Chapter 22
RYDER
Deep, heavy, and quick-spreading pain pulls me back from unconsciousness.
My whole body feels like it’s cold and burning at the same time, with nerves misfiring and sending messages that arrive late and wrong.
I try to breathe through it, but my ribs argue with the idea. The next thing I register is sound.
“Ryder— hey Ryder, stay with me. Please.”
Kate.
My eyes crack open to a gray sky and blurred pine branches sliding past above me. I’m moving—more like being dragged, hauled, and half-carried. My leg screams when it bumps against something solid, and I make a sound that barely qualifies as human.
“Sorry—sorry,” she pants, breathless but relentless. “I’ve got you.”
I try to lift my head, but that turns out to be a bad idea as the world tilts and collapses inward. My stomach tightens violently around the wound there, pressure blooming hot and wet beneath my shirt. I clamp down on it by instinct, roaring with more pain at the contact.
“Fuck—“ I start, but it comes out like air leaking from a punctured tire.
Kate’s face swims into view, pale and set with a focus I recognize. It’s the same look she had in Somalia when everything went sideways—fear locked down behind determination.
“Where are we going?” I rasp through the pain.
“Beck called and sent coordinates to the airfield you set up for extraction. We’ll be flying to your home from there,” she explains.
Of course he did. I should have been the one to prepare Kate for such a situation, but I’m glad my brother stepped up when I couldn’t.
Just then, another name slips through the fog. Julian.
“Son?” I manage to cough out.
“He’s safe, in the car, all buckled in. He’s okay.”
Good. That’s good. That’s all that matters.
Kate grunts as she wrestles me upright against the side of the vehicle. “Just—just a second,” she murmurs, more to herself than me, as she opens the door.
I force my eyes open again. Her face is streaked with sweat and something darker. Her mouth trembles once before she presses it into a hard line.
“Kate,” I gasp.
She looks straight at me. “Don’t talk. Save it.”
I want to argue, tell her where the keys are, what to grab, and what not to forget.
I want to tell her I’m sorry about the mountain, the danger, and the way my life keeps spilling into hers.
Instead, the darkness surges back up. The last thing I feel before it takes me is her hand on my chest—steady and warm—and her voice, low, fierce, unbreakable: “I’m not losing you. ”
I have no idea how much time has passed, but I come back in pieces. The first thing that rolls in is the vibration, rattling through bone and metal. Then the smell of oil and wet earth, tires on gravel. The car is moving, bouncing just enough to make every injury announce itself.
My eyes open to the inside of the backseat. Julian is to my left, strapped into his car seat—impossibly small and solid all at once. His chest rises and falls in steady breaths, his fist curled around the strap like he’s holding on to the world by force of will.
Rook’s head lifts into my line of sight from the open trunk area, amber eyes locked on me. Ash is there too, pressed close, both of them alert and tense but quiet.
Kate is the one driving. I can tell by the way the car handles—how it’s too careful on the turns, braking early and accelerating slow. I don’t need to see her face to know that she’s white-knuckling it. I can hear it in her breathing.
“You awake?” she asks without looking back.
“Yeah,” I cough, and it comes out rough.
“Don’t move,” she points immediately. “Please.”
I stop trying and relax into the seat. “Horses,” I mutter, recalling that detail.
She glances at me in the rearview mirror, eyes glossy but focused. “What?”
“The horses,” I repeat, swallowing. “What did you do with them?”
There’s a pause, long enough that I know the answer before she gives it.
“I let them go,” she replies softly. “I don’t know how long we’ll be gone, or if—“ Her voice catches. “I’m sorry.”
“You did the right thing,” I assure her. “They’ll survive.”
She exhales, breath coming out shaky. “So will you.”
I want to tell her that nothing out here survives forever, that mountains only keep you safe until they don’t, but Julian makes a soft sound beside me—a little sigh in his sleep—and I let the thought go.
The road curves sharply, and pain spikes white-hot through my leg. I bite down hard enough that my jaw aches.
“Almost there,” Kate reassures me, even though I know we’re not. “Just stay with me.”
I try, I really do, but the last thing I catalog is the steady rhythm of the car, the dogs’ eyes never leaving me, and Julian breathing—proof that whatever else I’ve destroyed in my life, I got one thing right. Then the world slips sideways again, and I’m gone.
Hands pull me back this time. My eyes open to harsh white light and the smell of jet fuel cutting through the cold air.
Wind whips across my face, sharp enough to sting.
I’m being lifted, my weight redistributed with practiced ease.
