39. No Pulse. Time of Death…
Chapter thirty-nine
No Pulse. Time of Death…
Matt
The elevator dings, but it barely registers. I step out, relief slamming through me like a tidal wave. I’m about to see my girl for the first time in a month.
But under it, worry gnaws at my gut. She’s been through hell—the crash, the attack. And Darren got away.
I tell myself she’s safe. Surrounded. Protected. But I haven’t looked her in the eyes since it happened.
I try to shake it off. Force a smile, already picturing it—pulling her close, getting lost in her mouth, the sound of her voice—
Then I hear it. A scream.
Unmistakable.
Melina.
Every hair on my body stands on end. Electric. Primal. The scream comes again—louder now. Raw. Terrified.
I’m already sprinting down the corridor. Full speed. Past stunned nurses and doctors.
An Aegis operator keeps guard outside Mercer’s room—Bravo team, I think. I know the face, not the name.
He stiffens at the noise, palm drifting toward his weapon, gaze cutting to the stairwell. He hesitates, then the door slams open behind him.
Mercer staggers into the hall, his hand clamped on the frame as if it's the only thing keeping him upright. Hospital gown. Grippy socks. Eyes wild. Blood streaking down his arm where he tore out the IV.
Our eyes lock. No hesitation. No words. Just run.
“Call it in!” I bark at the operator as we tear down the hallway side by side.
He’s already raising the radio to his mouth.
We reach the stairwell simultaneously. I slam throw door wide and take the stairs two at a time—Mercer right behind me, our footfalls cracking like gunfire in the narrow space.
Then I see them, and everything stops.
Darren’s body is sprawled across the landing, twisted and crumpled like a dropped marionette. Blood pools beneath him—dark, wet, spreading fast.
Under him—Melina. Pinned. Motionless. Her arm is stretched out, fingers inches from the knife lying beside her. The blade gleams red, the handle smeared.
My heart slams against my ribs, my pulse roaring as though it might tear through me.
“Melina!”
Her name rips out as I hit the ground, dropping hard to my knees. I don’t feel the impact. Don’t care. All I see is her.
I shove Darren’s weight off her, my hands coated with crimson, arms trembling with adrenaline and dread.
She doesn’t move.
There’s so much blood I can’t tell what’s hers and what’s his. For a split second, I think she’s been stabbed too—until I see it.
A deep stab wound just below Darren’s collarbone, another gaping hole in his neck.
Holy fuck. She did this. She killed him.
She’s ghostly white. Her throat mottled with dark, purple bruises, his fingerprints branded into her skin.
I can’t breathe.
“Oh God.”
I brush her cheek with my fingertips. Clammy. Cold. I find her pulse. Thready, but there.
“She’s alive,” I rasp, more to myself than anyone else.
Mercer drops beside me, chest heaving, face pale and slick with sweat. He grabs her hand like it’s the only thing tethering him to this earth.
He doesn’t speak at first. Just stares at her, locked on the bruises circling her neck.
“He strangled her.” His voice is fragile. Broken.
“She fought like hell,” I answer.
“She’s barely breathing,” the words tear out of him. Panicked, helpless.
His whole body shakes. And his expression—Jesus. He’s coming apart.
“Please,” he chokes. “Please, no.”
My gut twists. The way he’s looking at her—
I file it away. Later.
“Mercer,” I bark. “Go!”
He spins without a word and disappears up the stairwell.
I don’t move her, not with her ribs rising in shallow, uneven bursts. Every breath is a fight.
I brush aside the hair clinging to her skin. It’s matted and sticky. Cradling her head, my hand comes back slick with blood seeping from beneath her skull.
Head trauma. Has to be.
“Stay with me, baby. Just hang on.”
She doesn’t stir. I press my lips to her forehead and tighten my hold.
“Come back to me.”
I wasn’t there when she needed me. I failed her. I won’t again. Not now. Not ever.
I hold steady, whispering soft, desperate things I should’ve said long ago. She doesn’t answer, just lies there, pale and still. She’s slipping.
Then—boots thunder down quickly from above. I don’t release her. I can’t.
Firm hands grip my arms as they try to pull me away. “Sir, we need you to step back.”
“No! Please—just let me—”
More footsteps. Scrubs blur into view. Gloves snap. A trauma nurse kneels beside her, composed and focused.
She presses two fingers to Melina’s carotid. “Pulse is weak,” she calls, calm but urgent. “She’s unresponsive—possible TBI. We need a board.”
Another voice behind her, already moving. “On it—ETA thirty seconds.”
I stay still, knees welded to the floor. Then I hear him.
“Mason.”
I turn, and my stomach knots. Mercer stands a few steps above, frozen on the stairwell. His chest heaves, but it’s his eyes that stop me—wide, gutted, like something vital’s been ripped out of him.
