31. Long Night
Chapter Thirty-One
Long Night
DYLAN
The hospital could have passed for any other if someone wasn’t paying attention to the details.
It had the same fluorescent lighting, employees in the same kind of scrubs, the same frantic energy between nurses and doctors working together to try and save lives.
Some people here likely didn’t even realize they were being treated by beings who could control natural energies to enhance some of the treatments.
At least not on the first floor, which was where the general intake happened.
We spoke to the nurse at the front desk and were then escorted through a side hallway and into an elevator bay that had a security guard posted at the front.
Raquel and Yuni ran up to us as we waited. Raquel must have rolled right out of bed, still wearing her pink silk pajamas, tears wetting her cheek where makeup would have been any other day. “Is he okay? What happened?” She was breathless and scared. Chris wrapped her in a tight hug.
Yuni came to us. She wore a black T-shirt and sweats, also seemingly having just woken up.
“Are you two okay?” She looked us over, concern in her brown eyes.
I was used to seeing her with her hair up, how she typically liked to wear it, but tonight it fell in a jet-black curtain down to her shoulders.
“Yes, we’re okay,” I answered. I could hardly believe it. Tonight all felt so horribly unreal. I couldn’t really process it. My therapist was going to need to work overtime in the next couple of months.
Yuni rubbed my elbow and then hugged me. She wasn’t a hugger. This felt different, and also really comforting.
The elevator dinged open and the security guard keyed us up to the second floor.
The doors opened again on a scene that was quite different than the first. Up here, the hallway felt warmer and more inviting, cozy almost. It was narrower and had warm lighting, but instead of the pale white walls with the medical notices and pamphlets pinned on cork boards, there were rows of shelving that held different plants and herbs.
The fragrance was intense at first but much preferable to the antiseptic scent used just below us.
The nurses up here wore scrubs that looked more like tunics, in shades of soft browns and greens.
The entire ceiling was a skylight that allowed sunlight during the day and moonlight during times like these.
A nurse with large glasses came to greet us.
He explained that Emmy had been taken into surgery but that one of the doctors would come out shortly to explain what was going on.
He walked us over to a comfortable waiting area with comfy black chairs and couches and a huge bookshelf stretching across the entire back wall.
At a glance, the books looked like a mix of popular reads and some more obscure ones with potted ivy and flowers as bookends and spacers.
I sat next to Miles on a large couch with Chris and Soren joining us.
Raquel paced around the room. Gabe and Eli were trying to comfort her, but she was rightfully terrified of what the doctor would come out and say.
The rest of us stayed sitting so that we didn’t overcrowd her and make things even worse.
“You’re okay, right? Both of you?” Chris leaned in, wrinkles appearing between his eyebrows.
He was so worried about us that the Botox he had gotten a couple weeks ago appeared to have lost all power.
It was the first time he’d done it too. Said he was curious.
I wasn’t sure how it worked but now I likely made him waste his money, so that was great.
“Yeah,” I said with Miles echoing me.
“Not just physically,” Chris clarified.
“That’s another story,” I answered honestly, even though my anxiety was at a very manageable level in that moment. Maybe it was the numbing effect of the adrenaline that didn’t have me in a nervous and dread-filled spiral?
“I’m here whenever you want to talk about it.” Chris gave my shoulder a squeeze before he rubbed my back and took me into a side-hug. “You too, Miles. I’m here for both of you.”
“Thank you, Chris.” Miles reached over and gave his knee a rub. “I appreciate it. And appreciate how much you look after Dyl. He’s important to me.”
That right there felt like an even bigger declaration than Miles telling me he was my fated mate. This was him making it clear to others that we were a thing. It’s what he had promised me he’d do.
“I’ve got you guys,” Chris said and left it at that.
Soren came over with two cups of water. I could smell the cucumber that had been floating inside the dispenser. I gratefully accepted it, chugged it all in one gulp, and thanked him again.
“No problem.” He took the empty cups back and tossed them in the bin next to a large fern that had dark blue leaves rather than the typical green.
He sat down just as the doctor walked out of the double doors that separated us from the operating rooms. Everyone got back onto their feet.
Raquel was first at his side, asking for an update.
He waited a brief moment for us all to gather around him in a loose circle.
“He’s alive,” the doctor started, which earned a unified sigh of relief.
He had stress lines around his eyes, but he didn’t look like someone ready to deliver terrible news.
“He is in a medically induced coma at the moment. The silver bullet went through his chest and collapsed a lung. It missed his heart and his spine, which I think is a bright spot. Unfortunately, the silver isn’t allowing his body to heal properly.
He keeps regenerating and then breaking down the tissue almost instantly.
