Begin Again novel Chapter 221

While Eden planned her grand proposal and made plans for their future across town, Liam arose from his limbo at last and struggled to open his eyes.

For a terrifying second or two, he thought he was dead or blind or both, and he panicked, his heart racing out of control when he moved his head side to side, and he still couldn't see jack shit.

"Calm down," he told himself. "This is all a bad dream. Just a bad dream. You're not blind."

"What if you are?" A niggling voice whispered somewhere inside his head.

The thought was enough to make him want to weep.

"No!" He groaned as he brought his hands to his eyes. He'd pry his eyelids open if he has to.

But the fire burning at his side warned him not to try anything stupid.

He pressed his head firmly on the pillow and stayed still, forcing himself to calm his tits as he took a long deep breath. He held it in and released it slowly while he counted to five— a technique Linda had taught him back when he was still agitated over not being able to fuck anyone.

Facing the possibility of being blind or dead, Liam realised his problems back then were truly nice life problems.

He repeated Linda's mantra a couple of times until he was sure he was ready to open his eyes without losing his shit if it turned out he was indeed blind.

His breath ragged, his heart fluttering like a hummingbird flapping its wings, and his fingers digging into the itchy bedsheets covering the shitty mattress, Liam slowly tried to open his eyes again.

This time, a short, rough chuckle shot through his parched lips when he saw a sliver of light floating above, and relief burst through him, instantly activating all his numbed body parts like a shot of adrenaline when he made out the rectangular shape of the fluorescent light.

Slowly the blurry shapes in the room came into sharp focus, and everything hit him all at once—the harsh chemical smell of disinfectant pervading his nose, the staccato beeping and wheezing of the monitors tied to his mangled body through a persistent connection of wires and tubes, and the fire razing his side.

If he can feel pain, and see the machines, then he's not dead or blind like he'd thought.

And he wept with happiness and gratitude.

He was not grateful for the pain, that's for sure. But he sure was glad to be alive, and he'd see his Princess and son and their little warrior.

He hoped that Eden was indeed pregnant, and her announcement wasn't a dream made up by his fragmented brain when his body had begun to shut down from shock.

"Princess?" He croaked as he tried to sit up. But the searing ache in his abdomen sent him wailing like a baby back on the pillows. The monitor beside him complained and sent life-saving signals to the nurses puzzling at the nurses' station as his pulse and blood pressure shot through the roof.

Within seconds the room was humming with doctors and nurses, and everything after that was a blur of faces and stethoscopes, of catheter bags being removed and IV drips being replaced, of unexpected announcements and disappointing news.

There were too many things happening all at once, and none of them mattered, too many faces he didn't recognise and not a single one he wanted to see.

He wanted to see his parents and his sisters. But most of all, he wanted to see Eden and their son.

"I need a minute!" Liam growled at some point when he thought he'd go mad from yet another nugget of information the nurses and doctors thought he needed right this instant.

He didn't need anyone to tell him the bullet had grazed his kidney and missed his vital organs, and he'd be out of commission for two weeks at the very least. He was well aware of this. The totality of the pain now invading his whole body, from his toes to his temples, left him with little doubt he was physically fucked, for the moment at least.

He just wanted to see a familiar face. He'd even taken his bratty sisters' at the rate things were going.

But he'd try for Eden's first.

"I need to see Eden McBride and my son. Call her right now! She should be on my emergency contacts list."