Chapter Six Emmy
Chapter Six
Emmy
The ICU is quiet in that peculiar way that never truly means silence.
Machines hum softly, monitors blink in steady rhythms, and beneath it all there’s the constant awareness that life here is fragile, balanced on wires, breaths, and hope. I like talking to the patients who can’t answer me. There’s no judgement in their stillness. No expectations.
Today, I sit beside Mr Blackwood’s bed, bed 9, my voice low as I tell him about the weather, about the café down the street that finally fixed their coffee machine. I smooth his blanket, check his vitals, and try not to let my thoughts wander.
They do anyway.
I’m not yours.
The words echo in my head, defiant and hollow all at once.
Khai’s voice follows them, not spoken aloud, but remembered. The way he’d call me Little Heaven like it belonged somewhere private. The way his gaze had held me, steady and unyielding, as if ownership wasn’t something he needed permission for.
I swallow and force my attention back to the present.
“You’d like him,” I murmur to Mr Blackwood, unsure why I say it. “He’s… intense. Complicated.”
Dangerous, whispers something in the back of my mind.
I exhale slowly, fingers tightening around the bedrail as if grounding myself will push the thought away. Mr Blackwood doesn’t stir. His chest rises and falls in a steady rhythm, unaware of the storm circling my thoughts.
“I should get back to work,” I tell him softly, more for myself than for him. “You behave while I’m gone, okay?”
The monitor answers with its quiet, consistent beeping.
I finish my checks, update his chart, and step back into the corridor. The ICU hums around me, nurses passing, wheels squeaking, life and near-death brushing shoulders without ceremony. Normally, this steadies me. Today, it barely registers.
I keep seeing Khai’s face instead.
Not the sharp edges. Not the violence I know lives beneath his skin. But the certainty. The way he’d looked at me like I was something already claimed, already decided.
I’m not yours, I repeat silently. The words don’t feel as strong as they did before.
By the time I reach the nurses’ station, my shoulders ache with tension. I log my last notes, check the time, and feel the faintest rush of relief when I realise my shift is finally over.
“Emmy.”
I glance up and find Tate leaning against the counter, arms crossed, eyes sharp and assessing. Her scrubs are rumpled, hair half pulled loose, exhaustion clinging to her in the way it always does after a long day in maternity.
“There you are,” she says. “I thought you’d been swallowed by a ventilator.”
I smile faintly. “Tempting, but no.”
She studies me more closely now, gaze flicking from my face to my posture, lingering a beat too long. “You okay?”
“Fine,” I say automatically.
Her eyebrow arches. “That was the fastest lie I’ve heard all day.”
I huff out a quiet laugh, turning back to the computer to log out. “I’m just tired.”
“Mmm,” she hums, unconvinced. “You’ve been tired all week. This is… different.”
I close the system and grab my bag. “You’re imagining things.”
She steps closer, lowering her voice. “You’ve been distracted. And jumpy. And you haven’t once commented on a hot dad in the waiting room, which tells me something’s very wrong.”
That gets a real smile out of me. “Tragic, I know.”
Tate’s expression softens, concern edging out the teasing. “Em.”
I sigh, shoulders slumping just a little. “I’m fine. I promise. Just… a lot on my mind.”
She doesn’t push. Tate knows me too well for that. Instead, she bumps her hip against mine. “You heading out now?”
“Yeah.”
“Good. Because I’m starving, and if you tell me you’re going home to eat ice cream for dinner again, I’m staging an intervention.”
I laugh quietly as we walk toward the exit together. “No ice cream tonight. Probably.”
We pass through the automatic doors, the smell of antiseptic giving way to cool evening air. The sky outside has deepened into indigo, the hospital lights casting long shadows across the car park.
Tate pauses beside her car and turns to me. “Text me when you get home.”
“I always do.”
She hesitates, eyes narrowing slightly as they flick past me, scanning the lot. “And maybe… don’t linger out here, yeah? I’ve got a weird feeling tonight.”
A chill creeps up my spine. “You too?”
She blinks. “What?”
“Nothing,” I say quickly. “Probably just exhaustion.”
She frowns, clearly not convinced, then sighs. “Just be careful, Em.”
“I will.”
She squeezes my hand once before climbing into her car. I watch her drive away, taillights disappearing around the corner.
The car park feels too open once she’s gone.
I adjust my bag on my shoulder and start toward my car, keys already in my hand. The sound of my footsteps echoes faintly, and I tell myself I’m being ridiculous.
Still, my grip tightens around the strap of my purse.
Just in case.
The unease settles fully just as my fingers close around my keys.
