3. Zola
ZOLA
The world swims back into focus in fragments—fluorescent lights bleeding white across my vision, the antiseptic bite of hospital air filling my lungs, sheets scratching against skin that feels raw and wrong.
My mouth tastes like copper and something chemical, tongue thick and clumsy when I try to swallow.
Where—?
I try to sit up and pain explodes through my abdomen, sharp and immediate enough to punch the air from my lungs. A sound escapes me, something between a gasp and a whimper that I hate the moment it leaves my throat.
"Easy." The voice comes from my left, male and familiar but not the one I'm expecting. "Don't move too fast."
I turn my head—even that small motion sends ripples of discomfort through my body—and find Stellan Wolfe sitting in a chair shoved against the corner of the room.
He looks wrong here, too sharp and polished for the institutional beige walls and scratched linoleum.
His dress shirt's rumpled though, sleeves rolled up, dark circles under those steel-gray eyes that suggest he's been here a while.
"Stellan?" My voice comes out scratchy, unfamiliar. "What—where am I?"
"Hospital." He leans forward, elbows on his knees, and there's something in his expression I've never seen before—concern, maybe, or the closest approximation someone like him can manage. "You've been out for a few hours."
Hospital. The word doesn't make sense, doesn't connect to anything solid in my memory. I was—I was going somewhere. Class. I had that early lecture on anatomy, the one where Professor Chen always starts exactly at eight-thirty whether you're in your seat or not.
I try to push myself up again, slower this time, but the pain in my abdomen intensifies, spreading through my torso in waves that make my vision swim.
"I said easy." Stellan's on his feet now, moving closer but not touching, hands hovering like he's not sure what to do with them. "You've got a broken rib. Moving like that's going to make it worse."
"I'm fine." The lie tastes bitter, wrong. I'm not fine. Nothing about this is fine. "I just need—"
"You need to stay still." He reaches for something behind me, adjusting pillows I didn't realize were there. "Here. Let me—just lean back. Slow."
I let him guide me, too disoriented to argue. His hands are surprisingly gentle, careful as he props the pillows to support my back. When did Stellan Wolfe learn to be gentle? When did we reach the point where he'd sit in a hospital room, waiting for me to wake up?
The position helps, takes some pressure off whatever's screaming inside my abdomen. I breathe carefully, testing the limits of what hurts and what's just uncomfortable. Everything hurts, but some things hurt worse than others.
"Where's Declan?" The question comes out before I can stop it, before I can pretend I'm not searching the room for him, not feeling his absence like a missing limb.
Stellan's expression shifts, something complicated passing behind his eyes. "He's—"
The door swings open and there he is.
Declan fills the doorway, all six-foot-four of him suddenly too large for the small hospital room. His dark hair's disheveled, shirt wrinkled, and there's something wild in his green eyes when they land on me—relief and fury and something else I can't name all tangled together.
"Zola." My name breaks in his throat. "Christ, love, you're awake."
He crosses the room in three strides, dropping to his knees beside the bed. His hands frame my face, careful despite the urgency in his movements, thumbs stroking over my cheekbones like he needs the tactile proof that I'm real, I'm here, I'm alive.
"Are you okay? Are you—" He stops, jaw working. "Stupid question. You're in a hospital bed. But are you—how do you feel?"
The concern radiating off him is almost overwhelming, too intense after the disorientation of waking up. I reach up, covering one of his hands with mine. His knuckles are split, scabbed over, and there's a bruise blooming along his jaw I didn't notice at first.
"I'm okay." The lie comes easier this time, smoothed by the need to calm the storm I can see building behind his eyes. "I'll be fine. I just—what happened? I remember leaving your place, driving to my morning class, and then—"
Nothing. There's just nothing after that, a blank space where memory should be.
Declan's hands tighten on my face, and I watch fury bleed into his expression, turning his features hard and dangerous. This is the face he doesn't show me often, the one that belongs to the other parts of his life, the blood-under-the-floorboards parts I pretend not to see.
"You were hit." Each word comes out sharp, precise, like he's biting through steel. "Some reckless idiot ran a red light. Witnesses say the driver didn't even slow down."
Hit. The word doesn't compute at first, doesn't connect to the pain spreading through my body or the antiseptic smell or Stellan watching from the corner with that unnervingly gentle expression.
"Hit?" I repeat stupidly.
"By a car." Declan's voice goes lower, more dangerous. "You were driving. Had the light. And some piece of shit came barreling through and—"
He stops, throat working. His hands are shaking against my face, barely perceptible tremors that betray how close he is to losing control.
"Dec." I squeeze his hand, trying to ground him, trying to pull him back from wherever his mind's going. "I'm here. I'm okay."
