Chapter 13 #2
But the words were already out. And she was already moving ahead, putting distance between them.
They hiked toward the coordinates. Close but separate.
Everything was coming together for the mission.
Between him and Eden, nothing was resolved at all.
The fluorescent lights hummed overhead, casting that sterile blue-white glow that Meg had long ago stopped noticing in most settings.
But here, in this cramped ICU room at Flagstaff Medical Center, the light seemed harsh.
Wrong. It washed the color from Liam’s face.
And made Nimue’s dark, messy braid look more gray than brown.
Her friend held Liam’s limp hand. Her head lay next to his arm, their fingers intertwined, her eyes closed.
Meg adjusted the IV drip and studied Liam’s vitals for the third time in an hour. Heart rate steady at seventy-two. Blood pressure one-eighteen over seventy-six—textbook perfect. The propofol had cleared his system hours ago.
So why wasn’t he waking up?
She pulled out her penlight and lifted his eyelid, shining the beam across his pupil. It constricted. Sluggish, but responsive.
“Come on, Liam.” She kept her voice low, conversational, the way she’d been trained. Studies showed comatose patients often heard more than anyone realized. “Time to wake up and wipe the worry off your pretty girlfriend’s face.”
Nothing. Just the steady beep of the cardiac monitor and the soft wheeze of the blood-pressure cuff deflating.
Somewhere down the hall, a cart rattled past. The antiseptic smell of hospital-grade cleaner mixed with the faint metallic tang that always seemed to linger in these rooms—blood and saline and fear.
Meg tucked the penlight back in her lab-coat pocket and studied him.
Dark, wavy hair matted against the pillow, still gritty with canyon dust despite the nurses’ best efforts.
A purple bruise bloomed from his left temple to his cheekbone, the skin swollen and angry around the edges.
His jaw—that strong, stubborn jaw Nimue had sketched in her notebook a dozen times—was relaxed now, slack in a way that made Meg’s stomach clench.
The CT showed swelling but no epidural or subdural bleeds. Good news. The length of unconsciousness…less good.
The door swung open and Noah appeared in the doorway with two cups of coffee.
“Anything?” Noah’s voice came out tight. Controlled. But the muscle jumping in his jaw gave him away.
“No change.” Meg stepped back to let him closer to the bed and accepted one of the cups. “But that’s not necessarily bad news. His brain is healing. Sometimes it just takes time.”
“How much time?” Nimue sat up and took the other cup with her left hand but didn’t let go of Liam’s hand with her right.
Meg wrapped her hands around the warmth, inhaling the bitter steam.
Not hospital coffee—this was the good stuff from the café down the street.
Noah must have walked three blocks for it.
“Could be hours. Could be days.” She took a sip, letting the caffeine hit her system.
She’d done longer shifts during her residency, but that didn’t mean she liked it.
“But his vitals are strong. The swelling is already starting to come down. I’m optimistic. ”
Noah eased into the plastic chair beside Liam’s bed, deep-brown eyes—usually so guarded—raw with worry as he studied Liam’s face. Not long ago, Noah refused to let anyone close. Hadn’t wanted friends or community or anything that might crack open the fortress of grief he’d built around himself.
Now look at him. Sitting bedside vigil for a guy he’d hired as a seasonal ranger.
“Have you heard anything from the teams?” Noah kept his gaze on Liam, but the question was directed at her. “Did they make it back to base camp?”
“Last I heard, they were hiking out this morning. Should arrive by midafternoon.” Meg checked her watch. Just past noon. The second hand ticked past the twelve, steady and sure. “Xander was coordinating from South Rim dispatch. He’d call if there was a problem.”
Silence settled over the room. Not comfortable silence—the kind that stretched and pulled, filled with all the things no one wanted to say.
Meg found herself watching Liam’s face, cataloging every micromovement.
The flutter of eyelids. A change in respiratory rate.
A twitch of fingers against the bleached hospital sheets.
Anything.
Then—
A groan.
Low. Rough. The sound of someone clawing their way back from very far away.
Nimue was at his side before Meg could blink, her coffee abandoned on the bedside table as she grabbed Liam’s hand with both of hers. “Liam?”
Meg pressed the nurse’s call button and then moved to his other side, leaning over him as his eyes began to move beneath closed lids.
Rapid eye movement. Good sign. Very good sign.
“Liam? Can you hear me?” She kept her voice calm, professional, even as her pulse kicked up.
“It’s Meg. You’re in the hospital. You’re safe. ”
“Nimue is right here,” Meg added, softening her tone. “And she’d love to see those blue eyes of yours.”
