Chapter 11
Wyatt
The monitors beeped incessantly, drilling into his skull like needles in his brain.
Wyatt's gaze was riveted to the little girl's face. Black ash and soot covered her pale lips. Her skin was gray and turning whiter by the second. She wasn’t breathing, and her heartbeats were stuttering to a stop.
Everyone in the room seemed to be holding the same collective breath every time Wyatt stopped chest compressions.
The monitor blinked and then flatlined.
She had been alert for less than a minute when she was wheeled into the ED.
But sometimes it happens that fast.
Sometimes they’re here.
And then gone.
Trembling, forehead slick with sweat-induced adrenaline, Wyatt resumed compressions.
An old movie theater had caught fire during a movie, trapping at least two dozen people inside.
The fire spread so quickly that most people didn’t have time to get out.
Including her, the six-year-old little girl in a pale pink dress with blue leggings.
One of her pink rainbow boots was missing and her hair was tangled with the pink bow someone had put in it earlier that morning.
Her big brown eyes were open and scared when she came in.
She looked so damned scared, and when Wyatt saw her, everything in his body compelled him to move—to act—to save.
To do everything in his power to save her life.
She blinked, tears dried on her face and mouth gaping open like a fish drowning. Their eyes locked and held, and everything stopped.
Wyatt had experienced loss plenty of times. But it never, ever got easier.
Trauma was still fucking trauma, even when it happened to doctors. Her dark brown eyes reminded him of his horses, of how they would sometimes look at him for the last time, knowing…
Something in Wyatt broke. He fisted his hand and pushed into her chest, sweat trickling down his back and panic setting in.
“Hold compressions,” John’s voice came through, and Wyatt stilled, trying not to notice how fragile she felt beneath his hands.
“Reyes, take over for Lawson,” John said.
“No!” He nearly shouted, “No. I can keep going.”
He glanced up, seeing the concern tighten around the corners of John’s lips, his stance rigid, and yet he nodded. “All right. Resume compressions.”
Relieved that his captain trusted him, Wyatt continued.
One more minute.
“Hold compressions,” John said, once more breaking through Wyatt’s motion.
He kept his hands over her chest, ready to start again, ears tuned solely to the monitors, but he still heard it.
The telling sound of a flatline. No change. The chest compressions weren’t working because she was…
Wyatt sucked in a breath, arms shaking.
“Lawson,” John murmured, a slight edge to his tone, yet gentle. So fucking gentle. “You’ve done enough.”
No, I haven’t.
A nurse stated the time of death. The finality of it didn’t register in his mind.
This isn’t real.
This can’t be happening.
He felt Reyes’s hand on his shoulder, indicating to let go.
Wyatt swallowed the thick lump forming in his throat, legs shaking beneath him as he stared down at the little girl in the pink dress, her face etched like a sizzling brand in his mind.
He’d never lost a child patient before. This felt different than the others.
It felt wrong.
“Are her parents here yet?” John asked.
“Yeah,” Steph rushed in, “they just got here—” she stilled, seeing the girl and cursed under her breath, shaking her head. “Want me to send them in?”
“Yeah,” John nodded. “Any word on the aunt and uncle she came in with?”
“Aunt’s in surgery and uncle is stable. Smoke inhalation did some respiratory damage. It’s gonna be a long recovery.”
“For everyone,” John finished and nodded to the team of nurses and doctors in the room. “We’ll take a moment of silence.”
Wyatt’s spine shivered with the sudden weight of her death as he stumbled backward against the wall, barely holding himself up. He was transported back to his father’s ranch, looking at his childhood horse gasp her last breaths, feeling the hole opening in his heart like a dagger.
Unable to look at his patient anymore, Wyatt braced himself against the wall, fighting the urge to flee. The moment of silence felt like an eternity and somehow, despite the ravaging pain inside him, he was still alive.
He was still fucking standing. And he didn’t understand how.
“Okay, thank you, go ahead and bring her parents in,” John said softly.
Wyatt, unable and unwilling to see this child’s parents' grief, raced out of the room and was surprised to feel the comforting hand of Reyes on his back, leading him to the staff break room. “C’mon, man.”
