Chapter 43
Brooke
The world came back in pieces. First, the antiseptic smell that meant hospital. Then the soft beeping of machines. My mouth felt like cotton had been wadded up inside it, leaving no moisture.
“Water,” I said.
Or maybe I’d used my inside voice.
It was hard to tell.
I tried to open my eyes, but they were heavy.
So. Heavy.
A sound to my right. Someone shifted in what sounded like vinyl.
My eyelids finally cooperated, cracking open to find myself in a hospital room. My head was raised, but leaned far enough back that I could doze off again.
The someone moved again, and I rolled my head to the side. Rav was asleep in what had to be the world’s least comfortable chair, pulled close to my bed so his hand rested inches from mine.
He looked terrible. His stubble had gone past fashionable into unkempt, and the dark circles under his eyes suggested he’d been awake far more than asleep.
“Rav?” I said.
No, that was still my inside voice. Maybe a rasp came out.
I willed my hand to move. To close the distance.
It was too tired, too.
But the movement was enough. Rav’s eyes snapped open, like he’d been caught sleeping on sentry duty.
“Brooke.” One tiny syllable, but the relief in it made my chest tight. His hand landed on mine. “How are you feeling?”
“Tired,” I managed.
He jabbed at a tiny button next to me. “You’ve been asleep for six days.”
I let my eyelids close, then forced them open so I could see him.
He reached for a cup of water with a straw, helping me take small sips. “They had to keep you under while they worked.”
Six days. Fragments came back—the rooftop, Owen’s insane ramblings, the mortar tipping. The explosion. The heat.
“Did we stop it?” My mind was still foggy, but I knew what mattered. “The attack?”
“You stopped it.” Something fierce entered his voice. “You saved everyone. Thousands of people who’ll never know how much they owe you.”
I tried to process that while he helped me with another sip of water. “What happened to everyone? Martinelli?”
“In custody, although he’ll be in hospital even longer than you. Him, Owen, and every Fenix operative we could identify. The Carabinieri were extremely thorough.” A slight smile crossed his face. “Bobcat and Percival ensured everyone at the lab was taken in, too. At least for questioning.”
“The mole at Pendragon?”
“Looks like it was just the one analyst that tipped off the Carabinieri about Pendragon. He was arrested after releasing a manifesto that provided extensive explanation. He believed Martinelli’s vision was worth the collateral damage.”
I noticed what he hadn’t said. “He worked with Lark?”
“He did. And it sounds like he was the one behind the Carabinieri visit to Fenix that Noah told us about.”
“Why?”
“Because the analyst knew Pendragon was coming for Fenix. If they got a tip about Fenix creating a bioweapon, but they investigated and found nothing, it took away Pendragon’s argument that Fenix was doing anything shady. He was getting ahead of Pendragon.”
“At least we’ve got answers now.” But were they enough? I’d spent years trying to lock down the Greek Fire formula, but it had gotten out, anyway. If anyone got away from the lab—if anyone from Fenix got away—it could still be out there. “Noah?”
He frowned. “Gone. Vanished sometime during the chaos at Pompeii. Scarlett’s not happy about it, but honestly, I think she expected it.”
“He’s slippery.”
He gave a small chuckle. “He always was.”
The door opened before I had time to ask more questions. A tall, thin man with silver hair and wire-rimmed glasses entered. “Buongiorno, Dr. McAllister. I am Dr. Ricci.” His English was accented but clear. “How are you feeling?”
“Confused. Sore.” I tried to assess my own condition, but everything was still fuzzy. “What’s the damage?”
He pulled a chair over and sat. Not good. Doctors only sat when the news was complicated. “You were exposed to a concentrated chemical similar to arsenic.” He consulted his tablet. “Monsieur LaPierre explained that the pre-existing scarring was from an earlier chemical accident.”
I nodded, waiting for the bad news.
“What we observed over the past six days is… unusual. The new chemical burns were severe, as expected. We prepared for significant grafting, possibly multiple surgeries.” He paused, looking at Rav before looking at me.
“But the healing has been remarkable. Not just the new wounds, but some of the old scars have also shown improvement. Tissue that should not regenerate has begun to.”
What?
If I hadn’t been lying down, I might have fallen over.
Martinelli was right?
Was the polymer Owen created to suspend the liquid all they needed? Had that been the only thing Haddad was missing?
Or—oh my god—was my genetic makeup the lottery winner?
“Do you have any insight into why this might be happening?” Dr. Ricci asked. “We took samples of the chemical from the hem guards of your suit, hoping it would help us with your treatment plan, but it’s unlike anything in our database. If you know something that might help us understand…”
“I don’t,” I lied smoothly. “I wish I did.”
“Allora.” He studied me for a moment, then stared at his tablet again, tapping it absently. “Whatever the mechanism, it may have saved your life. And it should be studied because it might advance burn treatment by decades, if we can understand it.”
