20

20

Kaya’s POV.

My eyes snap open as a whelp escapes my lips, and I jerk up to a sitting position. I find myself in a room that I don’t think I recognize until I hear someone shuffle next to me, and my face darts there.

Seeing Melissa, I tell myself to calm down, realizing that I’m in her room and not elsewhere. I’m not in front of Kyle anymore.

While comatose, my brain keeps relieving the moment, putting me in an endless turmoil of pain. As if that isn’t satiating enough, I feel like I spent the last decades of my life on a rollercoaster of agony.

My voice comes out as a croak when I call her. “Melissa.”

“Kaya, are you okay?”

My throat hurts from not having taken water since I woke up today, and judging from the absence of light behind the closed curtains, I know it’s night already.

“I...” My voice caught up in my throat, wincing at a pain in my shoulders. I almost forgot that. “My shoulder...” It’s fixated with plaster, but I can still feel numb there, more like I can barely move it.