Disoriented, the room opened to the smell of fresh coffee and sanitizer. A wave of nausea rolled through him. Reyes led him to the couch on the far wall. “Sit down before you fall down, dude.”
He did, collapsing into the hard cushions.
“You need anything?” Reyes asked.
All Wyatt could manage was a small shake of his head as he leaned forward, head between his legs and elbows digging into his knees, wanting to vomit—scream—cry.
He wasn’t sure how long he had been there until he heard the door open again followed by John’s voice. “Do you mind giving us a minute?” John said to Reyes.
“Yeah, yeah, of course. I’m here if you need me, Lawson,” Reyes said kindly and left.
Wyatt lifted his head from his hands and was met with warm, tender blue eyes that he wanted to sink and vanish into completely.
So, he did. Wyatt reached for him at the same exact time John did, wrapping his arms around his shoulders and head, cradling Wyatt against his stomach. And for the first time in his career, he broke.
The tears came fast and hard.
His fingers dug into John’s waist, clinging to him. He remembered briefly the moment John had done the same thing to him, holding him the same way but in reverse. They had come full circle.
“You did everything you could,” John murmured gruffly, emotion lacing his voice. “There was nothing you could do.”
“It shouldn’t have been me,” he cried, clutching John. “Her parents were coming… to see her one last time… not fucking me.”
John dropped to his knees shaking his head, “But it was you. And that’s okay. It’s okay…”
“It’s not!”
John framed his face with his hands, forcing Wyatt to meet his unyielding gaze.
“Hating yourself right now is not the answer. You chose this job, or maybe it chose you. Just like she did. She needed someone to see her, and that’s what you do, Lawson.
That’s what makes you so incredible. She managed to find the one doctor in this hospital who could give her peace right at the end. And that’s what you did—I saw it.”
His throat bunched and his heart, whose shattered pieces had sliced through his body, began to warm and melt back together. He swayed against John, their temples touching, and both breathed through the emotion, the pain, the grief.
“Thanks,” Wyatt croaked out.
John nodded, leaning back and kissing his forehead before sitting back on his heels, taking his hands into his and squeezing, holding tight. “I want you to come to my house tonight. I’ll cook us dinner, open a bottle of wine, light some romantic fucking candles…”
Wyatt sucked in a breath, the warmth now spreading everywhere, to every limb. John wanted him to come to his home. Not a hotel. Somewhere personal, intimate, and real. It had been a glorious month of hotel rendezvous, escaping, and getting lost in each other and the intimacy of their bodies.
And the open, vulnerable look on John’s face told him that he was scared—that they both knew this was a risk. “Let me take care of you for a change, yeah?”
He hesitated, unsure.
John paused, too, and stood, scrubbing a nervous hand over the back of his neck. “Sorry, that’s not fair. You’re vulnerable, and I just put that on you. Let’s forget I said it, all right?”
Wyatt stood. “John…”
The door to the break room opened and Steph walked in, expression tense, eyes immediately finding John’s. “We’ve got more theater victims comin’ in. All hands on deck, cap.”
He nodded, heading for the door, and stilled. “You are what this hospital—these patients—need, Lawson. Exactly who you are today. Not the doctor you think you should be or want to be. But the one you are right now. That’s the man they need—who I need.”
They stared at one another for a long heartbeat, and John tilted his head to the ED, “Let’s go save some lives.”
He punched the gate code John had texted him, and the large iron gate came to life, slowly swinging back to let him in.
A nervous energy brewed low in his belly as he rode his motorcycle into the long driveway and parked his bike next to the front of the house.
The house was tucked away in the LA hills, out of the city noise and some of the traffic.
It was a cool spot, and an even cooler house.
Modern design with sleek black metal and large windows overlooking the sprawling city.
Lush greenery was layered around the front of the house to keep it secluded and tucked away.
He pulled off his helmet, legs still straddling the motorcycle, and felt his phone buzz in his front pocket. He resisted the urge to curse as he checked it, already knowing who it was.
We need to talk.
He read the text and closed it.
For the last few days, his Aunt Carol and Aunt Nancy had been texting him, asking him to call them.