ELI'S P.O.V.

I must have screamed until around ten o'clock. My throat was dry, and I'd lost so much blood. I tried to get it to stop, putting pressure on it. I think they got an artery or something? Who the fuck knows. All I know- is it hurt like hell.

One of the Dot workers came out, and screamed to the other. They both crowded around me, telling the other to call the police, and to call an ambulance. He ran out, and the other scooped me up into his arms, like I weighed nothing.

That must've been when I passed out.

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I woke up in the hospital what seemed to be the next morning. When it was, I really couldn't tell. The important thing was to me, I was awake. My dad and Vanessa sat with a sleeping Pete in their arms. Once they saw I was awake, all hell broke loose. Vanessa started to cry, and my dad called in the doctor, who kept asking me question after question. All I really wanted to do was sleep.

And see Clare.

Time passed, and the doctors left. My dad took Pete home to sleep, and Vanessa stayed with me. She sat in the chair, curled up in a ball in my dad's oversized sweatshirt and painter's jeans. In one of my rare awake periods, I saw her like that- and decided to let her sleep. Maybe I had underestimated Vanessa, and made her into a monster because she tried a little too hard sometimes. Because she wears $500 dollar jeans sometimes and belongs to a country club. But regardless of all this, I think she was a good person, maybe underneath all that.

I drifted in and out of conciseness for the next day and a half. Finally, I managed to stay awake for more than four hours, and they moved me from the ICU to the regular wards. Turned out I'd lost a lot more blood then I'd thought, but they told me I was doing well considering.

On the third day of my hospital stay, I hadn't seen Clare. I had hoped she would come see me, hoped she had cared enough. But then a thought struck me odd- maybe she didn't know what had happened. Maybe she didn't even know I was there? But on my fifth day of my hospital stay- she arrived with a flower in a vase and the two guys from the Dot.

"Hey Eli." She said, carrying in her flower, setting it on the nightstand. She looked so frail. So scared. I wanted to comfort her. Wanted her to come closer.

"Hey man." One of the guys said, the one who had called the ambulance and I had heard been called Peter before, "Just wanted to make sure you were still alive."

"Yeah dude." The other one said. "You had us kind of scared."

"I try." I said- chuckling. They cracked a smile, and glanced over at Clare, who was still standing alone next to the flower.

"Well, dude-" the one who had carried me, and I thought I had heard him called Spinner before,
"my wife's waiting for me. But- I just wanted to check on you- you know- check it out."

Peter spoke up too, "Yeah, I got to jet to. See if I can mooch off Spinner's dinner." He chuckled, "I'd leave you and little Edwards over here alone." They both chuckled as they walked out the door, closing it behind them.

I moved delicately and slowly up on the bed until I was slightly sitting up in the upright position.

"Care to join me, little Edwards?" I smirked, using the name that Peter had referred to her as, and patted a spot on the bed. She stepped forward slowly, her bottom lip trembling. She perched on the edge of her bed, as far away from me as she could possibly muster, and finally spoke.

"I thought you said that you'd take care of it." She said, in an almost whisper.

My face dropped a little, the corners of my mouth pointing down. "I thought I could." I said back in the hushed tone that she had used.

She turned to me then, scooting closer and closer to me still until she almost sitting in my lap, and pierced me with her eyes, that were wet and glistening.

"Don't scare me like that, Elijah Goldsworthy every again." She said, her eyes locked on my eyes.

"I'll try, Ms. Edwards." I whispered back, and leaned in to kiss her.