Chapter 20
Sound was what registered first.
The rhythmic thump-thump-thump of rotor blades, cutting through the air. Willow tried to open her eyes, but they were too heavy. Everything was too heavy.
Pain showed up next. Not sharp, though. It was dulled somehow, wrapped in cotton and distance. Her shoulder throbbed in time with the rotors. Thump-thump-thump. She floated as her heartbeat and the sounds of the helicopter synchronized into one endless pulse.
Wait … voices. Male. Female. Clipped. Professional.
“—pressure's dropping—”
“—more fluids—”
“—she's crashing—”
Was she? Was she dying? It felt like floating. Like those dreams where you fell and fell and never hit bottom. But then there was warmth, too. Someone was holding her hand and squeezing it gently. The feeling grounded her to something real.
“Stay with me.” The voice cut through the others, familiar and desperate. “Willow, stay with me.”
Levi. That was Levi.
She tried to squeeze back. Tried to tell him she was here, she was fighting, she wasn't leaving him. But her hand wouldn't work. Nothing worked.
“I've got you,” he said, and his voice cracked with the words. “I'm not letting go. Not ever. So, you need to stay. You hear me? You need to stay with me.”
She wanted to tell him she would. Wanted to promise. But the darkness pulled harder, and she was so tired. So impossibly tired.
Her father's voice echoed from somewhere far away: Sometimes the only way out is through, baby girl. When the engine fails, when everything goes wrong, you don't give up. You fly the plane all the way to the ground.
I'm trying, Dad. I'm trying.
The hand holding hers tightened. “That's it. That's my girl. Just keep breathing. That's all you have to do. Just breathe.”
So, she did. In and out. Following the rhythm of her heartbeat and clinging to the warmth of someone who wouldn't let her leave.
Thump-thump-thump.
She breathed in and out. It was all she could do.
White light. God, it was blinding. Then came the horrid smell of antiseptic that made her stomach roll. It reminded her of the morgue where she’d had to go to identify her father after his crash.
Voices again, but different now. More urgent and in Spanish. She could tell people around her were moving fast, but she couldn’t open her eyes.
“—prep OR three—”
“—type and cross-match—”
“—she's got maybe twenty minutes—”
Hands on her. Moving her. Lifting. Everything hurt, but the pain was distant now, like it belonged to someone else.
She managed to open her eyes. Barely open, just slits and enough to see fluorescent lights rushing past overhead. Ceiling tiles. People in scrubs. The chaos of an emergency room. She was in a hospital.
And there was Levi, running beside the gurney, still holding her hand.
She tried to focus on his face. He was covered in dirt and blood. Was it his or hers? She couldn't tell. His eyes were red-rimmed and his jaw tight.
“Sir, you can't—” A nurse tried to stop him.
“I'm not leaving her,” he cut her off violently. His words were final. “You want me gone, you'll have to shoot me.”
“Sir—”
“Let him stay.” A different voice, male, older, authoritative, said from somewhere behind her. “Just until we take her back.”
They stopped moving. Willow's gurney sat unmoving now, and Levi bent over her, his face filling her vision.
“You're going to be okay,” he said, and she heard the lie in it, or maybe it was fear. “They're going to fix you up in surgery. You'll sleep through it and wake up good as new.”
She wanted to argue. Wanted to tell him that “good as new” was optimistic, that she'd been shot and bled half to death and might not wake up at all.
But he needed to believe it. Needed her to believe it. So, she squeezed his hand. Barely, weakly, but enough that he felt it.
His expression cracked, just for a moment, and she saw past the control to the raw terror underneath. He was grieving. She’d worn that expression before. And there was nothing he could do to fix what was happening.
“Seattle,” she whispered. The word came out mangled, barely recognizable.
But he heard. “Seattle. I promise. House on the Sound. You and me. Normal life.”
“Not … normal.” She managed the ghost of a smile. “Never … normal.”
“No.” He laughed, wet and broken. “Probably not. But we'll figure it out together.”
“Together.”
“Sir, we need to take her now.” Someone touched his arm. She was young, female, and competent-looking. “The longer we wait—”
“Go,” Willow tried to say to Levi. “I’ll be … okay.”
“I know.” He kissed her forehead, gentle as prayer. “I’ll be here when you wake up. Right here. Not leaving. Not ever.”
They pulled her away then, rolling the gurney toward double doors marked surgery. She watched Levi get smaller, watched him standing alone in that hallway, covered in blood and dirt and the remains of their mission.
The doors closed.
