57. Sloane
SLOANE
Hospitals had their own version of time.
Not hours. Not days. Paperwork. Discharge was supposed to be the part where I exhaled. Where the world gave back. Instead, it felt like another test. Another handoff. Another moment I had to manage without the one person who should have been here to see it.
A nurse rolled in a stack of forms and set them on the tray table like she was delivering a meal.
“Discharge instructions,” she said, then glanced at Nate. “How are you feeling, hon?”
Nate blinked at her as if he had to pull her question through a thick fog first. “Tired.”
“That’s expected.” She flipped to the first page. “We’re going to go over medications, activity restrictions, and follow-ups. You’re not driving. You’re not lifting. You’re not doing any heroic acts.”
His mouth twitched, then the tiny smile faded. He tried to sit up straighter and immediately regretted it. His hand went to his ribs, careful and protective.
I reached for the bed remote and raised him a notch, then adjusted the pillow behind his shoulders. He let me without arguing, which told me more than any chart ever could.
Nate used to fight me on everything, even when we were kids. He’d glare and pretend he wasn’t scared. This was different. This was him letting me hold the pieces because he didn’t have the strength to keep them together himself.
I could do it. I could carry him. I could get him home. I just didn’t know how much longer I could do it without breaking over the part I couldn’t fix.
Nate looked out the window as the nurse continued. The glass showed a gray slice of sky and nothing else. Like the world had paused outside just to spite us.
The nurse tapped the paperwork. “Any questions?”
I had a thousand. None of them were the ones she could answer.
“Where do I sign?” I asked.
She pointed, and I signed.
When she left, the room fell quiet in the way it always did between staff visits.
The monitors had been removed yesterday.
The IV was gone. The bed was still a hospital bed, but now it felt temporary.
Like they were done holding the line for us, and now it was my turn.
Nate was coming home, bruised and fragile, and I would be the one listening for every change in his breathing.
Ryker should have been here. He should have seen his face when the nurse said discharged. He should have heard the way Nate tried to joke through the pain.
Instead, I was standing in the gap he’d left behind, pretending the silence wasn’t eating me alive.
Nate watched as I organized the papers into a folder.
“You look …” he started.
“What?” I asked, keeping my tone light.
He studied my face like it was hard to focus. “Different.”
I pressed the forms flat and slid them into my bag. “I haven’t slept much since you’ve been gone.”
“That’s not it.”
I didn’t answer right away. The truth was simple and ugly.
I didn’t know where Ryker was. I didn’t know if he was hurt, if he was drugged, if he was being kept in a room without windows and made to pay for the air in his lungs.
I didn’t know if he’d been forced to do things he’d never say out loud.
I only knew he’d traded himself for this.
For Nate sitting up in a bed. For me signing discharge paperwork instead of a death certificate.
No matter how I spun it, the situation was starting to feel personal. Personal in the way the universe always seemed to take its payment from me in the exact currency I couldn’t spare. Time. Certainty. Sleep.
I’d gotten my brother back, and I still couldn’t stop counting what it had cost.
I checked my phone again. No new messages. No missed calls. Nothing from unknown numbers. Nothing from anyone.
I lowered it and slid it back into my pocket. I couldn’t go where my mind wanted to go. Not while Nate was watching. Not while he needed me to seem as though I had my shit together.
Nate followed it. “You haven’t heard anything?”
I crossed to the chair beside his bed and sat, close enough that he didn’t have to raise his voice. “No.”
His mouth pressed tight. “Don’t give up. You didn’t give up on me, and I’m here,” he said.
If I gave up, it wouldn’t be loud. It would be quiet. It would look like paperwork and polite smiles and me doing everything I was supposed to do while something inside me went dark.
“Yeah.”
Nate’s fingers worried the edge of the blanket. “He didn’t have to.”
“Yes,” I said, quieter. “He did.”
Nate went still. “Because of me.”
I leaned in, close enough for him to see that I meant it. “Because of us.”
He didn’t push it further. He didn’t have the energy for guilt.
A knock sounded at the door before it opened, and Ella stepped in. She didn’t seem surprised to see discharge papers everywhere, or the bag on the chair, or the tired slump in my shoulders. She took in a room the way she took in a fight: fast, silent, and already deciding what mattered.
“You look better.” She gave him a wide smile.
Nate gave her a small nod. “I feel worse, though.”
Ella’s mouth lifted for a second. “That makes sense. You’re not drugged up anymore.”
She moved closer to the bed, then stopped at the side rail, respectful of his space. Her attention shifted to me.
“How’s he doing?” she asked.
“Better. He’s going home with me.”
Ella smiled at me. “Good. I can take you. By the way, we took the liberty of installing a new security system. We take care of our own.”
My heart cracked open with not only her words, but that they wanted to make sure I was safe. “Thank you.”
I waited. Ella didn’t come here to chat, there was something else. I could sense it around her.
She glanced at Nate. “Can I talk to your sister for a minute?”
Nate’s attention bounced between us. “Yeah.”
I stood and followed Ella out into the hallway. The door clicked softly behind us.
The fluorescent lights were cruel. They made every shadow disappear. They made it harder to hide anything.
Ella leaned her shoulder against the wall, arms loose at her sides. Calm. The kind of calm that came from having sharp people moving pieces on the board all the time.
