Hospital Room
The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, cold and uncaring. Machines beeped a steady rhythm beside me. Nurses moved like blurs in and out of the room. But Evelyn? She was right there.
Wrapped in a scratchy blanket, hair wild, eyes distant—but alive. Alive. The bullet wound ached beneath the gauze, but it wasn’t pain that held me hostage.
It was fear. Raw, choking fear that I hadn't felt since the night Grace tried to end me. I gripped the edge of the bed and caught the nurse by the elbow.
“Doc,” I rasped, “she needs to be examined. Thoroughly. Now.”
Evelyn straightened abruptly. “I’m fine—”
“You’re not,” I snapped, sharper than I meant to be. “You were kidnapped. Tied up. Starved. Threatened. I want every bruise, every cut documented. I want to know you aren’t hurt somewhere you’re too damn proud to mention.”
Her lips parted—surprise, pain, maybe gratitude flickering behind her eyes. Then she nodded slowly. “Okay.”
I watched her walk down the hallway with the nurse, my hands curling into fists around the hospital blanket. Not from anger. Not from jealousy. Not from pride. From helplessness.
I promised to protect her. And I failed. An IV dripped steadily into my hand, doing nothing for the part of me cracking open like old stone.
She came back ten minutes later. Eyes glassy. Her hands folded in her lap. Silent in a way that gutted me. I reached out, palm up, asking without asking. She took my hand. “They say I’ll live,” I murmured, half a laugh, half a confession. “Which means I get to keep my promise.”
She blinked. “Which one?”
“That you’ll never be alone again.”
Her breath caught. Tears didn’t fall—she never let them—but she leaned her head gently onto my shoulder. Her whisper was soft. Terrifyingly soft. “Neither will you.”
I closed my eyes. Because I knew then—pain, bullet wounds, consequences, enemies—none of it mattered. I’d found the one thing worth surviving for. And I was never letting her go again.