Chapter 51
SLOANE
It had been three days since Nate had arrived at the hospital. Three days since Ryker had walked out of my life.
The ventilator was gone. The tube was gone.
In its place, oxygen tubing curved beneath his nose, a small, almost gentle thing compared to what he’d looked like that first night.
His face still carried the violence, bruises fading into sick yellows and greens.
Swelling that refused to fully surrender.
A split lip that made me ache every time I looked at it.
At least his mouth was his again. His voice could be his again.
If he woke up.
If his body remembered how.
I told him about Red Thread and the case files stacked on my coffee table that I hadn’t touched. I told him Jade had texted me a picture of a cat meme at two in the morning because she couldn’t sleep, and neither could I.
Sometimes I talked to him about nothing at all to give him proof that someone was here, and that he wasn’t alone.
And sometimes I sat in silence, staring at the door, listening for footsteps that never came.
Because Ryker didn’t come back.
No message. No call. No cryptic update slipped through my phone. No reassurance from his friends. No “he’s alive” that I could cling to. Nothing.
He was a fucking hole in the world. He was the space where my heart should have been.
Holland, Ella, and Cami rotated through the room in quiet shifts, never leaving me completely alone for long. If one of them stepped out, another appeared within the hour, as if they understood something about my mind I didn’t want to admit.
That if I was alone too long, I would start counting the ways a man could disappear.
On the morning of the third day, the sun came through the blinds in thin slices, painting Nate’s blanket with pale stripes. I’d dozed in the chair at some point, my neck kinked, my mouth dry. I woke to the sound of a nurse adjusting something near his IV.
“How’s he doing?” I asked, voice thick.
The nurse smiled gently. “Stable. His numbers look a little better today.”
“Is he waking up?”
“Not yet,” she said. “But he’s fighting.”
Fighting.
My brother had always fought.
Even when we were kids, even when we were moved from house to house like a problem nobody wanted.
Nate fought by staying soft when the world tried to make him hard.
Nate fought by making jokes when I was too angry to breathe.
Nate fought by putting himself between me and things that scared us even when he was smaller than me.
He fought. He had to.
I watched the nurse leave, then stared at Nate.
“Come back,” I pleaded. “Just fucking … come back.”
My phone buzzed against my thigh. I didn’t want to look. Every notification felt like a tiny betrayal when it wasn’t Ryker.
I looked anyway.
Jade:
Outside. Don’t fight me.
I stared at the screen.
Then I texted back:
Room 612.
Ten minutes later, there was a soft knock.
Jade walked in first.
She stopped just inside, she looked at Nate, then to me, and her face crumpled so fast it almost broke me.
“Oh, Sloaney.”
I hated that nickname because it belonged to high school and lockers and cheap eyeliner and the version of me who still thought the worst thing that could happen was living on the streets.
I stood up before I realized I was moving. Jade crossed the room in three steps and wrapped her arms around me.
For a second, I couldn’t do anything but hold on.
The sob that came out of me was quiet. It didn’t feel dramatic. It felt inevitable.
Jade pressed her cheek to my hair. “I’m here. I’m here.”
Eli stepped in behind her, closing the door softly. He looked different than he usually did at Red Thread. Less composed. More human. He held a paper bag in one hand.
“I brought you a muffin,” he said. “And coffee that doesn’t taste like shit.”
I made a sound that might have been a laugh.
Jade pulled back and looked at me. Her eyes were red. “You look like you’ve been living under fluorescent lights.”
“I have.”
Eli’s gaze went to Nate again. He swallowed. “He’s really here.”
“Yeah,” I said. “He really is.”
Jade turned toward the bed slowly, like approaching a wild animal. She stepped close, her hand hovering over Nate’s arm the same way mine had hovered the first night.
She didn’t touch him right away.
Then she placed her fingers on his forearm, light and careful.
“Hey, Nate.” Her voice cracked. “It’s Jade.”
She sucked in a breath and blinked hard. “You scared the hell out of us, you know that? You’ve always been such an asshole like that.”
Her mouth wobbled on the word asshole, and it was so Jade, so normal, that my chest hurt.
Eli set the bag down on the counter, then moved to stand behind Jade, one hand on her shoulder, steadying both of them.
“How are you holding up?” he asked me quietly.
I looked at my brother. “I don’t know.”
Jade turned back toward me. “That’s an answer.”
I tucked my hair behind my ear. “I’m just … here. I’m watching him breathe and trying not to think about—”
Ryker.
The name slammed into my heart and stuck there.
Jade’s gaze sharpened instantly. “Sloane.”
I shook my head once. “Not here.”
