CHAPTER 17

“The patient’s awake,” people yelled above my head. “The patient’s awake.” The shouting sounded like battle cries.

I opened my eyes to the White wash of the plain ceiling above me. The walls were White. The floor was White. Everything was White.

“How are you feeling, Kate? You just won a war against death,” a nurse said. “If your mother hadn’t found you, you would have bled to death from the cuts you made on your arms. Poor thing, she found you passed out on the floor from lack of blood.”

She walked over to my bedside table and placed a small glass vase on it. It had one single Red poppy and it stood out from all the White around it. It was a small island of solace in a sea of unfeeling.

“You like the flower?” the nurse asked, catching me looking at it. “He dropped it off for you,” she turned, pointing to the door.

The door was already swinging closed, but I thought I saw someone out of the corner of my eye. I sprang out of bed, pulling the IV tubes out of my arm with one yank. I sucked in a breath at the pinch of pain I hadn’t expected and raced through the doors blindly. I heard the nurse coming after me, yelling for me to stop, but I kept running down the hallway.

I stopped abruptly and the nurse caught up to me, pulling me back toward my bed. I felt her hands grip me and I let her drag me back, but it wasn’t because I had given up. I was completely content with going back now. I had caught a glimpse of something round the corner. I couldn’t be certain, but it looked a lot like Red hair.