Chapter 27 Logan
LOGAN
I know the exact time because I’m awake, staring at the numbers on the clock like it might blink back and tell me something useful, like how to stop replaying every stolen moment with Sloane.
He went to bed early.
Earlier than usual. Earlier than the careful, stubborn routine he’s built for himself since the cancer started stealing more than it gave. He blamed it on fatigue, waved Sloane off with a crooked smile, told her to stop hovering like she could outstare death if she tried hard enough.
She didn’t listen.
Neither did I.
The sound comes from down the hall—not a crash, not a shout. Just a dull, heavy thump. The kind of noise that doesn’t belong in a quiet house. The kind your body recognizes before your brain catches up.
My stomach drops.
“Pops?” I call, already pushing up from the table.
The chair scrapes loudly against the floor. Pain slices through my knee, white-hot and immediate, but adrenaline buries it under something louder.
Fear.
I move fast down the hallway, every step uneven, pulse pounding in my ears. The bedroom door is open.
He’s on the floor.
On his side, one arm pinned awkwardly beneath him, the other stretched out in front of him, shaking—fingers curling and uncurling like they’re searching for something to hold onto.
Sweat darkens the collar of his hoodie. His skin looks wrong—not pale, not flushed.
Just gray, like the light has been drained out of him.
“Hey. Hey, Pops.”
I drop beside him, hands hovering for half a second before I settle one on his shoulder, solid and grounding. His body feels hot under my palm—not fever-hot. Something else. Something deeper. Wrong in a way I can’t name fast enough.
“Look at me,” I say, keeping my voice steady even as my chest tightens. “Stay with me.”
His eyes flutter open slowly, unfocused, pupils sluggish.
“Logan,” he murmurs, and his words…aren’t right. Thick. Slurred. Like his tongue forgot the shape of them. “Room’s…spinnin’.”
The fear sharpens.
Not the slow, grinding dread we live with every day. This is fast and cold and vicious. This is the kind that makes you think of worst-case scenarios even when you try not to.
“Okay.” My voice goes low, controlled, like calm can keep him here. “Okay. Can you squeeze my hand?”
I slide my fingers into his right hand.
His grip is weak. Not absent. But wrong.
My eyes snap to his face.
One side of his mouth isn’t moving the way it should. It’s subtle—too subtle for someone who hasn’t stared at him for years. But I have. I know every line of that man’s face.
And right now, it looks like his body is betraying him in real time.
“Sloane!” I shout. “Sloane! Cameron!”
Bare feet slap against the floor seconds later. She skids into the doorway, hair wild, panic already carved across her face. She drops to the floor beside us, hands moving fast—his cheek, his wrist, his forehead.
“Dad?” Her voice cracks instantly. “Dad, look at me. Look at me.”
He tries.
But his gaze drifts past her like he can’t lock on.
Sloane’s eyes flick to me, frantic. “What is—”
“Stroke,” I say, the word tasting like metal. Like a curse. “I think it’s a stroke.”
Her breath catches, sharp and wet.
“No,” she whispers, like refusing the word can undo it.
“Sloane, call 9-1-1. Now.” I keep my hand on Pops’s shoulder, anchoring him, anchoring myself. I yell back toward the hall again, “Cameron!”
“He left when we got back. We—we need to call him.” Her hands shake as she fumbles her phone. The moment she hits speaker, her voice snaps into place—too steady, too practiced for someone who’s falling apart.
“Hi—my dad collapsed. He—he’s slurring his words, and his face looks wrong, and he can’t lift his arm. We’re at—” She rattles off the address, voice wobbling on the last numbers.
I look back at Pops.
“Hey,” I say, close to his ear. “Stay with me. You hear me?”
He blinks slowly.
His good hand twitches toward me like he’s trying.
Sloane’s voice goes distant as she answers questions: when did it start, is he awake, is he breathing, what time did you last see him normal—
I glance back at the clock like it’s going to hold the line for us.
“One seventeen,” I say, loud enough for her to hear. “It was one seventeen.”
Sloane repeats it, voice cracking. “One seventeen. That’s when we heard him fall.”
Pops makes a sound—half exhale, half laugh that doesn’t work.
“Hell of a time,” he mumbles, and the attempt at humor is what nearly shatters me, because it’s him trying to keep us calm even while his body is doing this.
“Don’t talk,” I tell him, too harsh, then soften immediately. “Just breathe.”
The paramedics arrive fast—calm voices, clipped movements, equipment clicking open. They kneel beside Pops, flash a light in his eyes, ask him his name, the year, who the president is—
Pops tries to answer, and it comes out mangled.
I feel Sloane flinch beside me like she’s been struck.