“Okay,” she said softly. “Okay. We won’t here.”
The kindness in her voice cracked something in me.
I wanted to talk about him. I had briefly told her that Ryker was the reason that Nate was home, but that Ryker hadn’t returned.
It was all I could say without coming fucking unhinged.
I wanted to scream his name into the hospital walls until someone answered.
But I couldn’t. Not while Nate lay there still and fragile, held together by machines and stitches and medicine.
Jade moved back to my side and took my hand, squeezing.
Eli’s voice went low. “He would be proud of you, you know. What you built. Red Thread. You didn’t stop looking for him. Ever.”
I swallowed. “I stopped. When he disappeared, I—”
“You didn’t,” Eli said. “You kept going. Even when you were wrecked.”
Jade squeezed my hand again. “And you’re going to keep going now.”
I didn’t trust my voice, so I nodded.
Jade glanced at the chair by the bed. “Can I sit with him for a minute?”
“Please.” I gave her a tight smile; grateful she was here.
She sat, careful, and took Nate’s hand. She didn’t talk much after that, just stayed. She hummed under her breath once, a little tune we used to sing in high school when we were nervous and trying to pretend that we weren’t.
Eli came closer to me. “Have the doctors said anything new?”
“He’s stable,” I said. “But … not out of danger. They keep saying it could mess with his memory.”
Eli looked away briefly. “I hope not. I know it would help us all if we had answers.”
“Yeah,” I whispered. “It would.”
Jade stood slowly after a while and leaned down near Nate’s ear. “Hey. If you wake up, you better do it while I’m here. I’m not coming back again just so you can miss me.”
Her voice shook at the end.
Then she kissed his knuckles lightly and stood up, wiping her face with the back of her hand.
She looked at me. “Text me every second if you need to, okay? He’s got this. I believe that with every fucking fiber in my being.”
I hoped the was right.
Eli stepped close and hugged me. “Call if you need anything. Anything. You don’t have to be brave alone.”
When they left, the room felt quieter than it had before. My hand found Nate’s again.
For a long time, nothing changed. Then the monitor shifted. It wasn’t an alarm or frantic beep. Just numbers sliding, the rhythm of the machine adjusting.
I looked up.
Nate’s eyelids fluttered.
So small, I almost thought I imagined it.
My breath stopped. “Nate?”
His lashes trembled again. His brow tightened, as if he were fighting his way up through something heavy.
I leaned forward, careful not to jostle him. “Nate, it’s me.”
His eyes opened, but they weren’t fully focused. They were wide and glassy, pupils dilated. His gaze landed on the ceiling, on the IV pole, then on the corner of the room where shadows lived no matter how bright the lights were.
His breathing hitched, and his fingers twitched in my hand. Seconds later, he saw me.
Nate stared at me like he didn’t understand what he was seeing.
Like I was the last thing he expected.
Like I was a hallucination.
“Hey, sweetie. It’s me. It’s Sloane.”
His gaze stayed locked on me, unblinking. His mouth opened, but only a rasp came out.
I leaned closer. “Don’t talk yet. You’re okay. You’re safe.”
His expression flickered, panicked. His hand jerked weakly, trying to pull away, trying to reach for something, trying to protect himself.
“Nate,” I said softly. “It’s real. I’m real.”
He shook his head once, tiny and frantic.
Tears flooded my eyes. “You’re not back there. You’re here. You’re at a hospital. You’re in a bed. You’re not alone.”
His gaze darted past me to the door, to the corner, to the window. “Don’t—”
“Don’t what?”
His lips trembled. “Don’t … lie.”
The words sliced through me.
“I’m not,” I said, voice shaking. “I’m not lying. I swear. You’re here. You’re home.”
He stared at me again, and the stare felt endless. Tears slid down the sides of his face into the pillow.
My chest collapsed. I cupped his cheek carefully, thumb brushing the edge of a bruise. “Oh, Nate.”
His voice came out rough and broken. “Slo…”
I kissed his forehead, trembling. “I’m here. I’m here. I’m right fucking here.”
His hand tightened around mine, weak but real, and my chest cracked wide fucking open.
I didn’t cry quietly this time. I made a sound that belonged to an animal finding its lost young.
“I thought you were dead.” The words spilled out. “I thought you were gone. I looked for you everywhere. I—”
Nate squeezed my hand again, as if to stop me. He looked exhausted. Confused. Terrified.
But he was here, and that was all that mattered. I pressed my forehead to his knuckles. “You’re awake.”
He swallowed again. “This … this is real?”
“Yes,” I said instantly. “Yes. You’re real. I’m real.”