Chapter 20
Wrecker
Iwas never one for hospitals. The wolf in me equated them with failure—meat laid out for the scavengers, bodies cold and sterile and too far gone for the pack to heal.
Yet here I was, breathing recycled air and bleach, counting the seconds between Parker’s rattling inhales.
Watching her chest rise, maybe not fall, maybe not again.
Machines did the work I couldn’t: they buzzed, beeped, spat telemetry in green lines that looked like electrocardiogram mountain ranges.
Peaks and valleys. The nurse called it “optimistic” when the valleys didn’t bottom out.
Her face was half lost in the sheets, skin gone ghostly with undertones of blue.
The worst of it was the right temple, swollen above the brow, purple-black and tight as a drum.
Doc had shaved a patch around it for the CT scan, the stubble coarse against behind her ear.
Looked like she’d been scalped in a bar fight.
At least the bleeding had stopped. I counted the IV bags, tried to guess if any of them were morphine, and if so, if she could even dream through this.
Doc hovered at her left, chart in one hand, reading out the numbers for no one but himself.
His voice, usually clinical, ran low and fast. “Pressure’s holding, but we’re right on the edge.
Swelling’s the bastard. It's just moving faster than her wolf's healing ability. The broken bones will heal in days. But that damn brain swelling….” He glanced at me, not unkindly.
“You can talk to her, Eli. You never know what gets through.”
I nodded, but my tongue was a dead snake in my mouth. I’d done enough talking for one lifetime. Instead, I pulled a chair to the bed and put my hand over hers. Warm, but not by much. The monitor on her finger flashed at the contact, as if scolding me for risking contamination.
The wolf in me wanted to fix it. To lick the wound, to push life back into her by sheer will. I could do neither. I could only sit and wait and remember every fucking thing I never said to her.
The evening nurse, a girl with bubblegum scrubs and a face like an angry sparrow, shooed Doc out for his next rounds. He left with a look at me, as if daring me to let go. I didn’t.
The sun dipped behind the parking lot pines.
The room changed: light went blue, shadows stretched, and the glass took on a mirror shine.
I could see myself reflected behind Parker’s sleeping face, and I hated the man that stared back.
I traced the rise of her knuckles, watched the slow oxygenation of each finger, told myself she’d wake and call me an idiot for staring.
I couldn’t take the silence anymore. I pressed my phone flat against my thigh and dialed the only number I’d never wanted to use again.
Menace answered on the third ring, voice hoarse. “Eli?”
“Got a situation,” I said. My own voice sounded wrong, used up.
He grunted. “Heard about the explosion. Is she—?”
“Alive, but barely.” I glanced at Parker. “Head’s bad. Doc says the swelling’s not responding. I don’t know if she—if she’s going to make it.”
Menace didn’t speak. I could picture him in his home office, boots propped on the battered desk, a bottle of Glenfiddich sweating through the label. The man did nothing by halves.
I pushed on, like tearing out a rotten tooth. “That time after Calloway stabbed you—” I paused. Even the memory was like swallowing ground glass. “We all saw the angel. Savannah said…you’d died.”
A long, cold beat. Then, “Yeah, Archon Seraphael.” His voice dropped a register. “You’re not thinking it’s to the point you need that kind of intervention?”
I was. I was so fucking desperate I’d summon a demon if it would put color back in Parker’s lips.
“Can you contact him?” I asked. “I know it’s insane. But she—I can’t lose her. Can’t let her go.”
Menace’s reply was all gravel. “Let me see what I can do. I’ll call you back.”
I hung up before he could say more. The shame was a stone in my chest, but it was smaller than the fear.
Back in the room, I watched the blue digits on the monitor roll over, then back, like a slot machine stuck on a losing streak.
Parker’s mouth twitched, then settled. I counted her breaths: nine a minute.
I willed it to ten. Twelve. I stroked her hair, now sticky with sweat, and whispered nothing words into the space between us.
Nurses came and went, shadows in the night. One offered to bring me coffee. I shook my head. If I left, she might be gone when I got back.
I took off my jacket, used it to cover her toes, tried not to think of the morgue slab Doc would roll her onto if the numbers didn’t turn around. I squeezed her hand, thumb pressed to her wrist, counting not the pulse but the proof that something of her was still in there.