Someone counts under their breath while another gives short instructions I can’t quite make out.
“Easy—watch the leg.”
“On three.”
“Got him.”
That’s Morgan efficiency. Even half-dead, I recognize it. I try to move and orient myself, but my body refuses to cooperate. I grunt when pain flares, like it’s reminding me it still owns me.
“Hey,” Kate coos immediately, her voice right there. I turn my head enough to see her—hair plastered to her face, jacket too thin for this altitude, eyes red-rimmed but fierce.
“You’re okay. We’re almost done.”
Her hand finds mine, and she doesn’t let go. Julian is strapped to her chest in a carrier. He cries softly and is quickly soothed, the sound cutting off as if someone has flipped a switch.
The jet’s ramp yawns open in front of us as warm air spills out, thick with antiseptic and recycled oxygen.
Inside, everything is too bright, and I momentarily shut my eyes.
I register the uniforms of the flight attendants just as a man in scrubs steps forward, already gloved and assessing me with a quick, clinical sweep of his eyes.
“Ryder Morgan?” he asks.
I give a minimal nod.
“He has a bullet wound to the stomach and leg. I think he’s bleeding internally and has been in and out for the past two hours,” Kate explains fast.
The surgeon nods once. “We’ve got him.”
They settle me onto something padded, probably a gurney. Straps click into place over my chest and legs—firm but not restrictive—just as someone begins to cut away what’s left of my shirt.
“Stay,” I rasp, tightening my hold around Kate’s hand.
“I’m not going anywhere,” she reassures me immediately. “I promise.”
They move us deeper into the plane, and equipment hums to life. I catch glimpses of monitors, IV lines, and gloved hands moving with practiced speed. My head is lifted gently and settled against something warm and solid that I recognize as Kate’s lap.
She freezes for half a second like she doesn’t know if she’s allowed, then adjusts instinctively—one hand sliding into my hair, the other braced against my shoulder to keep me steady as the plane shudders.
“There,” she whispers. “I’ve got you.”
I get a shot of anesthesia, and the last thing I register is Kate’s hand in my hair and Julian’s baby scent around me.
What drags me back from the fog this time are the plane’s wheels hitting the runway with a jolt that rattles straight through me.
“Easy,” Kate murmurs. “We’re landing.”
Her thumb presses into my temple, her palm warm against my skin. I manage to turn my head just enough to look at her.
“Hey,” I try to say, but it comes out as breath.
She leans closer. “I’m here.”
That reassurance makes me smile through the pain.
The plane slows, vibration easing, the world settling into something almost still.
It’s a blur of activity getting off the plane, and shortly after, I’m welcomed to Texas by unmistakable laughter, cutting through the air like a blade I’ve known my whole life.
“Ah, there he is. The man of the hour,” Beck mocks.
My eyes open slowly. The light hurts, but I squint through it anyway. The first thing I see is his face hovering above mine—older than the last time I saw him in person, laugh lines etched deeper around his eyes.
“Hell of a way to come home,” he scoffs. “You couldn’t just RSVP like a normal person?”
“Missed you too,” I mutter.
It takes everything I have to lift my hand and flip him off.
He outright laughs at the gesture. “Ah, there he is—the Ryder we all love and adore. I was worried for a second.”
Kate’s fingers tighten around my hand, knuckles white like she’s afraid if she loosens her grip, I’ll vanish again. I turn my head enough to see her standing there—exhausted, eyes rimmed red but burning bright.
Beck follows my gaze and grins.
“Well,” he starts, straightening. “You must be Katherine.”
She blinks, a bit startled. “Kate.”
He sticks out a hand, all charm now, like we’re not standing on a runway next to a bleeding-out Morgan, namely me.
“I’m Beck. The handsome younger brother.”
I huff weakly. “He’s married.”
Beck winces theatrically. “And he ruins it.”
“She’s mine,” I add, the words rough but absolute.
Kate sucks in a sharp breath beside me. Beck’s expression shifts—not surprise or judgment, but recognition. He clocks everything in one glance: her hand in mine, the way she leans toward me, and the exhaustion that looks earned.
“Well,” he chuckles softly, “about damn time. Now let’s get you home before you bleed out on us.”
He claps a hand on my shoulder as they start rolling me towards the waiting cars. “Welcome home, big brother. Try not to die on the way—Ella will be pissed.”
I manage a crooked smile just as the lights blur again. Kate’s hand is still in mine when the dark finally takes me, and this time, I don’t fight it at all.