Chapter 14 – RAFAEL
Chapter
Fourteen
RAFAEL
The white fluorescent lights in the hospital waiting room are giving me a headache, or maybe it's just the fact that my bandmate is somewhere behind those double doors fighting off sepsis while the other one rode in the ambulance looking like he'd seen a ghost.
And then there's Bells.
Sitting three seats down from me, white hair still damp from the rain, knee bouncing at a speed that suggests caffeine overdose or genuine panic.
Hard to tell which. He's got his arms wrapped around himself like he's trying to hold his ribs together, and there's this look on his face I recognize from my own mirror on bad days.
Trauma.
My fingers find the rosary beads hanging under my shirt without conscious thought.
The smooth wooden beads roll between my thumb and forefinger, a nervous habit I picked up from my abuela years before she died.
She'd worn hers until the string broke, prayers whispered in Spanish while she cooked or cleaned or sat with me during thunderstorms when I was small enough to be scared of them.
Ave María, llena eres de gracia...
The words float through my head even though I haven't said a full rosary in years. Haven't been to Mass except for funerals. But right now, rubbing these beads makes me feel like I'm doing something. Like maybe there's someone other than Phoenix and me who gives a shit whether Rex lives or dies.
The double doors burst open and a nurse appears, clipboard in hand. "Family of Rex Steele?"
Phoenix is already on his feet before I can move. "That's us."
The nurse looks skeptical—we probably don't scream "family" with our leather and tattoos and the general aura of rock-and-roll disaster—but she doesn't challenge it.
"He's stable. We've got him on IV antibiotics and fluids.
The doctor wants to keep him overnight for observation, maybe longer depending on how the infection responds to treatment. "
"Can we see him?" Phoenix asks, and there's something vulnerable in his voice.
"One at a time. He's unconscious right now, but—" She glances at her clipboard. "There are some questions about his injuries. The attending physician would like to speak with whoever can provide information."
Bells shifts in his seat, and I catch the movement in my peripheral vision. That universal body language of someone who knows they're about to get called on and is desperately hoping they won't be.
"I can answer questions," Bells says quietly, standing up.
The nurse nods. "This way."
Bells follows her through the doors, and Phoenix sinks back into his chair with a heavy exhale.
I have to resist the urge to follow them, because for some reason, I feel protective over this beta I barely even know.
We sit in silence for a while, the only sounds the hum of fluorescent lights and the distant beep of medical equipment.
My thumb keeps working over the rosary beads.
Dios te salve, María...
"I'm staying," Phoenix announces suddenly. "At the hospital. Until he wakes up."
"Phoenix—"
"I know what you're going to say." He cuts me off, blue eyes meeting mine with more steel than I usually see in them.
"That Rex would hate that, that he'd tell me to fuck off, that he doesn't need anyone hovering.
But I don't care. Someone needs to be here when he wakes up, and it's going to be me. "
I open my mouth to argue, then close it. Because he's right. Someone should be here. And Phoenix has always been the one who stayed, even when staying was hard.
Even when Nash...
I don't finish that thought.
"Alright," I say instead. "I'll take Bells to the pack condo. Make sure he actually eats something and doesn't do something stupid like take off. Stephen was up to some kind of bullshit if Rex mauled him like that."
More bullshit than usual, at any rate.
Phoenix nods, then surprises me by reaching over and awkwardly gripping my shoulder. "Thanks, Raf."
"Yeah, man. Of course."
The doors open again and Bells reappears, looking somehow more exhausted than when he went in. The attending physician is with him. She's a middle-aged woman with kind eyes and the sort of calm competence that comes from seeing every form of humanity the ER can throw at you.
"Your packmate's facial wound is infected," she says without preamble. "We'll need to clean and debride the area. He will need to stay for the week on fluids and antibiotics."
"What's his prognosis?" Phoenix asks immediately.
The doctor hesitates. "Well, considering the… situation regarding his facial disfigurement," she says carefully, "his prognosis is worse than it would be otherwise. But being an alpha, he should pull through."
Disfigurement.
The word hits me like a slap. We all suspected something was wrong under that mask—the never eating with us, the way he tilts his head to the side when he drinks, how he guards his masks like his life depends on it—but hearing it confirmed, hearing that clinical word...
