Week 103 – It’s hard

Her head pounded with a vicious headache.

Astor felt like she was stuck in quicksand, she couldn’t move, she couldn’t think, she had no idea where she was, what had happened, or what was going around her, all she could do was try to breathe through the pain.

She moved her head a fraction of an inch, and the pain was so bad she moaned and almost slid back into oblivion.

“You’re awake.”

Someone hovered above her, and wiped her brow with a cool cloth. The cold water soothed her headache a little and she summoned up enough strength to crack her eyes open. She immediately groaned and let her eyes fall closed.

“Just rest,” the voice soothed.

Who was it?

She was so confused, and the thumping in her head made it difficult to think

Fingers brushed across her cheek and a familiar rush flushed through her.

“Frost,” she murmured.

“Right here.” She felt the bed dip as he sat beside her.

“Mmm,” she moaned again as just trying to figure out what was going on hurt her head. Regardless she wanted to know what was going on. “Where are we are?”

“Can you open your eyes?”

She tried. Failed. Tried again. “It’s hard,” she groaned.

“You can do it,” Frost encouraged.

Astor tried again, and managed to crack her eyelids up enough to see Frost’s worried face looking down at her. “There you go,” he gave her a smile, a strained one, but a smile none the less.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

“Well, you wanted me to hit you over the head and leave you behind so your cop friends wouldn’t know about the two of us. I thought about it, I thought you might be safer with them, but you would have tried to get back into the sex trafficking ring and I wouldn’t have been there to protect you. So I improvised.”

She arched a brow, then winced at the resulting pain. “Improvised?”

“I knocked you out, but then I kind of used you as a, a hostage,” he cleared his throat. “And used you to get us off my property. I brought you to a small cabin that I own.”

Panic surged through her, momentarily pushing away the pain. “They could have killed you.”

“Well I couldn’t let you get yourself killed. I want to help you find them, the men who killed your sister.”

She’d never been so touched in her life.

He was risking his life to help her because she couldn’t let this go.

Astor tried to sit up to kiss him but the pain in her head was back and she sunk down onto the pillows.

“Sorry about that,” Frost’s brow crinkled and he leaned down and tenderly kissed her forehead. “I didn’t know what else to do.”

She didn’t care. A headache was a small price to pay for her and Frost to still be together, to be safe and away from her colleagues. She wanted to tell him that, how much she loved him and how much what he was doing for her meant, but she was getting tired.

“Close your eyes,” Frost said as he began to stroke her hair. The motion was soothing and her eyes did flutter closed.

Astor didn’t know what the future held for them but at least they were together.