, Miss Connor. I need you to try to calm down. It's not good for the baby for you to be this upset."
The edges of her vision became black, and the haziness she had felt earlier was now stronger than ever. Dia's heart was still pounding away in her chest, but it wasn't enough to keep her awake. Nor was the shock from the nurse's words.
In all honesty, through the frantic thoughts racing through her mind, Dia realized she was probably more lightheaded because she was about to pass out than from the meds they had given her. All because of one little word.
Baby.
And as the black in her vision spread, her chest gasping for air, Dia had one last thought before she passed out. What baby?
Chapter Six
"I got the information you wanted … and it's not good."
Stone sat in his dark living room, not needing the light to see the beta of his pack, Caleb, standing across from him, near his front door.
His mood was black with the multiple conflicts going on in his life, and he couldn't help snorting in derision at his beta's words. There wasn't much for Stone to like these days, period.
First, he'd had problems with Sulphur Springs', the visiting pack, delegate. Negotiations for a truce had gone horribly, and the man had left in such a way that Stone was sure that war was about to be on his doorstep. He had sent Caleb to Sulphur Springs to speak directly to the alpha, asking for another meeting, this time with him personally. Surprisingly, the Sulphur Springs' alpha had agreed, and said he would be here in Battletown as soon as he could make it. As soon as he could make it had turned out to be a week and a half later, which meant he had come back to visit the same day that Dia should have been coming home. The problem was, she never did.
That brought him to his next problem. His wolf had been fighting for control from the moment their mate had gone missing. Not that he didn't know where she was now. He did. It had taken him no more than a day to track down her parents' house in Nashville, Tennessee, and find nothing but charred remains. From that point, it had been easy to find out what had happened because it was all over the news. However, the situation had spiraled out of his control from the moment he had stepped foot in the hospital to see her.
The police on site there had not so politely told him that he could not see Dia because he wasn't listed as a known contact for her, nor was he a relative. She was under police supervision until they determined whether the explosion was an accident or intentional.
At the thought that someone might have purposely tried to hurt her, his wolf had snapped, causing him to lose control of his temper. It escalated to the point that he had punched one of the officers in the face when they wouldn't let him see her. Then they had escorted him off the grounds and told him he was banned from coming back.
There he had stood, in another state, unable to see his injured, but thankfully alive mate, and losing his ever-loving mind about it. If that hadn't been bad enough, his beta had called him while he stood just outside of the perimeter of the hospital grounds and delivered another blow.
In Stone's haste to find his mate, he had dismissed the visiting Sulphur Springs alpha, and in doing so, insulted him greatly. Not that he gave two fucks about it when it came down to trying to get to his injured mate, which was exactly what he had told Caleb. All of his concentration had been on finding out if his mate was okay.
Fucking Caleb had thrown the truth back in his face. Stone needed to care. Otherwise, he might inadvertently start a pack war with the very pack he had been trying to make an ally. It was at that moment that the police officer he had punched pulled up in his patrol car and told him to leave or he would arrest him for assault after all.
Stone had no choice but to leave, with only a promise to himself, and his raging wolf, that he would come back soon and find a way in to see Dia. Only, when he had checked into a hotel, shit seemed to spiral out of control again. He had twenty-four hours to come back, meet with the visiting alpha, and apologize, or it would be full-out war between Stone's Battletown Pack and their closest non-human neighbors, the Sulphur Springs Pack.