Chapter Forty-Eight Reed
Chapter Forty-Eight
Reed
Eighteen hours later
I couldn’t wrap my head around it, and neither could anyone else, especially Gwen’s team of doctors.
From the hall, I watched through the window as they finished their last round of tests. Everyone pressed in behind me, breaths shallow, waiting for the word that had already been passed around: miracle.
Gwen had been intubated with a severe concussion, internal bleeding, a collapsed lung, broken ribs, and a spinal fracture doctors believed would paralyze her. Yet she was not only alive, but she’d also already stood, walked, and spoken.
Walking. Talking. Fine. Impossible.
If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn’t have believed it.
Wyatt helped Gwen back to bed and remained alongside her while holding her hand, not bothering to hide his tears.
“It really is a miracle,” I overheard Constantine’s wife say. “No other way to explain it.”
“Why won’t Easton come out here?” Colin asked his mom. I shifted away from the window to look at him as his gaze sharpened past me. “He needs to stop blaming himself.”
I followed his line of sight to see Wyatt now joining us. “She needs a few months of PT, but she’s going to be fine.” He swiped a trembling hand down his face as if he could erase the worry with one motion. He searched the hall, voice low and rough as he said, “Gwen’s asking for him.”
Colin went around me to confront Wyatt. “It’s not his fault what happened. Don’t hate him.”
Easton was carrying the wreckage like it was strapped to his back, like he’d shot the RPG himself. Every time I’d seen him since, his eyes had a thousand-yard stare, like he was still up in that storm, gripping the stick and replaying the moment they went down.
It could have ended much differently, like with them both dying, and Easton needed to see that. Hear it from everyone, too, especially Wyatt.
Wyatt’s eyes narrowed into slits as grief crowded his face.
“She should never have been up there in the bloody first place.” He exhaled hard, chest shaking.
“I’m not ready to talk to him. I don’t know how not to yell.
” His jaw flexed. “Just get him for her.” He turned, pushing back into Gwen’s room without another word.
Constantine slung an arm around his son’s shoulders, quietly leading his family away to find Easton.
I slipped away from those gathered there. Hollis was waiting for the final word. She’d been too nervous to come out here herself.
Her door was cracked, and Julian was alongside her bed, hands on his hips, eyes expectantly on me. “Is it true? She’s really okay?”
“She’s going to be fine,” I confirmed, relieved to give them something bright after everything.
Hollis slapped a hand over her chest, closing her eyes, and Julian’s expression eased with the same fragile relief. Whatever else he thought of Gwen, I respected him for never blaming Easton once.
“You can take the antidote now,” Julian reminded her. “Tristan insists we get it over with. You need to do it.” He tipped his head toward the door, letting us know he was going to give us a moment alone first.
Once he was gone, I pulled out my phone, opened the camera, and slid onto the bed beside her.
We shared the pillow, her warmth soaking into me.
I held out the camera and took a photo of us, then quietly added it to the RTBH folder.
“You’re going to come back to me, I promise,” I said, refusing to give her a choice about this antidote.
She was on top of the covers, and she hooked her leg around mine, anchoring me. “I’m not ready to let go of this life.”
“It’s the same one.” I pocketed my phone and tangled my fingers into her hair. “We need you back, though. I need you.”
“You already have me.” A tear slid to her temple, and I caught it with my thumb. “I’m worried I won’t be the same.”
“You’ll be exactly who you’re supposed to be,” I rasped, my throat tight, fear digging claws into my chest.
“You promise you won’t give up on me if I forget what we have?”
My smile probably came out crooked, shaky at best. “I promise.”
Her lashes were wet with tears as she squeezed her eyes shut. “Let’s get it over with, then. Julian said Mum went a little wild after her injection. She had to be restrained.”
Her mother had also panicked when learning she’d revealed the truth about Tristan’s father, not that she remembered doing it.
I brushed my knuckles over her arm. “We’ll hold your hands and be right here with you while you’re going through it.”
Her eyes open now, a touch of fear flickered there I hated to see.
We lingered in the quiet for a few minutes, kissing like it’d be our last time. Though I knew damn well it wouldn’t be.
My throat burned as my nerves tried to fight their way forward once her brothers joined us.
“Don’t let me forget, okay?” she whispered, and I couldn’t answer. Not with the syringe glinting in Tristan’s hand. Not with her wearing one of my shirts like it belonged to her (and it did now, as far as I was concerned).
I stood alongside her and held her hand. Her grip crushed mine, desperate. Gideon clasped her other hand, and Julian laid his palm on her shoulder.
“Close your eyes. Go to that place of peace you created,” Tristan told her.
“Wait,” she blurted out a moment later, then angled her head to get the chain off. “I don’t want this on.” She tossed it over to one of her brothers. Eyes back on me, she murmured, “Just in case you ever need to find me.”
God, I hope not.
She finally shut her eyes, and the needle slid in, and her grip of my hand slackened. Her body arched next, seizing hard enough to shake the bed. Sweat broke on her brow. Her cry burrowed into me when we had to pin her down.
“You sure this is normal?” I bit out, dying on the inside seeing her like this.
“Yeah, she’s just fighting it more than Mum did,” Tristan said, helping us hold her down. “The drug is moving through her system. Waking up the dormant pathways that were blocked off.”
My pulse pounded like a drum, sixty seconds stretching into a lifetime before she finally settled down and went still.
Her eyes parted, wide and frantic. She scanned us one by one.
“You.” She focused on Gideon, breathing hard. “You did this to me, how could you?”
Gideon let go of her and staggered back, wrecked with guilt for something that wasn’t his fault.
Her gaze slid to Tristan next. “What’s going on? Where am I?” Then to me, she whispered, “Reed?”
Hearing that name on her lips shredded me more than I’d ever admit.
“Why are you holding me?” She yanked her hand free, and that was the final blow to my ability to keep my shit together. I backed into the chair.
“Wait,” she called out as I turned for the door. “Your dad. I was looking for something to help him. I—I think. I read the letter you hid, and . . .”
Letter? Oh shit. In my bookcase. Now it all made sense.
Her fists pressed against her forehead. “It hurts. I’m s-so confused.”
I turned, torn apart watching her break, knowing I couldn’t reach for her.
“Why don’t you step out, get some air?” Julian urged.
Her brothers gathered closer to her as I left the room, finding Ryder and Alex out there waiting for me.
“Don’t do something ridiculous like try and hug me,” I warned. The only arms I wanted didn’t remember ever holding me. “How’s Easton?” I deflected.
“He just stood by Gwen’s bed for a minute and looked at her like she was a ghost. He barely said a word and didn’t stay long,” Alex shared, voice tense. “He’s still shouldering the blame. He told Carter out in the hall he was quitting, then he went back to his room.”
My stomach clenched. “He saved their lives. He’ll change his mind.” Things change. People change.
I looked through the window into Hollis’s room. Her brothers were still near her, and she had her hands over her face. She was about to learn everything, and it would break her all over again.
Needing something solid to hold on to, I went for my phone and to the last photo we took before she was taken from me.
“She’ll remember,” Alex said, remaining steady and even-toned for my sake. “And if she doesn’t, I have no doubt you’ll make that woman fall in love with you a second time.”