29. Chloe
29
CHLOE
“I swear that if you don’t put him in the same room as her, I’m going to call in every single favor that I have, and I am going to bring the full force of my connections down around your head. Do you understand me?”
I open my eyes to see Logan standing in the doorway, staring down both a doctor and some type of hospital administrator.
“Hey,” I croak. “Where’s everyone else? How’d I get stuck with you? Why are you here? How many days has it been?”
He spins around, and the fire on his face melts away immediately. “Chloe. You’re awake.” He pushes past the doctor and into the hall behind them. “Ian. Guys. She’s awake.”
With a flurry of movement, Ian moves into view and takes my hand. “You’re here,” I whisper. “You’re here.”
“I’m here.” Ian drops down to one knee and holds on to me over the rail of the hospital bed. “And you scared the piss outta me, Chloe.” He’s kissing my cheek, my forehead, gently on my lips.
But I can’t quite wrap my head around what’s going on.
“You’re not supposed to be here.” My heart races. “Did…” I can’t even finish the sentence or ask my question.
“Logan’s handling it right now. You literally cannot move, Chloe. Do not get up. Do not do anything, okay? You had a lot of damage.”
An image flashes in my mind. Remnants of the nightmare. Of Kevin’s coffin. With him in it.
“Don’t tell me, Ian.” I start to cry, unable to help it. “I don’t want to know. I can’t take any bad news right now.”
“He’s alive, Chloe,” Ian interrupts my train of thought. “That’s what I was calling you for. We got him. I pulled him out myself. I swear to you, he is alive.”
I break.
There’s no other word for it.
I detonate completely, every fragment of my body unable to take the surprise and emotion that’s being pushed through me.
Ian said not to move, but I bring up my right arm, even in a cast, and my bandaged left hand and cover my face while the tears pour out of my eyes.
That small movement brings a shock of pain through me that’s almost as bad as what I felt in the basement. Nausea rolls through my stomach and into my throat, but I swallow it down.
“Kevin?” I say his name like the prayer it is. The dream come true. “You brought my big brother home?” I’m a sobbing mess, and there’s no guarantee that Ian will even understand what I’m saying.
But I should have known better. This is Ian, after all. The man who knows me better than I know myself. The man who has shown me time and time again that he loves me, that he’s willing to fight for me. That he’s able to love me the way that I need.
“We all did.” He runs a hand down my face, pushing my tangled mess of hair behind my ears. “We got him out of that hole. They had to transfer him via multiple flights and coordination between military hospitals and our local one two days ago while you were still unconscious, and now Logan’s arranging for him to be your roommate.” He shoots a glare over his shoulder. “They were trying to give us some bullshit, but I think he’s got it handled now. We all know that you need your brother here. After everything that’s happened, I have no doubt that he needs you too.”
“You brought him home.” I cry some more. And I don’t say anything else for a long time.
Ian holds me, and Logan argues with someone out in the hall. The pain starts to fade, and I see Ian holding a familiar pump.
“You need to rest.” He presses a kiss to my forehead. “And they gave you these pain medications for a reason. You need them.”
Closing my eyes against his words, I promise myself that I’m not going to fall asleep. Not until I see Kevin alive, with my own eyes.
The nurse comes in, but Ian holds my hand while she does her checks, and I don’t even bother to open my eyes. After she leaves, no one else comes into the room for so long that I’m starting to have to fight to stay awake. Until my door opens and I can hear them wheeling in a hospital bed.
That has me opening my eyes to see a familiar tangle of hair on it.
“Kevin,” I croak his name, and his listless eyes lock on mine. “Kevin. It’s you. You’re not dead. Oh, Kevin.” My voice is barely there and more than a little bit slurred. My left hand reaches out for him, but sort of just flops on the side of my bed.
“Chloe?” He doesn’t move from where they have him. It looks like he has just as many bandages wrapped around him as I do, with even more tubes and wires protruding off his body.
His eyes dart from me to Ian. “Is she here? She’s alive? I’m not dead?” He starts to sob. “Chloe, please tell me that we’re both alive and that I didn’t die. I can’t die and leave you alone.”
Ian shakes his head, refusing to let go of my hand. “She’s here. You’re both here. You’re both alive, Kevin.”
I watch him as the realization that he is home, and we are both alive, sinks in. My big brother, who never has a shadow on his face, looks like he has spent the last year in a nightmare. There is a bandage over his eyebrow, running from his temple to his forehead. And he looks like he’s been starved. Where muscle used to line his arms and neck, now sits a hollow area that I swear I can see the pits of hell through.
“You got skinny,” I tell him, trying to bring a smile to his face, even though I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to smile again.
It works. He chuckles, and I see the split in his lip start to ooze blood. “Yeah.” He blinks slowly. “When I get out of here, I really want to get some chicken nuggets. Maybe I’ll take my baby out to McDonald’s.”
“Oh.” I laugh so hard it hurts. And the hurt turns to tears. “I’m so sorry, Kevin,” I cry. “I wrecked your car. And I had chicken nuggets in it too. I’ll never get those back.”