Footsteps scuff behind me, too fast, too close.
I turn, heart leaping into my throat, and barely have time to register his face before a hand latches onto my purse strap and yanks hard.
“Hey!” I gasp, instinct taking over as I clutch the bag to my chest. Panic floods me, sharp and dizzying, as he pulls again, the force dragging me off balance.
“Let go,” he snaps.
I don’t. Fear makes me stubborn. Or reckless.
The strap jerks violently. My grip slips. I stumble, pain exploding as I hit the ground. Something sharp slices across my palm, and I cry out as warm blood immediately follows, slick and unmistakable.
My bag tears free.
The world narrows to breath and pain and the metallic taste of fear.
Then the night shatters.
An engine roars into the car park like a warning shot, raw and furious. A motorbike skids to a stop, tyres screaming, cutting off any chance of escape.
The man freezes.
Khai is already moving.
He swings off the bike in one fluid motion, helmet discarded, body a dark silhouette made solid under the hospital lights.
He’s dressed in black, fitted t-shirt stretched tight across his chest, black jeans riding low on his hips, combat boots striking the concrete with lethal intent.
His leather jacket hangs open, sleeves shoved up his forearms, hood down, nothing about him concealed.
He smells like danger, smoke, leather, adrenaline, like something you don’t survive by accident.
In two strides, he’s there.
His hand fists into the robber’s jacket and slams him back against a parked car with bone-rattling force. Metal groans. The sound makes my stomach twist.
“Wrong woman,” Khai says quietly.
There’s no shouting. No wasted movement. Just cold certainty wrapped in violence.
The man struggles once, briefly, before Khai leans in, murmuring something too low for me to hear. Whatever it is drains the colour from his face. Fear replaces desperation in an instant.
He bolts.
Empty-handed. Terrified.
Gone.
Khai turns to me.
Khai’s gaze drops to my bleeding hand, then lifts back to my face. Something dark flickers there, not anger, not fear, but a quiet, dangerous resolve.
His jaw tightens.
He shrugs out of his jacket and wraps it around my shoulders without asking, the leather heavy and warm, swallowing me in his presence. The scent of him surrounds me, smoke, leather, violence barely restrained, and my breath stutters before I can stop it.
His fingers close gently around my wrist, turning my hand so he can see the cut properly. Careful. Precise. Like he’s memorising the damage.
“Stay still,” he says.
It’s not a command raised in volume; it’s one that assumes obedience.
I don’t move.
His thumb brushes just beneath the blood, eyes tracking every reaction on my face. The world seems to narrow to the space between us, the echo of the engine cooling behind him, the night holding its breath.
“No one touches you,” he murmurs, voice low, dangerous in its certainty. “No one but me”
I look up at him, heart pounding, words caught somewhere between fear and something far worse.
His gaze meets mine, steady and unyielding, as if this outcome was inevitable from the moment we collided into each other’s lives.
“I’m taking you home” he says, with no room for argument.
Before I can protest, he’s already moving, guiding me toward the bike with a hand at my lower back, firm and sure. Not pushing. Not dragging. Just directing, like resistance has already been accounted for and dismissed.
“Khai, wait,” I say, breath unsteady. “My car.”
He doesn’t stop walking.
“It won’t be left there.”
I pull back slightly, forcing him to turn. “You say that, but you’re not telling me how.”
His eyes flick to my hand again, then back to my face. A pause. Measured. Deliberate.
“You don’t need the details,” he says. “You need to know it’ll be where you expect it. By morning.”
“That’s not reassuring.”
A corner of his mouth lifts. Not a smile. Something darker. “It should be.”
That does something unsettling to my pulse.
Khai reaches up and pulls his helmet off, the motion unhurried. He studies it for half a second before pressing it into my hands.
“Put it on.”
I blink. “What about you?”
“I’ll manage.”
“That doesn’t sound safe.”
A beat passes. Then his eyes lift to mine, dark and unwavering. “You’re wearing it.”
It’s not a debate.
He turns away before I can argue, swings onto the bike, and settles in like it belongs to him, like the machine is an extension of his body. He plants his boots on the ground and looks back at me over his shoulder.
“Get on.”
The word lands heavy.
I hesitate, helmet clutched to my chest, suddenly too aware of the night pressing in around us. “Khai.”
He turns fully this time. Slowly. Deliberately. His gaze drops to my injured hand, then drags back up my body, unflinching.
“Get on,” he repeats.
There’s something different in his voice now. Intent threaded through it. A quiet promise that he’s not asking again.
My breath stutters.
I put the helmet on.