Skylar's POV

Fuck.

My head hurt. My throat hurt. My lungs hurt. My heart hurt. My limbs hurt. Every part of my body hurt.

So bad.

I would've groaned out loud in pain if only I had it in me to form any sort of sound from my mouth. I didn't even know how to move any part of my body when it felt so numb.

It took everything inside me to finally move my fingers. And then I opened my eyes, which at first was a bit hard, but my vision adjusted at the empty white ceiling eventually.

After a few more seconds, I finally managed to look around the strangely unfamiliar room. It was a hospital.

And God, my head hurt so bad.

"Skylar." The voice was almost a whisper, but I heard the relief in it.

I forced my gaze away from the ceiling and looked in front of me.

"Mum?" Finally, something managed to come out of my dry throat. Which sounded more like a voice of a person who had ended up crying for centuries. It was that hoarse.

As if sensing the immense thirst I felt at that moment, her eyebrows shot up and she quickly picked up a glass before pouring water inside it. In the meantime, I tried getting up. A hoarse, groan escaped my lips and I felt her arm behind my back, helping me up. She readjusted the pillow behind me as I leaned on it.

"Here, have some water." She sat down on the bed in front of me. I gratefully took the glass of water and chugged it down, trying to ignore the burning sensation that trailed down my chest.

She took the empty glass from my trembling hand and placed it beside me.

"How are you feeling, sweetheart?" She asked. As I leaned my head back, I saw how tired she looked at that moment--obvious dark circles around her eyes, no makeup, or even her usual clothes. She seemed tense, but the relief and happiness on her face seemed more evident.

"Better." I forced a small smile on my face which ended up turning into a grimace. Nonetheless, my voice didn't sound so hoarse now.

I glanced around the room. It was like every other hospital room. Machines beeping around the bed I was laying on, an untouched food tray on the table beside me, an armchair beside my bed, and a couch at the other corner of the room.

Mom opened her mouth, almost about to say something when the door opened. I looked up and saw Dad holding two cups of steaming liquid as he came inside. However, when his gaze drifted towards mine, I saw his eyes widening a little in surprise. And then it so quickly morphed into relief.

"Skylar." He sounded relieved as well. "Thank God you're awake."

I was more than happy to see their faces for some reason. But my head still hurt. At the back, especially.

"You gave us quite a shock, kiddo." Dad shook his head ever so slightly, placing the two cups of coffee beside my bed.

Mom was still sitting in front of me, on the bed, when she looked over at Dad. "Do you think we should call the doctor to check up on her?"

He glanced over at the obvious discomfort on my face. I was still trying to wrap my head around the numerous wires around me. The constant beeping of those machines and the discomfort of wearing this pale blue hospital gown already felt uncomfortable enough.

"Let's give her some time to adjust first." He told her, giving me a soft smile.

I didn't return it back, though. Because for some reason, I was finding it hard to breathe. When I inhaled in a deep breath, it only made me wince out loud.

My lungs felt like they were on fire, for fuck's sake.

Before Mom could've said something, I spoke up first, "Why am I here? Why are my--" I inhaled again, a bit lightly this time. "--lungs hurting so bad?"

I knew perfectly well what had happened. Even though the hit on my head felt a bit too severe, I still very much remembered everything. I had drowned and my head was probably hurting because of smashing the back of it on that rock.

Pennsylvania. The State Museum. The last metal discoid. Caden.

"It was stupid to go there." Dad seemed angry and it surprised me, mainly because it was Mom every time who managed the angry-parent act. "Do you know how worried your mother and I was when we got a call from the hospital?"

I could only imagine.

Mom passed me a brief smile and it surprised me even more. Wasn't she going to scold me? Had I hit my head a bit too hard and was imagining things now?

"I'm sorry," I whispered genuinely. I knew it was my fault. All my fault. "I'm sorry for making you both...come here--"

It was Mom this time who cut me off. "We're glad this is over, Sky. We're more than glad that you're fine."

It seemed like that was an end to this conversation, even though I so badly wanted to know what exactly had happened after I passed out. Where was Caden? Where was Blake?

What about Kevin and his men?

It was when Mom eyed me with a narrowed gaze that I realized I might've spoken the last question out loud.

"He's where he should've been a long time ago." Was all Dad said.

Whatever that place was, I hoped it was bad. If it weren't for him and his big muscular men, I wouldn't really be in pain right now. I wanted to take hundreds of painkillers at that moment, just so that strange ache would go away.

"How long was I...out for?" I asked, and once again I wasn't really surprised when my voice came out more like a wheeze.

I sounded like I was having an asthma attack.

"Two days." Mom answered. No wonder they both looked so worried.

"And...what happened after I passed out?"

Both of them exchanged looks, not really answering my question. And that seemed to slightly irritate me.

"I should call the doctor. It's foolish not telling him that you're conscious now." Mom said before standing up.

"But--"

"Later, kiddo." Dad cut me off, lightly patting my shoulder. "It isn't anything that you should really worry about, believe me."

I had no energy left to argue with them, not right now anyway. So I kept quiet and just waited for the doctor to show up.