The world shrank to that touch.
I fell into a daze, half-waking, half-dreaming, the hours ticking by with no change in the pattern. At some point, the janitor passed in the hallway, his mop squealing on the tile like a rat in a trap. He never looked in, never made a sound. I envied him his work: clean the mess, move on. Repeat.
Menace texted just before 3:00 a.m.: Will try at dawn. Hang on, brother.
I set the phone aside and waited for the light to shift again.
I didn’t let go.
The night didn’t end, just wore out. I’d memorized every second of her heartbeat, the way the color in her face seemed to fade in and out with each nurse’s shift.
I counted the needle marks on her arms: four on the left, five on the right.
IV drip was half-gone by dawn, the liquid silver shrinking with every tick of the clock.
I’d promised Menace I’d wait for daylight, but the sky outside stayed coal-black. I didn’t close my eyes, not once.
The first hint of change was Doc’s footsteps, heavy on the tile. He came in with a new file, thumbed through the printouts, then looked at me instead of her. “It stopped,” he said. “The swelling. It’s receded.”
I didn’t get it at first. I’d lived in crisis mode so long, my brain couldn’t process good news. “What do you mean, receded?”
He dropped the scan on the counter, pointed with a capped pen. “See this? Last night, pressure was rising. This morning, it’s baseline. No medical reason for it. None.” He didn’t say miracle. He didn’t have to.
I blinked, stared at Parker’s forehead, expecting the skin to split, expecting the universe to take it back. But it didn’t. Her hand was warmer now. The blue had faded from her lips. I let out a breath and said a silent thank you to whatever bastard angel Menace had roped into this.
Doc checked her vitals, tapped a note into his phone, and left with a nod. “If she makes it through the day, she’s out of the woods. You can stay, but don’t expect her to wake up soon.”
I stayed. I watched the monitors, ignoring the hunger that gnawed at my ribs, the stench of sweat pooling under my shirt. Every few hours, the nurse came to check her, and every time, I flinched like she’d come to tell me it was over.
Sometime around three, the rhythm changed. Parker’s eyes flickered under the lids. Her fingers twitched. I leaned in, whispering, “You’re not done yet, little bird. You gotta wake up and call me an asshole.”
She did eventually. Her eyes cracked open, unfocused at first, pupils blown wide. She croaked, “You smell like you fought a sewer rat and lost.”
I laughed, the sound more like a sob. “Missed you, too,” I said, and squeezed her hand until I thought I’d break it.
The first hours were a blur of micro-conversations.
She answered Doc’s questions. Gave a smartass reply.
Mentioned seeing her mother. Doc had a snide remark.
She asked about Rocket, about Maddie, about the house.
She didn’t ask if she was dying, and I didn’t tell her she almost had.
The room felt smaller with her awake, and the machines seemed less hungry for her blood.
On day two, she could sit up with help. She winced with every breath, ribs wrapped in tight bands, her arm in a brace and tape over her temple. I found a brush in the visitor’s bathroom and tried to detangle her hair. She made fun of my technique, but let me finish.
Later, when we were alone, she said, “I saw my mother. When I died.” The words dropped like a body from a bridge. “I told her I’d found my mate, and it was you. She told me she always knew it was. I told her I had to get back to you.”
I pressed my lips to her knuckles and said nothing. My throat had locked up.
She studied the window, the faded sky. “It felt wonderful there, so peaceful, but my pull to you was stronger than wanting to stay there with her. She told me it wasn’t my time to be there. And to listen. That’s when I heard you calling me.”
She went quiet, and I watched the side of her face. The bruises were already fading, the cut on her cheek closing up like an afterthought.
“Why’d you do it?” I asked, when I couldn’t stand the silence. “Run in there, knowing what they planned?”
She didn’t look at me. “Look, I know I'm no hero. But if Maddie had gone in there, she’d have died, and I was the only one close enough to tell her to get out. She’s Bronc’s little sister. She never did anything to deserve that.”
“And if you had died?”
She shrugged, a tiny motion. “After my part in this? Wouldn’t be the worst thing.”
I hated her a little, right then. Hated her for being so ready to take the hit. Hated that she’d thought so little of herself.