His eyelids fluttered. Once. Twice. Then slowly—so slowly—they opened.
Unfocused at first. Pupils dilating against the light, searching, trying to make sense of the world. Meg held her breath. This was the moment. Either he’d come back to them, or…
His gaze found Nimue’s face. Settled there. And despite everything—the bruises, the swelling, the hours of unconsciousness—a small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.
“There you are.” Meg couldn’t keep the relief from her voice. “Welcome back. Do you know where you are?”
Liam’s eyes tracked slowly around the room. The IV pole with its tangle of tubing. The cardiac monitor with its steady green line. The industrial tile ceiling with its water-stained panels. Then back to Nimue, his expression softening in a way that made Meg’s chest ache.
“Why am I in the hospital?” His voice came out like sandpaper on wood. Rough. Raw. The voice of someone who hadn’t spoken in far too long.
She clicked the nurse’s call button again. “You had a pretty bad head injury on a climb. Do you remember that?”
“The canyon. We were—” His hand came up toward his head, reaching for the goose egg hidden beneath his hairline, but Nimue caught it gently. Brought it back down to rest against the sheets.
“Don’t touch.” She pressed her lips to his knuckles. “You’ve got quite a bump there.”
Where were those nurses? “Can you tell me your name? What day it is?”
“Liam Kingsley.” Still rough, but stronger now. More present. His gaze slid to Noah, then back to Nimue, that hint of a smile returning. “That is Nimue, and you all need to leave so she can greet me properly.”
Noah’s chuckle broke through the tension. “I think he’s fine.”
Meg checked his pupils again. Much better. Crisp, equal constriction. The sluggishness from before was gone. “You’ve been out for a while. How do you feel?”
“Like someone hit me with a rock.”
A beat of silence.
Liam’s face twisted—not with pain, but with something darker. Memory flooding back behind those blue eyes. “Wait. Someone did hit me with a rock.”
“Sierra knocked one loose. She feels so bad about it.” Nimue’s voice was gentle. Careful. The voice of someone trying to smooth over a bad moment.
“No.” Liam’s jaw tightened. “Sierra didn’t…I was attacked.”
Everyone in the room went still.
The cardiac monitor beeped. The fluorescent lights hummed. Somewhere outside the window, a helicopter thudded past. The sound faded into the distance, leaving only that terrible, loaded silence.
“What?” Noah leaned forward in his chair. “What did you say?”
“Kyle.” Liam’s eyes went wide, panic flooding his expression in a way that sent his heart rate spiking on the monitor. Ninety. Ninety-five. One hundred. “Where’s Kyle? Is he—did he—”
“Kyle’s fine.” Nimue’s voice stayed gentle, soothing, her thumb stroking across his knuckles. “He’s down in the canyon with Eden, Teague, and Marcus. They’re hiking out today. Everyone’s okay.”
But instead of relaxing at the news, Liam went pale. Paper-white beneath the bruises. His hand gripped Meg’s arm with surprising strength—the grip of someone desperate to be believed.
“No. No, they’re not okay. Kyle—” His breath came faster, shallow pants that made the monitor beep in warning. “You don’t understand. Kyle caused Trey to fall.”
The words landed like a punch to the sternum.
His face was desperate now. Pleading. The look of a man who needed someone—anyone—to believe him.
“Are you absolutely certain about what you saw?” She kept her voice clinical. Calm. The voice she used when delivering difficult news. “Head injuries can cause confusion, false memories—”
“I know what I saw.”
His grip on her arm tightened until she could feel the pressure of each individual finger.
“Kyle caused Trey’s fall. Then he hit me with a rock to keep me quiet.” His blue eyes burned with intensity. “And now he’s down there with Eden and Teague and Marcus, and they don’t know. They think he’s one of them. They trust him.”
Monitors began to beep. Meg’s medical training kicked in even as her mind reeled, scrambling to process what he’d just said.
“Okay. Okay, let’s keep you calm.” Respiratory rate elevated.
Not good for a brain still recovering from trauma.
“Your heart rate is spiking, and that’s not good for your healing right now. ”
She shot Noah a look. Do something.
The door opened and a nurse rushed in. Her gray curly hair up in a messy bun. “What’s going on?”
But Noah was already moving. He pulled out his phone, dialing as he headed for the door. “I’m calling South Rim dispatch. Xander should still be there. He can radio them.”
“You need to calm down, young man, or I am going to have to ask these guests to leave.”
That had his attention. Liam drew a slow breath. His numbers dropped, and when he spoke again, his voice had gone flat as exhaustion seemed to be sneaking back in. “They won’t be able to reach them. Kyle must have sabotaged our radio. Had to be him.”