When Rav and I didn’t give him any answers, he eventually left.
And all I could do was stare at the ceiling, my mind racing through the research I’d done over the past three years. A weapon so similar to the one that had almost ruined my life had healed me, at least partially. The bitter irony of it sat heavily in my chest.
“Hey.” Rav squeezed my hand gently. “You okay?”
“Martinelli was right,” I said quietly. “About the regeneration, about finding someone with the right genetics. It actually worked.”
“He was still willing to kill thousands to test his theory.”
“I know. I just…” I turned my head to look at him properly. Speaking hurt, but I couldn’t shut him out. “I need to research this, Rav. If my genetics are the key, we need to understand it without letting the information fall into the wrong hands again.”
“We will. After you heal. After you’re stronger.”
As my brain grew clearer, I looked around the room. Flowers covered every surface—so many that it looked like a florist shop had exploded. “Who are all those from?”
Rav stood, moving from arrangement to arrangement.
“These roses are from Scarlett and Malcolm. Wildflowers from Drew and Jayce. The ridiculous orchids that probably cost a fortune? Evelyn. Emmett and Zac sent the daisies. This potted plant is from Mario with a note that says… hold on, my Italian’s terrible…
something about warrior goddesses, I think. ”
“And those?” I pointed to a crystal vase full of lilies and carnations.
“Percival. His note says Pendragon owes you hazard pay.”
“For this week?”
“I may have suggested they owed you for the past three years.”
I started to laugh, but it grated down my throat and pulled at the bandages on my neck. “Ow. No laughing yet.”
“Sorry.” But he was smiling, a genuine smile that lit up his gorgeous face.
“There were geraniums in Percival’s arrangement, too,” he added quietly. “I threw them out.”
Geraniums. The scent always reminded me of Lewisite. “Thank you.”
“I didn’t get you any.” He came back to my bedside, kissed the top of my head, then wrapped his hands around one of mine and sat. “I asked Scarlett what to get you, but—”
“You haven’t left here, have you?”
He kissed my hand and let out a long breath. He was so tired.
“You need to go back to the villa,” I said. “Shower, sleep in an actual bed, eat something that didn’t come from a vending machine.”
“I’m not leaving.”
“Rav.”
“I’m not leaving.” Simple, final, no room for argument. “I wasn’t there last time. You woke up alone, went through everything alone. Not this time.”
“You were in worse shape than I was,” I said softly.
“But after I was out of the hospital, I should have called. Should have been there for you.” He dropped his forehead to my hand. “This time, I’m staying until you force me to go.”
I squeezed his hand, feeling the strength in it, the slight tremor that said he was more exhausted than he was letting on. “I just told you to go.”
“You’re too weak to actually force me.”
A tiny laugh formed in my chest, but I kept it down. “So stay.”
He lifted our joined hands and pressed his lips to my knuckles. “You were extraordinary, you know. The way you launched into action without any hesitation.”
“I was terrified.”
“But you did it anyway. That’s what courage is.”
I thought about Owen’s delusion that he could fix me. About Martinelli’s desperate grab for the lighter. About the choice between my safety and thousands of lives.
“It wasn’t really a choice,” I said. “Not when I thought about all those people. All those families who just wanted to watch fireworks.”
“It was a choice. And you chose them. You chose to be the protector.” He let out a long breath.
“I’ve spent so many years thinking I failed you because I cared too much.
I was distracted that day, and you got hurt because of it.
I tried shutting off those emotions, but when I saw you up there with those men… ”
“You’re my guardian angel, Rav.” I lifted my free hand—which was still so heavy—and touched his cheek. “You saved me. Both times.”
His thumb traced circles on my hand. “I’d do anything for you.”
I let my eyelids rest again, visions of the two of us swimming through time.
Afghanistan, the Bahamas, Halifax, Naples.
Something kept bringing us back together.
I sniffled and looked at him again, my vision blurry this time from tears collecting on my lids.
“Then promise you’ll never leave me again. ”
“Never.” It was that simple. “You’re stuck with me now, Doc.”
“Good,” I said, trying not to laugh or cry and completely failing at both. “I’ve loved you for so long, Rav LaPierre. In Afghanistan, through all the silence and hurt, right up until now—I love you.”
“Oh, Brooke.” My name came out rough, his exhaustion catching up to him. “These past six days, sitting here, watching you breathe, terrified you wouldn’t wake up… I kept thinking about all the time we wasted. All the years we could have had.”
“We have them now.”
“We do.” He kissed my knuckles again. “We have whatever time we want.”
The future stretched ahead—complicated and uncertain, but undeniably ours. There would be research to do, though I wasn’t sure with whom. Who would I trust with this? The company that left the formula to be stolen? The government that’d allowed it to happen?
Worry about that tomorrow.