One of the paramedics looks at the other, and I don’t like the look.
“Possible stroke,” he says into his radio. “Right-sided weakness, slurred speech. Onset approximately one seventeen.”
Stroke.
The word keeps echoing in my skull like it’s trying to make space.
They move efficiently—oxygen, blood pressure cuff, a finger prick to check glucose. They roll him carefully, then lift him onto the stretcher.
Sloane scrambles up with them, hands reaching for him like she’s terrified he’ll disappear if she doesn’t keep contact.
“Dad,” she whispers. “I’m here. I’m right here.”
Pops’s eyes find her for half a second.
His mouth tries to smile, but it doesn’t fully happen, but he squeezes her fingers—barely.
It’s enough to make her sob and swallow it back down like she’s punishing herself for being human.
She climbs into the ambulance to ride with him, and I’m right behind them in my truck, hitting dial on Cam’s number.
It rings a few times before a mid-yawn Cam answers, “Logan?”
“Hey, you need to meet us at the hospital. Something happened with Pops. We had to call 9-1-1, and I’m following them there right now. Sloane is riding with him.”
I hear shuffling and a mumbled voice before Cam says he’s on his way and hangs up.
I pull into the parking lot, cutting left when the ambulance pulls into the bays on the right. Getting out of my truck, I almost forget that I don’t have my brace on, my knee sending small shocks of resistance that are quick to remind me as I make my way across the lot.
The ER is a blur of voices, lights that are too bright, and urgency that doesn’t care who you are. I find Sloane, but they wheel Pops away fast.
“Stroke team’s ready,” someone says.
They don’t ask if we’re okay. They don’t soften their voices. They just move, because this is what they do—save what can be saved while the clock is still kind.
Sloane tries to follow, and a nurse gently blocks her with an arm.
“We’re taking him for imaging,” she says. “We’ll update you as soon as we can. The waiting room is to the left.”
Sloane’s face crumples. “I need to be with him.”
“I know, honey, but we can’t let you back there with him right now,” the nurse says, softer. “I promise we’re taking care of him.”
Promise.
That word doesn’t mean anything here.
We wait.
Time stretches into something warped and unrecognizable.
Sloane paces. Back and forth. Back and forth. Hands rubbing together like she’s trying to scrub the fear off her skin. She doesn’t sit. Doesn’t drink the water a nurse offers her.
“Sloane, you need to sit down,” I say quietly after a while.
“I can’t.”
“I know,” I reply, “but you’re going to pass out if you don’t.”
She drops into the chair beside me, folding inward like something finally gave way. I keep my hands to myself, even though every instinct I have screams to reach for her.
The doors swing open, and Cameron barrels in, breathless, hoodie thrown on over sleep pants. He takes one look at Sloane and pulls her into his chest without a word.
“What happened?” he asks, voice rough.
I explain what happened and what we know, which isn’t much.
He nods, jaw tight, eyes already scanning the hallway like he can intimidate bad news into staying away.
When the doctor finally comes out an hour later, it’s not the worst news, but it isn’t good either.
He’s a man in scrubs with tired eyes and a voice that’s practiced at delivering reality.
“We did a CT scan to check for bleeding,” he says. “There’s no hemorrhage. That’s good.”
Sloane’s breath shudders. “So—so what is it?”
“We believe he’s had an ischemic stroke,” the doctor continues. “A blood clot in his brain. We’re doing additional imaging to see exactly where and how significant. Right now, he’s stable.”
Stable.
The word lands like a fragile gift.
My muscles finally unclench enough to realize how hard I’ve been holding myself together.
Sloane grips Cameron’s hoodie like she might fall through the floor. “Can you fix it?”
The doctor’s expression shifts—gentle but careful.
“We’re treating him. We’re supporting his blood flow, controlling blood pressure, and we’ll have neurology evaluate him.
Because of his overall medical picture and the timing, certain interventions may not be appropriate.
But he’s stable. He was awake briefly and responding, but he’s resting now, which is what he needs. ”
Sloane’s throat works. She nods once, like she’s trying to accept words that don’t fit in her body.
“They’re admitting him overnight for monitoring,” the doctor says.
“We’ll reassess in the morning and go from there.
Only one person can stay with him tonight, as per hospital policy.
It’s very important that his body allows itself to rest to make sure the situation doesn’t get worse or happen again. ”
We thank the doctor, and he walks back toward the rooms.
Only one person can stay here with him.
Cameron looks at Sloane. “You’re going home.”
She shakes her head immediately. “No.”
“You haven’t slept,” he says gently. “He’s going to be monitored. He’s safe. You know I’ll call you if anything happens.”