"You're not okay. You're in a goddamn hospital bed with—" He breaks off again, jaw clenching so hard I can see the muscle jump. "I'm going to find them. Whoever did this, I'm going to find them and—"
"Sorry for the interruption." A new voice cuts through the tension, professional and carefully neutral. "I'm glad to see the patient's awake."
A doctor stands in the doorway—middle-aged, graying at the temples, wearing scrubs and an expression of practiced calm. He glances between Declan and me, reading the situation with the efficiency of someone who's seen every variation of family dynamics play out in hospital rooms.
"I'm Dr. Reeves. I've been overseeing your care since you were brought in this morning."
Declan doesn't move from his position beside the bed, doesn't release my face. I can feel him calculating, trying to decide if he wants the doctor to talk in front of him or if he should step out, give me privacy for whatever's coming next.
"You can talk in front of him." I make the decision for him, for us both. "He's—he should hear whatever you have to say."
Dr. Reeves nods, moving into the room properly. I catch Stellan slipping out the door in my peripheral vision, giving us privacy I didn't ask for but appreciate anyway. The door clicks shut with a sound that feels too final.
"How are you feeling?" Dr. Reeves pulls up a wheeled stool, settling at the foot of the bed with a tablet in his hands. "Pain level on a scale of one to ten?"
"Six?" I guess. Maybe seven. It's hard to tell when everything hurts in different ways, different intensities.
"That's normal given the extent of your injuries.
" He swipes through screens on the tablet, reviewing information I can't see.
"You have multiple lacerations—we stitched the worst ones on your left side.
One broken rib, which is going to hurt for several weeks.
We've got you on pain medication but we're trying to keep the dosage moderate. "
I nod, processing. Lacerations. Broken rib. That matches what I'm feeling, explains the sharp pain when I breathe too deep or move too fast.
"The more serious concern was internal bleeding." Dr. Reeves' expression shifts, taking on the careful neutrality that means bad news is coming. "The impact caused significant trauma to your abdomen. We had to take you into emergency surgery to stop the bleeding and repair the damage."
Declan's hands tighten on my face again. I can feel him going rigid beside me, preparing for whatever comes next.
"You're going to make a full recovery," Dr. Reeves continues, and I feel Declan exhale against my temple.
"The bleeding is stopped, the lacerations will heal, the rib will mend.
You'll have soreness for a while, and I want you to avoid strenuous activity for at least six weeks while everything heals properly. "
"Okay." Relief floods through me, loosening muscles I didn't realize I'd tensed. Full recovery. That's the important part. Everything else is just details, just temporary discomfort that'll fade with time.
But Dr. Reeves doesn't look relieved. He looks like a man about to deliver the second half of bad news, the part that doesn't come with silver linings or eventual healing.
"However." He pauses, and that single word drops like a stone between us. "The damage to your lower abdomen was extensive. We had to make some life-saving decisions in the operating room."
Something cold starts spreading through my chest, replacing the relief with dread I don't understand yet, can't name.
"What kind of decisions?" My voice sounds distant, like it's coming from someone else.
Dr. Reeves meets my eyes, and I see pity there, sympathy that makes my stomach clench despite the pain it causes.
"The impact ruptured your uterine wall. We did everything we could to repair it, but the damage was too severe. In order to stop the internal bleeding and save your life, we had to perform an emergency hysterectomy."
The words hit like physical blows, each one landing with the force of the car I don't remember.
Uterine wall. Emergency hysterectomy. Medical terms I understand from my anatomy classes, from years of planning to go into nursing, from a life spent learning how bodies work and what happens when they break.
"You're saying—" I stop, have to force the words past lips that feel numb. "You're saying I can't have children."
"I'm so sorry." And he does sound sorry, genuinely regretful in a way that makes it worse somehow. "We had to make the choice in the moment. Your life was in immediate danger. But yes, the surgery has left you unable to conceive."
Sterile. The word echoes in my head, clinical and final. I'm twenty-one years old and I'm sterile.
I don't know what I feel. There's too much, too many emotions crowding in at once—shock and grief and something that might be relief mixed with guilt for feeling relief and anger at the unfairness of it all.
I've never been sure I wanted kids, never let myself think that far ahead when I was too busy surviving day to day.
But having the choice taken away, having my body make that decision without my consent—
"Zola." Declan's voice pulls me back, rough with emotion I'm afraid to identify. "Love, look at me."
I turn my head, meeting those dark green eyes. There's devastation there, fury directed at the universe or God or whoever's responsible for this. But underneath it, steady and certain, is something else.
"You're alive." He says it like a prayer, like the only thing that matters. "You're here and you're alive and that's—that's all I need."