And Willow flew into darkness one more time, trusting someone else to bring her home.
Dreams. But they were fractured. Everything was wrong.
She was flying, but the controls wouldn't respond. Her plane was falling, and the alarms were screaming. Her father's voice. Fly it all the way to the ground, baby girl.
But the ground was coming too fast, and she couldn't pull up, couldn't—
Pain. Sharp. Real. Dragging her toward consciousness.
Voices above her. Calm. Clinical. Still in Spanish.
“—clamp—”
“—more suction—”
“—losing her—”
No. No, she wasn't ready to be lost. Was she understanding them wrong? There was Seattle waiting. And Levi. And promises that needed keeping.
She pushed back against the darkness. She fought the force hard. It was like pulling out of a stall, like forcing a dying engine to catch one more time.
Come on. Come on. You've survived worse.
Had she? Plane crashes. Capture. Torture. Gunshot wounds. Broken bones. It seemed like enough for one lifetime.
But that voice … Levi's voice, echoing from before … I'm not letting go. Not ever.
So, she held on. Held on to the sound of machines beeping, of people working to keep her breathing. Held on to the promise of Seattle and sunset and a man who'd walked through hell to bring her home.
“Pressure's stabilizing.”
“Good. Let's close.”
The darkness pulled softer now. Not death. Just sleep. The kind you earn after surviving the impossible. She let it take her.
I’m coming back, she thought toward wherever Levi was waiting. I promise. I’m coming back.
Awareness returned in pieces.
The steady beep of a heart monitor. Sheets against her skin. The weight of blankets. The pain was there, too. It was present but manageable, wrapped in whatever drugs they'd given her.
Willow opened her eyes and blinked, bringing the room into view.
She turned her head slightly. A white ceiling.
The walls were close, and there weren’t any cloth-hanging walls.
A private room? It must be. She turned her head farther, squinting against the afternoon light filtering through the blinds.
She made a sweep with her gaze. Equipment surrounded her bed, monitoring vitals she couldn't interpret.
She turned her head in the other direction.
Levi.
His big body was limp. He was asleep in a chair pulled close to her bedside, slouched at an angle that would give him a terrible crick in his neck.
His blond hair was clean, but there was a week’s worth of stubble on his jaw.
A slow smile pulled at the edges of her lips.
He was still holding her hand. His fingers were wrapped around hers with a grip that was gentle but secure, even in sleep.
Like he'd been holding on for hours and couldn't quite let go.
She studied his face. Exhaustion seemed to be carved into every line.
The dark bruising around his eyes and new but healing cuts across his cheekbone and jaw.
He wore the toll of what he'd done to get her out of that hell. She knew what he’d put on the line to save her life. She knew what he’d sacrificed.
He came for me. Tears stung her eyes.
She squeezed his hand.
His eyes snapped open instantly. His reflexes were always alert, even when he was sleeping. For a moment, he looked disoriented, like he'd forgotten where he was. Then his gaze found her face, found her awake and aware, and his expression transformed.
Relief. Pure, overwhelming relief that made him look younger somehow. More vulnerable.
“Hey,” she whispered. Her throat was raw, probably from intubation.
“Hey.” His voice cracked. He sat forward, bringing her hand to his lips, pressing kisses to her knuckles. “You're awake. You're actually awake.”
“How long?”
He glanced up at the clock. “Fourteen hours.
Surgery took six. You've been in recovery for eight.” He was studying her face like he was memorizing it, like he'd been afraid he'd never see her conscious again.
“The doctors said you're going to be fine.
They expect a full recovery. Your shoulder will need physical therapy, but you're going to be fine.”
“You stayed.” It wasn't a question. It was something more. So many emotions tumbled around inside her. Amazement, relief, joy. They all took their turn.
“I told you I would.” He brushed hair back from her face with his free hand, his touch gentle. “They tried to make me leave. Eat and rest. I told them I wasn't moving until you woke up.”
He shouldn’t have done that. He should have taken care of himself. “Levi—”
“I know what you're going to say. That you're safe here, that I don't need to stay. If I hadn’t been ganged up on by Phantom and that team he brought with him, I wouldn’t have showered. The cagey blokes didn’t give me a choice. Something about not being able to breathe around me.” His smile faded, and his thumb traced circles on the back of her hand.
“But I do need to stay.” His eyes shone with tears he wasn’t shedding.
“Because for fourteen hours, I've been sitting here wondering if you were going to wake up.
If I'd gotten to you fast enough. If I'd—”