I'd caught a glimpse in the ambulance. Just a sliver when his mask shifted during transport. Angry red infection spreading from a jagged cut, white and pink scar tissue that looked like melted wax, the right-side corner of his mouth not ending where it should.
He wears the masks on stage same as Phoenix and I do, this gothic theatrical thing that's part of Vespyr’s brand. But Rex doesn't take his off. Ever. Not backstage, not in the bus, not when he sleeps for all I fucking know.
We just... don't talk about it.
Because Rex doesn't talk about it, and pushing Rex on shit he doesn't want to discuss is a great way to get fired. Or punched. Or both. Pack bonds be damned.
My eyes flick to Phoenix. He doesn't even blink. No surprise, no reaction at all. Just that same worried expression he's been wearing since Rex collapsed.
How long has he known?
"What about the other guy?" Phoenix asks, and there's something dark in his usually gentle voice. "Stephen Hughes. How's he doing?"
The doctor's expression tightens slightly. "Mr. Hughes is in rough shape. Multiple facial fractures, severe contusions. But he'll live, if that's what you're asking. There won't be a murder trial."
"Shame," I mutter under my breath, and Phoenix shoots me a look that says he agrees but we shouldn't say it out loud in front of the nice doctor.
They walk off together, sharing a hushed conversation, leaving Bells and me alone in the waiting room. I just stand there like a dumbass for a full solid minute before turning to Bells with a sigh. "Come on. Let's get out of here. Phoenix has this."
He looks up, those gold eyes meeting mine with clear relief. "Yeah. Okay."
The rideshare back to the condo is quiet except for the rain hammering the roof of the car and the driver's funky polka music that's completely at odds with the mood I'm in. Bells is pressed against the passenger door like he's trying to meld with the upholstery, arms still wrapped around his ribs.
"You alright?" I ask, even though it's a stupid question. Of course he's not alright.
"Peachy," he mutters, which is such obvious bullshit that I almost laugh.
"Yeah, you look it."
He doesn't respond, just goes back to staring out the window at the rain-soaked streets.
The pack house is a condo at the top of one of those modern high-rise buildings that looks like someone stacked a bunch of glass boxes and called it architecture. Obscenely expensive, paid for when Vespyr was at its peak before Nash died and everything went to shit.
We all live here when we're in Seattle, though Rex keeps to his suite like it's a fucking fortress. It's technically in Nash's name still, because none of us have been able to face the legal bullshit of transferring ownership.
I punch in the code and usher Bells inside.
The condo is exactly as we left it this morning—which is to say, a disaster area. Phoenix's drum magazines scattered across the coffee table, my bass propped against the couch, takeout containers that may or may not have achieved sentience piled in the kitchen trash.
"Sorry about the mess," I mutter, kicking a path through the debris. "We're not exactly domestic goddesses around here."
Bells doesn't respond. He's stopped in the entryway, staring at the space like he's charting exits in case he has to escape in a flash.
"There's four bedrooms," I tell him, doing the tour guide thing because it's better than acknowledging the elephant in the room.
"Phoenix has the one on the left. I'm in the one next to it.
Rex has the suite at the far end, but he keeps it locked and I'm pretty sure it's booby-trapped.
He basically lives like a hermit in there. "
I pause at the closed door at the end of the hall. My hand hovers over the knob.
"We don't have a guest room, so..." I take a breath. "You'll have to use Nash's room."
Bells's eyes widen slightly. "Nash's room?"
"Yeah. We haven't... nobody's been in there since." I turn the knob, pushing the door open for the first time in months.
The air that escapes feels wrong. Not stale exactly, but empty in a way that makes my chest tight. Like the room itself knows its occupant isn't coming back.
Everything is exactly as Nash left it. The bed neatly made with dark blue sheets. An acoustic guitar propped in the corner. A half-empty water glass on the nightstand that nobody's had the heart to move.
But it's the absence that hits hardest. The room feels hollowed out, like someone scooped out all the life and left just the shell.
No clothes thrown over the chair. No smell of cologne anymore, or that weird herbal tea with an unpronounceable name Nash was always drinking.
No music playing softly from the speakers to either side of the massive sleeping Buddha statue on his dresser.
Just... nothing.
"Fuck," I breathe, because I wasn't ready for how hard this would hit.
Bells steps past me into the room, moving carefully like he's in a museum. "This feels… weird."