She placed her hand on my arm. “We’ve got a lead.”
My hands wanted to shake. My whole body wanted to grab the word lead and squeeze it until it turned into certainty. Hope had teeth. Hope had a way of making you reckless, and reckless was how you got people killed.
But I still felt it, bright and painful, because I hadn’t let myself feel anything good since Nate opened his eyes.
“Where?” I asked, then stopped myself. “No. Don’t tell me.”
Ella nodded with approval. “Good. I don’t want to put you and Nate in jeopardy again.”
I exhaled through my nose. “Are they on it?”
“They’re on it,” she said. No names. No details. Just certainty.
My hands stayed still because I forced them to. “Is it real?”
Ella held my gaze. “It’s enough to check out.”
A part of me wanted to demand more, to push, to force Ella to give me something I could hold onto. Another part knew she was protecting me the only way she could.
Information could be a lifeline. It could also be a noose.
Ella kept her voice low anyway. “I’m not saying anything else in a hallway.”
“I don’t need the details,” I said. “I need to know you’re still searching.”
“We are,” Ella said. “No one’s stopping.” She tipped her chin. “And you’ve got us.”
“What do I do?” I asked and hated myself for how small the question sounded.
Ella didn’t flinch. “You take him home,” she said. “You lock your doors. You keep your phone on. You don’t answer unknown numbers. If you see anything off, you call.”
“Call who?” I asked.
“Me. We can do what Eli and Jade can’t.”
That was it. No back-up plan explained. No reassurance wrapped in pretty words. Just a line drawn in concrete.
My throat burned, but I didn’t let it turn into anything messy. “Okay.”
Ella pushed off the wall. “I’ll walk you both out and give you a ride home.”
“We don’t need—”
“You do,” she cut in. Not harsh. Final.
I agreed because arguing would be ego, and ego didn’t keep people alive.
We went back into the room.
Nate was sitting a little straighter, like he’d been trying to appear less broken while we were gone. He looked up when he saw us.
Ella moved to the bedside again. “You’ve got orders from the doctors?”
Nate gave a tired nod. “No hero stuff.”
“Exactly,” she said. “Your job is to heal.”
He blinked slowly. “That’s… a boring job.”
Ella’s expression softened a little. “I know.”
“Are we going?” he asked me.
I picked up the folder, the bag, the jacket. “Yeah.”
The nurse returned with a wheelchair and an expression that said she’d done this a thousand times today.
“I can walk,” Nate muttered.
“You can sit. It’s hospital policy,” I said.
He opened his mouth.
I lifted one brow.
He sat.
The nurse adjusted the footrests, checked the paperwork again, and handed me a printed sheet with bold headings and a list of numbers I didn’t want to ever need. I slid it into the folder.
The ride down the elevator felt too quiet. Nate’s head rested against the chair back. His eyes were half closed, but his hand stayed curled tight in his lap like he was holding on to the only thing he could.
Ella walked beside us the whole way, steady presence, scanning corners and reflections without making it obvious.
At the lobby, the automatic doors sighed open and cold air hit my face.
Outside, the parking lot looked normal. Cars. People. A delivery truck. A couple arguing near a crosswalk.
Normal was a costume. I didn’t trust it.
Ella stopped beside her car and unlocked it. I opened the back door and guided Nate in with slow care. He hissed under his breath when he shifted, then pressed his palm to his ribs.
“Easy,” I said, and the word came out softer than I meant it to.
Old habits didn’t die. They just waited. I’d taken care of Nate since we were kids, back when care was bandaged knees and stolen snacks. Now it looked like holding him upright and pretending I wasn’t terrified of what I couldn’t see coming.
He nodded, jaw tight, then leaned back and shut his eyes.
I closed the door and faced Ella.
She looked me over like I was about to walk straight into a storm without a coat. “Don’t break. Hang in there.”
I wanted to tell her I was already cracked. That I was running on a thin, stubborn strip of will and the memory of Ryker’s hands on mine. That every time my phone stayed silent, it felt less like waiting and more like being punished.
“I’m not breaking,” I replied, then heard the lie in it.
Ella’s gaze didn’t soften. It sharpened. “Not yet,” she said. “Later. When it’s safe, then you can.”
My grip tightened on my keys.
“We’ve got a lead,” she repeated, quieter. “They’re working it.”
I exhaled slowly. “Okay.”
Ella stepped back, giving me room. “Let’s get him home.”
I opened the passenger’s door and got in while she slid into the driver’s seat.
Ella started the engine and checked the mirrors. Before she put the car in gear, I pulled out my phone again.
Still nothing. No message. No call. No proof that the world was moving in the direction it needed to.
I stared at the screen until I couldn’t, then locked it and set it face down in the cup holder.
Nate shifted in the back seat and made a small sound, half pain, half sleep.
I swallowed the panic before it could rise.
Because Nate was alive.
Ella said they had a lead.
I had my brother in the back seat, breathing, and that should have been the miracle Ryker got to witness.
He should have been in the passenger seat. He should have looked back at Nate and let himself believe this part mattered.
I stared at my silent phone and held myself together by force.
If I fell apart now, Hamilton would win without even being in the car.
And I wasn’t giving him that.