Chapter 45
45
Dylan
“ Y ou’re doing well,” the doctor said. “You’re going to have to take it easy, give yourself time to heal. Your lungs and throat suffered a lot of trauma, and you still have a long road of recovery ahead. No more heroics for a while. You are an extremely lucky young man. It was a close call in the OR. Keep the oxygen mask on at all times unless you’re eating or drinking. Liquids and soft solids only for now.”
His brows pulled in as he listened to my lungs. He frowned and made a note in the chart.
Fuck. “Doc?”
“There’s still moderate tracheobronchial edema present. Limit talking and follow the instructions of the respiratory therapist when she comes. If you cooperate with everything now, you’ll have the best chance to return to full function.”
“Prognosis?” I hated being reduced to one word responses, but damn, it hurt to talk.
“Your leg should make a full recovery. It’s too soon to know if your cardiac and respiratory systems will return to 100%, although they’ll most likely be functional.”
Fuck. No one wanted to hear that, but especially not a firefighter. This could be the end of my career.
“Thanks, doc.”
“My pleasure. You risked yourself to save that woman and child. I’ll do everything in my power to make sure you make a full recovery.”
I forced a smile and reached out to shake his hand.
“Remember, limit your talking. Page your nurse if you want pain meds. I’ll be back to check on you soon.”
He walked out calmly like he hadn’t just thrown my whole world off its axis.
Was my career over? Had Sarah and Benji been the last people I’d save? What the hell would I do with the rest of my life?
As I lay there contemplating my life with a nine-to-five desk job, alone in a cubicle, without my brothers, without purpose, there was another knock on the door. Before I could respond, everyone walked in. Brady, Ryan, Liam, Taco, Driftwood, Sledge, but no Juliette.
“Did Juliette come back in here?” Brady strangely asked.
“No. She’s with you?”
“We, uh, got separated.”
“Where is she?”
“I’ll ask Cole.” Liam sent a text, then frowned as his phone pinged. “Be right back,” he said. With a look to Brady, he left.
Something was wrong. No one was making eye contact with me.
“Where is Juls?” I repeated, trying to sound demanding, but the coughs that punctuated each word belied my intent. I sucked in a few deep breaths from the mask.
Cole came in and my eyes snapped up to his. Didn’t Liam just text Cole because he was with Juliette?
I tried to pull my mask off to ask, but Cole blocked my hand. “Leave it on. We don’t know where she is. She gave me the slip when she went to the bathroom outside the coffee shop. We’ve checked everywhere we can think of in the hospital. Ethan’s headed to her house now. He’ll check in with us soon. Liam joined Moose, Penelope, and the others who’ve been searching the hospital.”
“Beth is looking at video footage,” Sledge added.
Panic welled up in my chest. My pounding heart was broadcast through the room by the beeps of the machine.
Cole placed a hand on my shoulder. “Relax before they kick us out of here for upsetting you.”
There was no way I could relax. Why would she walk away from Cole and not come back to me? It didn’t make any sense. Did someone snatch her from under Cole’s nose? Was it Kayla or Leo?
“Tell me everything.” My voice was still raspy, but it didn’t hurt as much to talk now. Or maybe it was just the adrenaline kicking in.
The guys all looked at each other, worry and guilt in their eyes.
“Tell me.”
“I’m sorry, brother. I tried, but it was a clusterfuck,” Ryan said.
“Just fucking tell me.”
“We were all in the waiting room while the doctor was with you. Chief Pratt came in and?—”
“That asshole said something to Juliette?”
“He was lambasting the team for taking so long to get to you, and he was saying really inappropriate shit. I went over to him and said it wasn’t cool to do that with your family and girlfriend in the room. So the fucking asshole that he is, he looked right at Juliette and kept going. Penelope and Moose tried stopping him too, but the asshole just stepped it up a notch.”
“Fuck.”
“Yeah, it was bad. We tried talking to her, but I don’t think she heard a word we said,” Ryan explained.