•••••

Neither I nor Alex talked about the incident back in the State Museum. Which was kind of fine with me, especially since the painkillers were kicking in my system and I was starting to feel a bit drowsy.

"Who's taking care of Chicken?" I asked him, leaning back against the soft pillows. One thing that I really appreciated about this hospital was the pillows--they were really soft.

Alex shrugged in response, sprawled on the small couch at the corner of the room. He came here right after Mom and Dad had left and he hadn't really agreed to leave my side, which I was a bit happy for.

It made me forget that Caden was supposed to be here.

And he wasn't.

"So," I spoke up finally. "What really happened?"

He blinked back at me but didn't really say anything.

"What happened to Blake? Or Kevin?" I asked him. "What happened in these two days when I was blacked out?"

After the little checkup from the doctor himself, I could speak up much easily now without feeling like someone was lighting my lungs on fire with a blowtorch.

"Your parents took care of them." He said. "Do you know the entire incident showed up on the news these last few days? The museum, it was shit-trashed."

He grinned at that and I seemed to grin back, a bit more lazily though.

"I'm glad you're here, Alex," I murmured, pulling the sheets closer against myself. That thin, blue hospital gown wasn't really helping with the cold. I even tried to change back into my normal clothes, but it had been a bit too hard. Even brushing my teeth had felt hard.

Alex was silent for a while and it made me think that he might've not heard me. But I didn't repeat it. I liked this silence.

"I'm really sorry, Sky." He said then. "I know you shouldn't...you don't have to forgive me for what I did."

I sighed and closed my eyes. "I know."

We both fell into silence once again. The gash at the back of my head had started bleeding again, and the nurse had to wrap a thick white bandage around it--something that didn't really feel comfortable. I just wanted to go back home and cuddle up with Chicken and sleep for a whole decade.

"Are you gonna talk to Caden?" Alex spoke up.

I tried to ignore the strange, empty feeling in my stomach.

"I'm exhausted, Alex." I still didn't open my eyes. It wasn't a lie. I was tired of all those painkillers. And whenever I thought about Caden, I just felt sad. I was really trying my best to ignore that feeling.

"Okay."

He hadn't told me a lot of stuff, on purpose. He lied to me.

"Why didn't he come to see me yet?" I asked, looking at him this time. Mainly because it had hurt when I kept on looking at the goddamn door all day, waiting for him to show up. And he hadn't.

"I don't know." He replied, looking back at me.

"Well, how can you expect me to talk to him then?"

I wanted to feel angry at him, at Caden, but I couldn't. I didn't know what kind of medication I was on at this moment. I felt empty and tired.

"I was there, Sky." He said gently. "When he pulled you out of the water, I was there."

I was starting to hate how everybody was being so gentle and soft towards me. Like I was a two year old about to throw a massive tantrum.

"I don't give a fuck about that," I whispered, knowing that most of my misery came from the inside.

"I know you do." Another small grin formed on his lips. "I've been with you long enough to know when you give a fuck, and when you don't."

My head was starting to hurt again.

"He lied to me, Alex." I sounded so sad that I wasn't really surprised when I felt tears prickling at the corner of my eyes. Maybe they all were right to assume that I might just throw a tantrum any second.

Not just a tantrum, this was definitely a major case of mood swings.

"Give him a chance to explain."

I didn't say anything in response to that. I wanted to ask him where Caden was. I wanted to ask him if Caden would even come here to see me. What if he didn't?

"It'll be fine, Sky. Get some sleep."

And so, I slept for the third time today.

•••••

I woke up some time in the middle of the night when my head started pounding in a way that made me want to throw up real bad.

I opened my eyes to sit up and stopped halfway when I felt a presence beside me. And it took me by surprise when I saw someone passed out beside me, not on the bed of course. He was sitting on the arm chair, his head placed face-down on the bed right beside me.

He was holding onto my wired hand.

At first I thought it was Alex. But as my vision adjusted in the darkness, I realized that it was most definitely not him. My heart started racing for some reason. And then my head started paining again, in that familiar nauseating way.

I groaned before sitting up and clutched my forehead with the hand that he wasn't holding onto. I guess he wasn't really asleep when he looked up instantly.

"What happened?" Caden asked. I took my other hand from his grasp and placed it on my temple, rubbing it. I wished to rub the part where it was actually hurting--at the back of my head--without screaming out loud.

"Should I call the doctor?" He asked and I just shook my head. They'd just ask me to take more painkillers--which made me feel like shit afterwards.

"Are you sur--"

"I'm fine." I cut him off when the headache seemed to tone down a bit. I really wasn't in the mood to see a nurse in the middle of the night.

He didn't say anything after that and just kept on staring at me. And something about the obvious worry in his eyes seemed to tug at my heartstrings.

"Why are you here?" I asked him slowly. For some reason, it was easier forgetting about that headache when I looked at him.

"What?" His hair was messed up so bad. Very bad.

"I stopped expecting to see you here." I pointed out. He narrowed his eyes at that as if he couldn't believe I was saying that.

"I spent the past two days here, Skylar. Not surprisingly, you were unconscious."

