A surge of consciousness shot through Evelynn like two disjointed electrical wires that suddenly touched and flared up. She abruptly opened her eyes.
She sat up and frantically skimmed the room.
It was a new environment. It smelled nothing like the cell that contained her.
The first thing she noticed was the IV drip connected to her hand. Seeing tubes like that, she presumed she was being drained of blood again by her captors.
She panicked.
When she realized she wasn't on chains, she pulled the tube from her hand and tried to stand up. Blood gushed out from where the tube was needled.
However, she immediately slipped back on the bed because of nausea.
Her whole body felt numb, and she had a splitting headache.
She looked around the room but got fixated on the tube. It was transparent and not red. And instead of taking liquid from her, it looked like it was doing the opposite.
Still, to her, tubes connoted the torturous blood-draining procedure that traumatized her every single time it happened.
Her chest tightened. She gasped for air. Cold sweats formed on her forehead, and she got chills.
Her chest felt so tight and she couldn’t breathe. In her mind, death was already approaching.
While she hyperventilated, the door opened. A nurse came running toward her. She caressed her back up and down to calm her.
"Hey, miss! Miss! Calm down and breathe with me. Breathe with me," the nurse repeated with urgency to make sure Evelynn understood what she was saying.
"Inhale…"
Evelynn inhaled slowly with the nurse.
"Exhale…"
She exhaled.
They did a few more, and Evelynn soon calmed down. Her breathing slowly returned to normal.
The nurse dried her sweats and asked her if she was okay. Evelynn was too preoccupied with the new presence she sensed in the room to answer the nurse properly.
She noticed a man getting inside the room with a woman who looked like a doctor. One look at him had Evelynn's heart swelling.
His ash gray hair parted in the middle. He had a slim body, but he looked strong to Evelynn, somehow. He was about six feet tall and had a confident stance. She met the penetrating gaze of his calm and pale blue eyes. They glistened as he gazed at her.
She could literally feel how her heart inflated and then diffused inside her rib cage at the sight of him.
His lips were pressed on a serious line.
He had the prettiest face among the men she had ever come across with.
Then again, Evelynn was skeptical of her opinion since she had only seen ugly men for a long time. Maybe that was the reason why she found the man so attractive.
Alongside him was the most captivating female she had seen. The two burst out visuals, and sparks were flying around them.
Evelynn couldn't believe a person could look that good. She had only seen the faces of beasts for a long time that she turned out this ignorant of human beauty.
The female doctor went near her, and Evelynn automatically flinched in fear.
Sawyer saw this. He assumed the girl must've experienced habitual beating by how she reacted like that.
"Doctor, she had just calmed down from a panic attack," the nurse reported formally.
The beautiful doctor eyed the dextrose instead of worrying about the patient's condition.
"So, you pulled out your drip. Awesome!" the female doctor exclaimed sarcastically. "I see you got your strength back, that is wonderful!"
The nurse in the room tried to put her IV drip back, but Evelynn refused and hid her hands behind her back.
"You're dehydrated and literally out of blood. Stop being stubborn," the doctor reprimanded Evelynn.
The woman wearing a doctor's coat made Evelynn want to trust her. But no…
People shouldn't be trusted that easily.
She traveled her eyes to the man who was already looking at her. She looked away, disconcerted at the alien nervous-like feeling the man was making her feel.
She had known fear and anxiety all too well.
But the nervousness she was feeling was neither. It was different in a pleasant way.
"Kimberly, she woke up earlier than expected. That's a good thing, right?" the man asked the doctor.
His voice was silvery, but to Evelynn, it sounded smoky. She couldn't help but stare at him.
The doctor named Kimberly eyed Evelynn before answering the man. "We'll have to wait for her test results. But for now, she's fine."
The man nodded. "Can you leave us alone?"
The doctor crossed her arms and looked at the man with suspicion. "Who the hell is this girl that you personally asked me to take care of her?"
The stranger made a hand sign to shoo the doctor away.
The doctor rolled her eyes at the man's unwillingness to answer and left. The nurse followed after convincing Evelynn to needle the dextrose in her hand again.
The strange man walked near Evelynn's bed.
"How are you feeling?"
His voice sounded pleasant and confident enough to lure anyone to trust him. Evelynn wasn't about to be allured by that.
She didn't answer. She didn't know who the man was and didn’t want to trust him.
He might be another predator who would take advantage of her body.
He reached out his hand.
"I'm Sawyer."
Evelynn stared down at his hand.
Meanwhile, Sawyer, sensing his friendliness wasn't working, put down his hand and smiled the rejection away.
He dragged a chair near the bed and sat on it to see Evelynn face to face.
"You can let your guard down. You're safe here. No one will hurt you."
In an instant, Evelynn's tensed muscles calmed down.
Those were the words she didn't know she needed to completely breathe with ease.
"Where am I? What is this place?" she finally asked. Her voice was hoarse but she managed to get the words out.
"You're in the Blood Moon Pack's hospital."
"At where exactly is this hospital located?"
"Inside my territory,” the stranger calmly answered. “My pack will be taking care of you."
Evelynn had no idea what the stranger was talking about. There were words she didn't understand.
Plus, she couldn't stop thinking about the tube connected to her hand. She badly wanted to pull it out again.
Right when she was about to do it, Sawyer was quicker and stopped her.
Their hands touched in the process.
Strangely, Evelynn felt a tingling sensation creep on her skin. It felt refreshing and nice and magical.
It was the first time she felt something nice on her skin.
For a moment, Sawyer lost his focus. The wave of pleasure he felt when their skins touched was too much to endure. He ached to touch her again but restrained himself.
Sawyer, the gentleman he was, immediately apologized.
"I'm sorry. I was just trying to stop you. You really shouldn't pull this thing out," he looked at the dextrose, "they're not harmful to you, believe me."
Although Evelynn still showed distrust, deep inside, her heart already gave in.
There was something about him that made Evelynn feel she could trust him. Or maybe it was the tingling sensation. Very curiously, she felt like they were somehow connected.
But she dismissed her own thoughts. How were they supposed to have a connection? When she's locked up for years?
"As you know, we rescued you last night from your captors. Do you know them? Why are they keeping you imprisoned?"
Evelynn avoided his eyes.
"How long have you been captured? Why were you there? Are there other prisoners aside from you?"
Evelynn remained silent. She didn't like his interrogation.
"Listen," Sawyer attempted to convince. "I know it's hard for you, but you need to tell me who they are and what they do. So I can protect you."
He paused before he continued. “So I can find the other prisoners if there are any.”
The words he said made Evelynn soft. It made her want to lean on him. To curl under him for protection.
But he was a stranger. And she shouldn’t trust strangers.
'He must be after something,' Evelyn thought to herself.
Sawyer understood what the patient's hard-pressed mouth meant.
"Alright," he finally conceded. "Rest."
Evelynn sighed in relief internally. There was no way she would give out information to a stranger.
'Trust no one, Evelynn. Trust no one,' she repeated in her mind.