“Fuck him,” I growled out. Shit, I shouldn’t have done that. Coughs tore up my throat, leaving a trail of fire in their wake. I couldn’t stop coughing, I couldn’t breathe. I grabbed my chest, trying to suck in air.
“Keep your fucking mask on and breathe.”
Ryan adjusted my oxygen mask and dammit, I did need it. I concentrated on breathing while I glared at my friends as they looked back at me with worry on their faces. I wanted to scream at them to go find my sweet Juliette and make sure she was okay. Because I knew she wasn’t.
“You good?” Ryan asked after the coughing subsided.
I nodded. I was not even close to good. But I was breathing, and my heart was beating, and that was as good as I’d be until Juliette was back.
“Tell me what she was like that day.”
Taco stepped up to answer. “She ran into the station out of breath, favoring her left leg. Bloodied knees and hands like she’d fallen. She was panicked, but otherwise she seemed okay. Koren and the girls brought her to the scene, then drove her here. She’s been quiet. Other than a few moments when she let us or the girls comfort her, she’s been turned inwards. She answered our questions about what happened with a few words. Other than that, she’s barely said anything. We’ve tried to talk to her, brother.”
“She’s been pretty shaken up,” Brady added. “We got her to eat and drink a little, but not enough. She’s only slept a couple of hours here and there. Your mom tried to get her to talk also, but Juliette hardly even looked at your family.”
“Where are my parents?” Maybe she was with them, safely chatting in a lobby somewhere.
“They were upset by the chief too, so between that and you being awake, your dad finally convinced your mom to go get a few hours of rest at Eli’s house. They’ll be back soon.”
“From the moment they let us in, she’s been sitting in that chair, holding your hand or running her hands over the blanket,” Ryan continued. “Sometimes she cried, sometimes she murmured under her breath. Then, after Chief Asswipe was done, she stumbled over her words, said coffee, and ran out.”
“Don’t fucking talk about her speech,” I snapped.
“No, it wasn’t a comment about her speech. She stumbled over her words differently than usual. She wasn’t alright. Then she hurried out before we could stop her.”
Poor Juliette. I could see it all in my mind. I could feel her worry and self-doubt as though she were standing in front of me. I wanted, no, I needed, to see her, to reassure her that I was okay and that she did good.
“She looked angry that I followed her out,” Cole said. “She didn’t say anything to me until we got to the coffee shop. Then she asked me to buy her a coffee while she went to the bathroom. I assumed she was in a rush to get back to you, so I did. I’m so sorry, man. I would’ve stayed with her if I thought there was a chance she’d leave.”
“Are you sure she left willingly?”
“I think so. She waited in the bathroom doorway until I went into the shop. I didn’t see anyone else around or hear anything.”
“From the video footage, Beth thinks she left on her own. She never even went into the bathroom, so that request was a ruse. As soon as Cole was in the cafe, she walked straight through the lobby and out the front door. No sign of anyone forcing her or following. Beth lost track of her outside the hospital, in a section without cameras. She’s still trying to pick her trail back up.”
“Ask Beth to check on Kayla and Leo.”
Sledge nodded and stepped into the hallway.
“Find her. Find her and tell her that I’m okay. I don’t give a fuck about anything that asshole said. Tell her I need her here with me.”
After a few minutes of arguing that I didn’t need a babysitter, they left to continue the search. Cole left his phone behind so we could keep in touch. He reminded me that Juliette didn’t have her phone, as though I wasn’t already painfully aware of it.
Motherfucker.
I closed my eyes and tried to breathe, but the pain in my chest had nothing to do with fire or smoke or fucking swelling now. Juliette’s past words of doubt and self-recrimination replayed on a loop in my head.
No one should rely on me to communicate anything important. I don’t care if I hurt myself, but I couldn’t live with myself if someone else was hurt because of my dyspraxia.
Juls, baby, I’m so sorry. Come back to me so we can heal these wounds together. Please.