His face freezes for a second while he tries to comprehend exactly what I’ve said. Until finally, he motions for Ian to come over to him. “Wheel me closer to her,” he orders.
Ian, ignoring the protests from the nurse at the doorway, grabs the edge of Kevin’s hospital bed and drags it over to me. I can’t even look at him; I’m so ashamed of the damage I’ve caused his car.
“You know.” His shaking hand grabs my bandaged one. “We can always get more nuggets. I bet Ian would sneak them in for us if you promise not to leave him at the altar.”
Ian snorts. “Yeah, right. As soon as the two of you are out of here, we’re eloping. No chance of that happening. I’m not chancing something else happening to take her away from me.”
“Chloe.” Kevin says my name when I won’t look at him, and his voice has more strength in it than he had a moment before. “Chloe, look at me.”
I look at him.
After all, he will always be my big brother. And I may be a giant pain in his ass, but he’s the best big brother in the entire world. And that means I’ll listen to him. At least as long as I’m in the hospital and on good painkillers.
“I don’t give a fuck about the car. You’re alive. I can buy another car. Hell, I can buy a dozen cars, and none of them will be as important as you being here. That car did its job and saved your life. I don’t give a shit if it’s in a metal pile somewhere.”
Ian reaches over and grabs my hand as gently as he can. “Damn right.”
Kevin leans back, still holding on to my hand. “Heard you won the lottery. Guess my bucket list came in handy.”
“You asshole ,” I tell him through my tears. “Do you know how much you made me cry?”
The smile on his face both warms my heart and breaks it at the same time. “Yeah, that was always the point. If you were broken, it would put you back together. And from what I hear, you were really broken, Chloe.” He sighs dramatically. “Now I’m gonna have to come up with a whole new schtick.”
“No.” The fierce order leaves my lips on a hiss. “You’re not going back overseas. I don’t care what you do. Keep it Stateside, Kevin.”
“Deal.” He closes his eyes. “But I’m gonna press the pain pump button ’cause I’m barely holding on here, Chloe. And I meant it about the nuggets. You need to convince Ian to sneak them in for us.”
“You’re home,” I say again, reassuring myself that I’m not dreaming. “You’re home. That’s all that matters.”
Ian presses a kiss to my forehead. “You didn’t say no to eloping. Wanna get married in a hospital gown?”
“Not a chance.” I sniff and smile up at him. “I want my brother to walk me down the aisle. You can wait so that I can have the wedding I never thought I’d get.”
“Damn, Chloe.” Ian kisses me again. “You sure as hell know how to break me down.”
Kevin falls asleep then, his hand slipping away from mine as the pain medication kicks in. When I’m satisfied he is still breathing, I turn to Ian with a snarl. “Did you see who kidnapped me? Who tried to kill me?”
His eyes cloud over. “I saw. And I already put a call in to Audrey because there has to have been something in her notes from treating her that would explain or show insight into her madness.”
“What about her husband?” Never in my life have I ever asked Ian a question about his patients. I never thought that one of them would try to kill me, though, either.
I watch the war on Ian’s face, watch as he battles his belief in the system and the need to tell me the truth.
“He was divorcing his wife,” Ian tells he haltingly. “He wanted to talk about the best course of action to keep her from going off the deep end. I told him that I couldn’t do that, but that I could help him through it. I could help him process his own feelings about their relationship. I swear to you, Chloe.” His hand tightens around my fingers, and I flinch, not from his touch but from the pain already there. “I swear that if I knew something that would put your life in danger, I would not hold back.”
“She said that I ruined her plan to destroy her husband,” I tell him quietly. “That poor man had to be married to a psychopath.” I want to ask what will happen to her, but I can’t find the words.
“And now he’s trying to have her committed to a mental institution instead of prison.” Ian quietly answers my unasked question. “She had him tied up in their bathroom, with a syringe of heroin on the sink, waiting to use it on him after she killed you. As soon as he came to, he told the police, anyone who would listen, that she was having a mental break and that she needed to be taken for a psychiatric hold.”
“I hope she rots in hell.” The bloodthirsty comment leaves my lips and I don’t regret it in the slightest. “I thought I was going to die.”
“I listened to the accident,” Ian whispers. “And I flew home, thinking the entire time that I had lost you. That I’d traded your life to bring Kevin home.”
“Oh, Ian.” More tears come, and I turn uncomfortably in the bed so that I can bring my bandaged hand up to his cheek. “You gotta know I’m too stubborn for that to happen. I promised I’d marry you, remember? I can’t break a promise twice.”
Pain starts to sneak up on me, tingling in my ribs and moving up to my chest.
“Ian, I’m in pain.”
He presses the button for me again, and I lean back against the pillow, looking over at my brother’s sleeping face.
“Everything’s going to be perfect now.” I open my eyes suddenly. “Oh. Ian. Don’t let me forget that we have to turn in that lottery ticket. I want everyone to have that money.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He kisses the tips of my fingers. “Right after I convince you to elope.”