“You have to let them take her,” he says, tone scraped raw. “Matt, please.”
I hesitate, heart pounding. I can’t make myself go. Beside me, a doctor crouches next to Darren’s body, fingers at his neck. What the hell is he checking for? The bastard’s dead.
A beat later— “No pulse. Time of death…”
I hardly register the rest.
I glance at Mercer. His face speaks volumes—grief, panic, a helpless fury I know too well. When I left for the mission, they were strangers. Now, he's staring at her like she’s everything.
I should be pissed. Should demand answers. Drag him into the light and make him explain. But none of it matters. Not right now.
The second I move, the team floods in. A medic slides a board beneath her. Hands check her airway. A trauma kit snaps open. They work around me while I kneel there—numb, hollow, useless.
I look at Mercer again. And for the first time, words fail.
***
It’s been nearly a full day since the attack, and she still hasn’t woken. Her body is battered. A fresh bandage wraps her head—same spot from the crash. She’d barely started healing when he slammed her into concrete. Restapled. I didn’t ask how bad.
The side of her face is swollen, scraped raw from where he dragged her down the stairs. Beneath the sheets, bruises mark her ribs, hips, back—everywhere he got his hands on her.
The scan showed a clean skull fracture—linear, no displacement. A slight subarachnoid bleed with minor swelling. Nothing surgical, nothing critical, but enough to keep her under. Enough to keep everyone on edge.
Add the deep bruising along her neck from the strangulation, layered over the concussion she was already recovering from, and her brain was shot to hell.
The doctors say she’s stable. That she’ll wake. But she hasn’t. And that silence is louder than anything else in the room.
I sit by her bed, chair pulled close, her hand in mine. She’s still. Too still. Her chest rises and falls—steady, but shallow. Her skin’s drained of color. Lips cracked. She doesn’t look real.
I exhale slowly, my grasp tightening around her fingers.
Across for me, Mercer slumps in an oversized chair. He looks like hell—bruises shadow his jaw, arm strapped in a sling. Every movement is careful, stiff, as if each breath costs him. The shirt hides it, but I know what’s underneath. Cracked ribs. A bullet wound. Constant agony.
It’s his expression that gives him away. Not pain—he’d bury that—exhaustion, like whatever was holding him together finally slipped.
But SEAL training runs deep. He knows how to override his body, push through, stay moving. The round missed anything vital, and sheer defiance did the rest. He signed out AMA to be here.
She refused to walk away from me. I won’t walk away from her.
So, we sit. Both of us watching. Measuring. Neither willing to leave.
I should’ve told him to go. Told him she didn’t belong to him. But I didn’t. Because the truth is—I don’t know if that’s true anymore.
Instead, I think back to earlier, pulling Brooks aside in the hallway. “What the hell happened while I was gone?”
He hadn’t needed me to spell it out. Just sighed and rubbed a hand over his face. “I honestly couldn’t tell you, Mason.” A pause. “They got… close.”
My chest tightened. “How close?”
Brooks met my eyes, then shrugged. “I think you need to ask her that.”
Now Mercer sits across from me, wrecked, gaze drifting to where my fingers wrap around hers. I pull away and lean into the chair, arms crossed.
“You look like shit.”
“So do you.” Flat. A beat. “Mission was fucked from the start, huh?”
“From the second our boots hit the ground.”
“Glad everyone made came home in one piece.”
The sincerity in his voice catches me off guard, but before I can respond, Melina stirs. We turn at once. Her brow twitches. Lips part. Barely audible, she whispers—
“Jax.”
He draws in a sharp breath, his whole body tense as he leans forward, hand closing gently over hers.
I freeze, a cold weight settling over me. She isn’t calling for me. She’s calling for him.
My pulse hammers in my skull, the rush so loud it drowns everything else. Hearing his name on her tongue shouldn’t hit this hard—but it does.
“I’m here, Melina,” Mercer says softly, his grip tightening. “Open your eyes.”
But she doesn’t. She slips back under just as fast as she surfaced.
My jaw locks. I swallow hard. And before I can stop myself, the question that’s been building for twenty-four hours rips free.
“You really care for her, don’t you?”
It’s the wrong word. Too soft for what I mean. But it’s all I can manage.
He exhales slow, eyes shifting away. Then he nods.
“She’s the best person I’ve ever known.”
A knot forms in my chest, tight and unrelenting. I shouldn’t ask the next part. But I have to. My voice drops, darker.
“Is there anything I need to know?”
I brace for it. For the answer I don’t want but can’t stop chasing.
Mercer’s gaze lifts, steady and sharp. No hesitation. “She would never do that to you.”
The words hang between us, final and certain. But they don’t land the way he thinks. Not completely.