Even when we try and go in with both surgical tools and druidic medicine, it appears that his body rejects it.
We’re still working on him and will probably be in there until the morning—but I do want to prepare you for the fact that we may keep him in the coma until we can figure out how to heal him. ”
Raquel’s hand rose to her mouth. It muffled a cry. Yuni put an arm around her, as did Gabe.
“Is the bullet still in him?” Chris asked.
“No, no. There’s an entrance and an exit wound. But the silver itself poisons anything it touches if it breaches the skin of a shifter. I have our alchemists working on a potential tonic that could help cleanse him but unfortunately the process to create it is extensive and time-consuming.”
“How long do you need?”
The doctor—Doctor Rosario according to the name badge—shook his head. “A week or two. It’s heavily reliant on the moon cycle in order to infuse some of the ingredients.”
Chris sucked in a deep breath. Miles cleared his throat. The air inside the room felt thick even though all the plants and running air conditioning would have suggested the opposite. There was so much tension and fear that it felt like we stood ankle-deep in a humid swamp.
“Can we see him?” Miles asked. He sounded meeker than I’d ever heard him. I reached for his hand, finding it, holding it. This wouldn’t have happened just a few days ago, but at this point I don’t think either of us cared who knew we were together.
“Unfortunately, not right now, no. You won’t be able to see him until we move him from the OR to a room. I’ll be right out the second that we do.”
“He will survive this, right?” Raquel asked. It almost sounded like a rhetorical question. As if we all already knew the answer. Except Doctor Rosario didn’t say what we all expected him to say, what we all hoped he would say.
“The damage is extensive and silver poisoning can spread over time. We think we can at least contain it, but we still need to figure out a way to cleanse it. There are a lot of steps. I’m sorry, I don’t have a better answer for you.”
Raquel nodded, understanding. The weight felt like an anchor falling on my chest.
With that, the doctor turned and went back to the operating room. Raquel wordlessly walked over to a chair and slumped into it.
Chris came over to Miles and me, placing a hand on both of our shoulders. “You two have had a long day. Go home. Rest. Keep your phones on and I’ll call you if there are any updates.”
I mustered up a smile for my best friend. He was always an “alpha” type of guy, someone I tended to lean on and go to for advice, but the gravity of tonight seemed to have unlocked something else in him.
“Are you sure?” I asked. I wanted to stay for as long as it took to see Emmy, to know he was alive.
But I also trusted that the druids were doing everything in their power to heal him and that me sitting in the waiting room wasn’t going to help with that.
I wasn’t even sure if I could go to sleep, but I did know that I was dying to just lie down in a dark room with Miles next to me, both of us quiet and safe and comfortable and together.
“Yes. You need to rest.” Chris nodded and stared me dead in the eyes. I could tell he’d argue the point if I decided to stay. I must have looked more tired than I felt.
I turned to Miles. He had washed his hands of the blood but some of it had gotten onto the side of his face, speckling his cheek and ear. His dark hair was a mess of sweat and crusted blood that he must have spread through when he ran a hand through it.
He needed a shower and a rest as badly as I did.
“Let’s go,” I said. Miles didn’t argue. He was oddly silent as we left the hospital.
I didn’t want to poke and prod at him. I didn’t think we needed to talk.
Enough was said. We could just chill together in silence, taking it all in, and speaking when we felt ready.
That was the comforting part of being with someone you so deeply connected with.
You didn’t need to fill in silence or empty space with words. Just being together was enough.
As we got into the car, my phone buzzed with a notification. I needed a distraction. Maybe it was someone sending me a silly meme, something to make me laugh.
I unlocked my phone and read the notification. Then I had to read it again. Then one more time.
“Holy shit,” I said out loud, breaking the silence as I was shocked for the thousandth time tonight.
“What? What is it?”
“It’s my cousin,” I answered. “He wants to meet up. Says he’s actually stopping in Burlington soon. That he’s been approached to join—fucking shit—to join the Bobcats.”
“No fucking way. Really? You’re not bullshitting?”
“No, you know I can’t bullshit. I laugh too much. Give everything away… holy shit.”
“That’s amazing, Dyl. What are you going to say?”
“That I sent my first message by accident and don’t feel good meeting up.”
Miles swiveled his head to look at me. “Seriously?”
“Nah, just bullshitting you. I’ll see if he wants to get lunch when he gets here.”
Miles laughed, the sound of it seeming to echo in the car. Kind of like those relaxing sound baths I sometimes hear people talk about. It was soothing. I started to laugh with him.
The air wasn’t as heavy after that. The night sky wasn’t as dark. And the nightmares I was sure I’d have were kept at bay because of Miles and his protective arm thrown over my side for the entire night.