Chapter 25 #2
The scream tore from my throat before I knew it was coming.
“Lena!” Viktor was on his feet, grabbing my arms, his face inches from mine. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
“He’s gone.” The words came out in a sob, in a howl, in a sound that wasn’t human at all. “The bond. He’s gone. Viktor, he’s gone.”
Distantly, shouting. Footsteps running. Someone was calling for the crash cart, the words carrying down the hallway with terrible urgency. But I couldn’t focus on any of it because the bond was silent, the bond was empty, the bond was dead.
My legs gave out. Viktor caught me, held me upright, but I couldn’t feel his hands. Couldn’t feel anything except that terrible, devastating absence.
No.
The refusal rose from somewhere deeper than thought, deeper than fear, deeper than anything I had ever felt before.
This was not happening. He was not leaving me.
He was not dying in that operating room, not after everything we had survived, not after everything we had done, not after I had just watched him tear out my brother’s throat to protect me.
I reached.
Not the passive reaching I had been doing all night, not the simple holding onto the thread.
This was different. This was me pouring myself into the void, forcing my way through the darkness, demanding to be heard.
If the bond was a door, I was kicking it down.
If it was a wall, I was tearing through it with my bare hands.
Raphael.
Nothing answered.
Fight. Fight like you fought for me. You didn’t survive that bullet just to give up now.
I pushed harder. Sent everything I had through that empty space where the bond should have been. Love. Rage. Terror. Refusal. All of it, burning through me like fire, flooding into the hollow where his presence used to live.
Come back. Come back to me. I won’t let you go.
The void gave me nothing. Cold and black and absolute.
Somewhere a million miles away, Viktor was shouting. Clara was crying. Machines were beeping. None of it mattered. None of it existed. There was only me and the void and my desperate, furious refusal to accept what that absence meant.
You are mine, remember? I chose you back. And I am not letting go.
I poured myself into the darkness. All my love, all my need, all my stubborn, vicious determination.
If love could be a weapon, I would wield it.
If love could be a lifeline, I would throw it into the black and drag him back hand over hand.
If love could tear someone out of death’s grip, then by every god that existed, I would tear him free.
Raphael. Please. Please come back. I need you. I can’t do this without you.
Nothing.
I won’t survive losing you. The bond goes both ways. If you fall into that dark, you drag me down with you. So fight. Claw your way back. I’ll meet you halfway.
The darkness held.
I didn’t know how long I kept reaching. Minutes.
Hours. Forever. My body was numb, my throat raw, my face wet with tears I didn’t remember crying.
Viktor was still holding me up, his arms like iron bands around my waist, his voice a distant murmur I couldn’t understand.
I was barely in my body anymore. All of me was in that hollow, searching for him, calling for him, refusing to accept his absence.
And then.
A pulse.
Faint. So faint I almost missed it. A tiny spark of warmth in all that cold nothing, a whisper of him where there had been only absence.
Raphael?
Another pulse. Stronger this time. A heartbeat in the hollow.
The bond stirred. Barely a whisper, but there. Alive. He was seeping back, filling the cold space in my chest with warmth that made me sob.
“He’s back.” The words came out broken. “Viktor, he came back.”
I sagged against Viktor’s chest, my whole body shaking, tears streaming down my face. Raphael was there now, faint but unmistakable. Unconscious. Struggling. But alive.
He came back.
He came back to me.
The surgeon appeared ten minutes later, still in her scrubs, exhaustion carved into every line of her face. She looked at me with wonder in her eyes, the kind of expression doctors wear when they’ve seen the impossible happen.
“We lost him for three minutes,” she said.
“His heart stopped. We shocked him twice. He wasn’t responding.
” She paused, shaking her head slightly, like she was still processing what she had witnessed.
“And then he just came back. His heart started again on its own, right when we were about to call it. I’ve never seen anything like it. ”
I knew what had happened. I had reached into death and pulled him back.
“He’s stable now,” the surgeon continued, her voice steadying into professional calm.
“Critical but stable. We repaired the damage to his lung, stopped the internal bleeding. He’s lost a lot of blood, and he’s going to need time to recover, but barring any unforeseen complications…
” She allowed herself a small smile. “He should pull through.”
“Can I see him?”
“He’s being moved to the ICU. Give us about an hour to get him settled, and then yes, you can see him. Family only in the ICU.”
The hour passed in a blur of coffee I didn’t drink and pacing I didn’t stop.
