SICK HEART by Huss, JA (non fiction books to read .TXT) 📕

I suddenly notice that the snick, snick, snick of Cort’s jump rope has stopped. And when I look up, he’s watching me. I turn my back to him, pick up my jump rope, and start my day, stomach burning and rumbling, mind a little bit foggy, and my prospects—well, they seem nonexistent at the moment.

I don’t do anything fancy. I don’t even try to do the single hop. I just can’t seem to manage it this morning. I feel like my mind is swimming in the ocean down below and then, without warning, I find myself on the ground, a sharp pain shooting through the back of my head.

My vision goes blurry for a moment and when I force my eyes open, Cort is hovering over my face. He snaps his fingers in front of my eyes when I try to shut them, then he picks me up and carries me inside the little building, setting me down on a small bed in a dark room.

I turn over, ready to fully appreciate this bed, but Cort snaps his fingers again. And when I open my eyes, I see that there is blood on them.

Shit. I reach up, touch the back of my head, realizing I actually hurt myself. I fainted. From lack of food.

Asshole. I scowl at him. Point at him. Accuse him.

He sighs—his default answer with me, it seems. Then he gets up and walks across the hall, leaving this room dark. He flips on the kitchen light and I catch a glimpse of him pulling out the rice maker.

Oh, my smile is sweet. He’s going to feed me. And all it took was a head injury.

That’s cynical, I know. And he deserves a little more credit than that. Because I’ve fainted from lack of food before and, trust me when I say this, no one carried me to a bed and started making me food afterward.

So I am grateful.

He prepares more than rice too. It only takes a few minutes for me to realize he’s making fish. I’m sure it’s some disgusting dried fish that has been on this rig for months or even years, but I don’t care. I’ll eat anything right now.

He comes back, flipping on the light in my room, and then busying himself at a counter on the far wall. That’s when I realize I’m in the clinic where he wrapped my hands yesterday.

Cort comes at me quickly, supplies in hand. He slips my feet off the bed and pulls me up to a sitting position, making me turn so he can see the gash on the back of my head. He sighs again.

He’s mad, I think. He’s mad that he has to feed me. And even though I’m happy about this now, I know everything comes with a price. I will pay for this later. Some way, somehow, this extra meal will come back to haunt me.

Cort presses his hand on the top of my back, right between my shoulder blades, urging me to lean forward. Then he pours something over the wound. Peroxide, from the smell of it. This bubbles against my scalp and he’s not very careful about any of it, so the foaming liquid spills down the side of my head and drips over my arm and on to the floor.

He’s certainly no Maart when it comes to bedside manner. I saw how Maart cared for Cort after the fight. He was very concerned and careful.

Cort stops pouring and then his fingers are probing the wound. And then he actually mutters, “Fucking hell,” under his breath and I turn my face up to him with a smile.

He points at me. Signs something at me with angry fingers—it’s probably Fuck you—and then pushes me down so I can’t look at him.

He takes my hand, places my fingers against a thick wad of gauze over the wound, and applies pressure. I hold it there as he walks over to the counter and starts banging drawers open and closed, looking for something.

What does he need?

When he turns around, he’s holding a little white package and a hemostat. I side-eye him, asking him questions with my gaze even though that is totally against all my rules.

He signs something at me—probably Shut the fuck up, Anya. You’re a giant pain in my ass today—and then tears open the little package and pulls out a needle attached to a suture.

Oh, hell no. I stand up, forgetting about the gauze I’m holding and the pressure I’m supposed to be applying, and feel the blood drip down through my hair. He grabs my arm, shakes me, pushes me down to the floor on my knees, and then tells me to bend over the bed.

He’s going to sew that needle through the skin of my head.

He pushes me, further making his point, and so I comply. He sits down on the bed next to me, then pushes my head into his lap.

Hmm. I don’t know what to think about that. It’s not sexual. Like at all.

But it could be.

I snicker a little and he pinches the inside of my arm, making me hiss. Because that fucking hurt! When I look up at him, he’s not messing around. There is no sly smile on his face. That was not a flirt. He’s not amused, or charmed by me in any way. He’s all business.

So when he points to his lap again, I bend my head down and rest my cheek against his thigh.

He dabs the gauze, then without any warning at all, he stabs me with that needle and begins sewing up my head.

Everything about this is gross—the feeling of the needle, the smell of my own blood mixed with the cooking fish across the hall—and for a moment, I think I’m going to puke.

Cort stops. Like he knows this is coming. But he doesn’t pull me up, or hand me a bowl to hurl into, he leans down and growls at me. Daring me to throw up