For the first time in over a month, I woke up in a place other than my prison bed. The smell of antiseptic made my nose burn and my eyes water, it was overpowering. My eyes twitched with the strain of trying to open them but refused to do so.

Where the hell was I?

"She is waking up!" I heard someone shout from beside me.

My brain was too befuddled to figure out whether it was a male or female. All of my concentration was focused on getting my stupid eyes to open. It felt like someone had sewn them shut. Or, maybe I was blind. Oh God, was I blind? I tried to speak, but it came out as a whimper.

"Sh, sh, it's okay Rosemarie. You are safe, I promise." The voice beside my bed tried to soothe me, but I couldn't see!

Then, after what seemed like hours, I managed to pry my dry right eye open all the way. The left opened slowly after that and stopped at halfway. It felt like someone had rubbed sand in them. I opened my mouth to try to ask what had happened, but my voice caught in my throat. It felt like a million bee stings trying to force it up.

"Don't try to speak yet," my mother, who had been the owner of the voice, said.

She leaned over and took a glass from the table beside the bed and gently lifted it to my lips. I hadn't realized how thirsty I was until the first drop landed on my tongue. It was all I could do not to choke on the water, how fast I drank it. When the glass was empty, my mother returned it to the stand.

"The doctor will come in and look at you soon, so just try to relax right now," she urged.

I gave her a questioning look. Why was a doctor coming to check on me? Where exactly was I? What had happened? I tried to remember, but all it did was cause me a searing headache.

"You're in the small hospital run by the neutral pack doctor in the city," my mother said, explaining where I was but not why I was here.

My brows furrowed and I blinked my dry eyes over and over.

The werewolf hospital stayed off of the human radar. It was a two-story building that, on the outside, just looked like a standard office building. It was important that we have a hospital, we healed fast but not instantly and it was usually used for more serious injuries. Sometimes bones had to be set faced to heal properly. We needed operations and surgeries sometimes, but we healed so fast we required special medical attention.

The doctor walked in a few moments later, white lab coat swaying hypnotically behind him as he walked. He smelled like the rest of the tiny, two-floored hospital - like antiseptic. He picked up the chart on the bottom of the bed and glanced it over - pointless, I thought. Other than me, there were probably very few other patients here.

"It is good to finally see you awake," he said to me when he put the chart back down and came to sit on the bed beside me. "Do you know where you are?"

I nodded my head, not trusting my vocal cords yet. The doctor smiled and pulled out some sort of pen light and shined it into both of me eyes. I tried not to shut them out of reflex - not after it had taken so much energy to pry them open in the first place. He turned the light off, pocketed it and wrote something on the chart.

"Alright, I am going to ask you a few questions now and I need you to try and answer them for me," he said to me in that soothing, doctor voice all doctors seemed to have.

I wonder if they took a class on how to speak like a doctor.

"What is your name?" He asked.

"Rosemarie Merphate," I said in a voice that sounded nothing like myself. It was grainy and crackly and sounded like I smoked for the last fifty years.

The doctor looked down at the chart and then back over at my mother who nodded. There was no way I was going to be associated with the name of my father ever again - if you can even call him a father.

"What year were you born?"

"1994," I replied.

I had no idea why he was asking me all of this, he had all this information in my chart. He asked another few questions that had me wondering if my mother had even bothered to fill out the information that the hospital wanted.

"What is the last thing you remember, Rosemarie?" The doctor asked gently.

I thought back. I remembered Christmas with Jackson and the Merphates and dreading returning to my father's clutches. But then I did... on New Years Eve. The day that Jackson was going to tell everyone about our relationship and step down as Alpha. Then, I had been trapped in my bedroom. I had thought my father was trying to poison me - but that wasn't it. I was pregnant and I told my Mom everything. Then, my Dad and Gary had burst into my room.

"I remember what happened," I say, glancing at my Mom. I wasn't sure what I should say and what I shouldn't.

The doctor nodded his head as if he understood. Then, dread filled me. I had been pregnant.

"The-the baby-" I managed to choke out.

I couldn't form a whole sentence. Saying it made it real.

My Mom reached over and took my hand. What did that mean? Was that supposed to be comforting? What did that mean?

The doctor looked down at the bed and wouldn't meet my eyes. My throat constricted as though my tongue was trying to choke off my airways and tears filled my eyes. I didn't want to hear this. I couldn't hear this!

"I'm sorry Mrs. Merphate," the doctor said. "We were barely able to save you when you got here."

I choked sobbed escaped my mouth. It didn't sound human. I covered my mouth with my hands and pulled my knees up to my chest, sinking my head down and letting out my grief. Sobs wracked my body causing it to convulse. My ribs screamed from the abuse, but I ignored it. I ignored everything except my own pain, my own anguish. Nothing else mattered right now.

My baby was gone.

"No," I argued. "No, it's not true. You're lying. You have to be lying!"

"I am so sorry honey. If I had have known what was going on sooner, I could have done more," my mother cried beside me. "I was in the basement doing laundry so it took me too long to reach you. But when I did, I stopped them. Your father was caught by surprise and he never intended me to see him like that. Brandon came in too, he was worried about you after he found out about your marriage.

Your father just left you there in a pool of your own blood and didn't say anything to me. I was so scared and I didn't know what to do. Brandon did some sort of first aid and then brought you to the hospital. I came with him and I haven't left since."

I couldn't formulate a response. I couldn't formulate a thought. I was numb, completely and totally numb. He had done this. My father had taken everything from me. He had taken everything from Jackson.

Jackson.

"Has anyone told Jackson?" I whispered finally, looking over at my mom again.

She shook her head.

"I wanted to see how you were going to do first. I thought that if you were unconscious he might do something rash. If you hadn't come to in the next couple of days, I was going to phone him."

She reached into her purse and pulled out a phone, sitting it beside me on the bed.

"It is a disposable. I didn't want your father keeping tabs on me. Feel free to use it to call Jackson. I will wait outside."

She left the room and shut the door quietly behind her. I stared at the little cell phone, working up the nerve to make the call. No matter what my mother said, Jackson was going to go ballistic when I told him. He had known about the baby.

I rehearsed in my head over and over again what I was going to say and how I was going to say it. I just didn't know how to fix everything.

I took a deep breath in and punched in the numbers I had long-since memorized. My thumb only hesitated a second on the send button before I firmed myself and hit it. Jackson deserved to know. The phone rang only a couple of times before it picked up.

"Speak." Jackson's voiced said tersely.

"It's me." Was all I was able to choke out, rehearsed lines be damned.

"Romy?" Jackson said, his voice becoming softer and unsteady. "Sweetheart, is that you?"

"It's me Jackson, it's me," I whispered and sobbed into the phone, completely broken.

---------------------------

Please remember to share and vote!

Also, check out the Pinterest Board:

https://www.pinterest.com/kris_black1/jackson-romy/