Viktor made phone calls, his voice low and rapid, updating the pack on what had happened.
Dmitri took Clara to get breakfast at the hospital cafeteria, both of them pale and shaken but holding together.
I stayed in the waiting room, my whole being focused on Raphael, on the steady strengthening of the connection with each passing minute.
At 9:14 AM, a nurse led me to the ICU.
The room was small and filled with machines.
Monitors beeped in a steady rhythm that matched the pulse I could feel through our connection.
Tubes and wires connected to his arms, his chest, his face.
He looked terrible. Gray-skinned and gaunt, his cheekbones sharper than they should be, dark circles under his closed eyes like bruises against his pale skin.
But his chest rose and fell with each breath.
The monitor showed his heartbeat, steady and regular.
Alive. He was alive.
I crossed to the bed and took his hand. His skin was cool but not cold, his fingers limp in mine. The bond told me he was stronger now, a warm ember where there had been only ashes.
I’m here. I’m right here. You came back to me.
No response. He was too deep in sleep, too lost in the healing his body desperately needed. But the bond held between us, battered but unbroken. A thread of gold where there had been only darkness.
I sank into the chair beside his bed and didn’t let go of his hand.
Outside the window, the winter sun hung well above the horizon now, filling the room with pale light that softened the sterile white walls. The longest night was over. He was alive. The bond held.
I laid my head on the edge of his bed, still holding his hand, and finally let myself breathe. The tears came quietly now, sliding down my cheeks, soaking into the hospital blanket. Relief and exhaustion and the leftover terror of those three minutes when he was gone.
Three minutes. Three minutes without him in the world. Three minutes of absolute absence.
I never wanted to feel that again.
His fingers twitched slightly in mine. Not conscious movement, just a reflex, his body responding to stimulus. But he stirred through our connection, a brief pulse of recognition before he sank back into deep sleep.
I squeezed his hand gently and settled in to wait.
The morning stretched on in a blur of beeping monitors and soft-soled footsteps.
Nurses came and went, checking vitals, adjusting IVs, speaking in soft medical jargon I didn’t try to understand.
Viktor appeared in the doorway at some point, his bulk filling the frame, and nodded once when he saw that I wasn’t leaving.
He disappeared again without a word, understanding that there was nothing he could do here that I wasn’t already doing.
Clara sent a text saying she was with Dmitri at a hotel nearby, that she was okay, that she would be back later. I typed back a response I didn’t remember composing and turned my attention back to Raphael.
He breathed through our connection. Growing stronger hour by hour, like a fire slowly catching, like dawn spreading across the sky. He was still unconscious, still lost in the deep healing sleep his body demanded, but he was there. Present. Alive. Getting stronger.
The clock on the wall showed 11:47 when his hand finally tightened around mine.
Not a reflex this time. Deliberate. Conscious.
I looked up and found his eyes open, gray and clouded with pain medication but unmistakably aware. His lips moved, trying to form words that wouldn’t come.
“Don’t try to talk.” I leaned forward, my free hand brushing the hair from his forehead. His skin was warmer now. He reached for me the way I had reached for him, shaky but real. “You were shot. Surgery. You’re in the ICU.”
His brow furrowed slightly. His confusion bled into me, his disorientation, the fragmented memories trying to piece themselves together.
“Michael’s dead,” I said, answering the question he couldn’t ask. “You killed him. Clara’s safe. Everyone’s safe.”
His relief flooded into me, warm and sweet. His eyes closed, but his hand stayed tight around mine.
“You scared me.” My voice cracked on the words. “You died, Raphael. Your heart stopped. For three minutes, you were gone.”
His eyes opened again, filled with remorse that he didn’t have the strength to express.
“The bond went silent,” I continued, the words spilling out now, all the terror of those endless minutes pouring from me. “You were gone. And I… I reached for you. I refused to let go. I pulled you back.”
His thumb traced a weak circle on the back of my hand. Gratitude and wonder and love flooded the connection between us. No words needed.
“Don’t ever do that again.” I pressed my forehead to our joined hands, feeling his pulse steady and strong against my skin. “I had to drag you back from the dead. Next time, just stay with me.”
His fingers squeezed mine once. A vow, renewed in silence.
Outside the window, the winter sun climbed higher, washing the room in pale gold. We stayed like that, hands clasped, the bond thrumming between us, alive and unbroken.
The longest night was over.
We had survived.