He said it like it had been my decision to stay unconscious for those two days.

"Well, not surprisingly, you forgot to stay the third day, Caden. And you know what? I fucking woke up that day." I spoke up.

He looked taken aback. It wasn't my fault that my anger chose to rise the moment I saw him. I felt really angry right now, no more having that empty feeling within me.

"Forget it. I might as well go unconscious again." I muttered, deciding sleep was way more worthy than this argument.

"Do you care about anything else other than your goddamn sleep?" He interrupted me, sounding highly irritated.

I think he really wanted to keep going with this argument. Even if it was way after midnight now.

"I do. But you're the one who doesn't care about anything other than your own self." I snapped, almost cringing afterwards.

He narrowed his eyes at me.

"If I didn't care about anything other than my own self, I wouldn't have spent whole fucking days in this hospital."

We probably sounded like two teenagers about to strangle each other's throats to the outsiders. I wouldn't really be surprised if somebody came barreling in here.

"Well, maybe you have a thing for this hospital. Not because you care for the patients here who are suffering from serious brain damage and drowning consequences." I didn't even know why I was arguing anymore. I wasn't making sense, and yet I was still arguing.

"For fuck's sake, Skylar. I was terrified those two fucking days. I was terrified that you'd fucking die! How am I supposed to prove that to you?" He asked out loud.

I stopped, mainly because I had no other good comeback this time. And mainly because I was tired. I was exhausted.

We both fell into silence after that. I even forgot about my headache for a bit. He dragged a hand down his face out of frustration.

I swallowed heavily, my voice coming out much lower this time. "Why did you lie to me?"

We both clearly knew why we were arguing. It wasn't about him not coming here to see me when I woke up--no, it wasn't just that. It was about the fact he was trying to avoid. What Blake had said.

"I couldn't have told you." He wasn't looking at me. Instead, with his elbows on his knees, he placed his head in his hands, clearly avoiding my gaze.

"Why?"

He finally looked up at me and I saw his eyes trailing up to my forehead, on the bandage. "I was afraid of this, Sky."

My fingers wrapped around the sheets, clutching them. "Why?"

His eyes found mine. He looked guilty enough. "I had no other choice."

"Why?"

He fell silent at that. And I found myself replaying Blake's words in my head. Those words really hurt. Because Blake had been telling the truth.

"Were you using me all along?" I blurted out.

"Wha--why would I do that?"

There were a lot of reasons he could've used me for.

"To get that metal disk. To get your revenge on Blake. To go against your parents." I answered. "Or, you just used me to make a fool out of me. Just because I did the mistake of interfering in your business."

His gaze didn't waver away from mine, and I saw the way his eyes clouded over with an emotion that I couldn't really decipher.

"I told you even then and I'm telling you this now too, Sky." He spoke up, and my heart clenched at the softness in his voice. "I'd never use you for anything."

I unclenched my fists around the sheets and leaned back against the pillow, looking ahead instead of him.

"I didn't lie to you about the fire." He said. "It did happen. But that was...that had just been a setup."

I blinked at him, confused.

"So that I would be too preoccupied and won't notice Kevin killing my parents."

My lips parted in surprise. "He--Why would Blake's father kill your parents?"

Caden leaned back against the chair, blowing out a sigh. His obsidian hair fell in tousled locks over his forehead, but he made no move to push them back.

"I never wanted to get involved in all this, Sky. Gangs and secrets and all these bloody lies." He said. "My dad was one, way before me. He had a gang. He had everything that way when my mom left him. He could be ruthless to his enemies. Like Kevin."

A beat of silence passed by.

"Blake was close with his father. More so than he ever was with his mother. Most of the arguments in our house started because of him mentioning something about Kevin."

I kept listening to him quietly.

"Kevin's fucked up. Blake's mother left him just because of that. He enjoyed killing innocent people. He found happiness in...everyone else's pain." A small frown formed on his face and his eyes weren't focused on me anymore. "Blake would do anything for him. Blake wanted that disk just because Kevin needed it."

Perhaps that's where Blake's manic ways came from.

"So much so that when my parents refused to give it to him, he killed them."

A small shiver ran down my spine.

"Why did you make me think you killed them?" I asked.

"I had no other choice." He repeated, his green eyes finding mine once again. "He'd have hurt you, Sky. And I know I say that I'd protect you, but I might not always be able to. I know that. I've seen that."

"Telling you would've meant telling your parents. Your parents and Kevin, they never had one of the friendliest relationships." I knew what he meant. My parents had always been specific with their enemies. "He killed my parents, Sky. Even if I didn't get to see it right in front of my eyes, I saw him running away from the scene. I saw their blood on his hands." My stomach twisted into knots, horrible knots. I felt sick.

"He...shot them with a gun from my dad's office. I've been looking for it. It's the only proof to get him behind the bars. But he didn't want me to stop him from reaching his goal. And all those random break-ins in your house, that wasn't even Blake. That was all Kevin." He continued. "I lied to you because I've already lost so many and I...I didn't want to lose you too."

The dizziness in my head seemed to increase when I heard his voice dropping down to a whisper--a scared whisper.