Chapter 14 #2
"Okay," I said finally. "Thank you."
"Stay safe, Ava. We're going to win this."
He hung up. I sat on my bed, trying to convince myself he was right.
I buried myself in work after that.
The ER was its usual chaos—a steady stream of broken bones, chest pains, lacerations, overdoses. I moved through it on autopilot, letting the familiar rhythm carry me. Start an IV. Order labs. Consult surgery. Move on.
But underneath the routine, a new fear had taken root.
Every time the ambulance bay doors swung open, my heart seized. When I heard the paramedics calling out vitals, I braced myself. I kept waiting—dreading—the moment I'd see a familiar face on one of those gurneys. Shane. Garrett. Rodriguez.
Brian.
They're fine, I told myself. They're being careful. Nothing's going to happen.
But the Langs had already proven they could reach anyone. Shane's family. Garrett's car. Maya was at her school. The threats were mounting, and I couldn't shake the feeling that worse was coming.
Three hours into my shift, I was suturing a laceration. Routine. Automatic. The kind of work I could do in my sleep. Then Dr. Park appeared in the doorway.
"Rothwell. You need to come to Trauma 2."
Something in his voice made my hands go still.
"I'm in the middle of—"
"Dr. Palmer can finish. You need to come now."
I handed off the suture kit, stripped my gloves, and followed Park down the hallway. My heart was pounding. Park didn't pull attendings off patients without good reason.
"What's going on?"
Park didn't answer. Just kept walking, his face carefully blank.
We reached Trauma 2. The curtain was drawn. I could hear voices inside—nurses, the familiar sounds of assessment and triage.
Park stopped. Looked at me.
"Brace yourself," he said quietly.
I should have known then. Park never warned anyone about anything.
He pulled back the curtain.
And my worst fear became reality.
Brian was on the gurney.
For a second, I didn't recognize him. Then I did.
His face was swollen, bloody, one eye already purpling shut.
"No." The word was scraped out. "No, no—"
I moved before I knew it, pushing past the nurses, reaching for him. His good eye found me. Something flickered there. Relief. Apology. Fear
"Hey." His voice was wrecked. Rough with pain. But he tried to smile. Actually tried to smile, with his lip split and his face a mess of bruises. "Fancy meeting you here."
"What happened?" My hands were shaking as I assessed him. Swelling, contusions, possible orbital fracture. "Brian, what happened?"
"Got into a fight." He winced as my fingers probed his ribs. "You should see the other guys."
A fight. He was lying to me. I could see it in the way his gaze slid away from mine.
"Dr. Rothwell." One of the nurses—Jenny—touched my arm gently. "Maybe you should let us—"
"I've got it." My voice came out sharp. Too sharp. I forced myself to breathe. "Just... give me a minute."
The nurses exchanged glances but stepped back.
I turned to Brian. Looked at him. The damage was methodical. Professional. Deep bruising across his ribs—I could feel the tenderness as I palpated, but no crepitus, no shifting to indicate fractures. Facial contusions designed to hurt, to mark, but nothing that would cause permanent damage.
Thank God. No fractures. No internal bleeding. He would heal.
But even as relief loosened something that had been clenched tight.
"The Langs," I said quietly. "They did this."
Brian's jaw tightened. He didn't deny it.
"What did they say?"
"Nothing that matters."
"Brian."
"Ava." His hand found mine, gripped hard despite the IV they were trying to place. "Listen to me. This doesn't change anything. This is just—they're desperate. It means we're winning."
"You're lying in a hospital bed covered in bruises."
"And I'll heal." His grip tightened. "Don't blame yourself for this. Don't you dare."
"How can I not? You're hurt because of me. Shane's family is being threatened because of it. Garrett, Maya, Rodriguez—everyone is in danger because I couldn't keep my mouth shut about what I heard."
"You reported a crime." His voice was fierce despite the pain. "You did the right thing. The Langs are the ones hurting people, not you."
I wanted to believe him. I wanted to believe all of them.
But looking at his battered face, the bruises already darkening, the blood still drying in his hair, belief felt very far away.
"I need to examine you properly," I said, pulling my hand back. "You need imaging. X-rays, CT scan, rule out internal bleeding."
"Ava—"
"Dr. Chen." I turned to the resident hovering nearby. "Order a full trauma workup. Chest X-ray, head CT, and complete metabolic panel. I want him admitted overnight for observation."
"Dr. Rothwell, maybe you should let someone else—"
"Now, Dr. Chen."
He scrambled to comply. I turned back to Brian and pulled the professional mask firmly into place.
It was the only thing keeping me from falling apart.
The scans came back clean.
I stood in the radiology suite, staring at Brian's chest X-ray on the lightboard, and let out a breath I hadn't realized I'd been holding.
No fractures. No pneumothorax. No internal bleeding.
Just bruises. Deep, painful bruises that would take weeks to fully heal—but nothing broken. Nothing that wouldn’t heal.
"Thank God," I whispered to the empty room.
Dr. Chen appeared in the doorway. "Dr. Rothwell? The CT results are in. No intracranial bleeding, no orbital fractures. He's cleared."
I nodded. Kept staring at the X-ray.
"He's lucky," Chen said quietly. "Whoever did this knew what they were doing. They hurt him without causing any permanent damage."
That was the part that terrified me most. The precision of it. The professionalism.
This wasn't rage. This was a warning.
They admitted him overnight to monitor for internal bleeding.
I pulled strings, called in favors, and made sure he had the best room and the most attentive nurses. I handled everything with ruthless efficiency. Because efficiency was all I had left. If I stopped moving, I would shatter.
The crew came. Shane's face went hard when he saw Brian's injuries. Garrett was silent and watchful as he took up position by the door. Maya held my hand and didn't let go.
They stayed until visiting hours ended. One by one, they hugged me, promised to come back tomorrow, and told me to call if I needed anything.
Shane and Maya were the last to leave.
"This isn't your fault," Shane said quietly. "Whatever guilt is eating at you—this isn't your fault. The Langs did this. Not you."
I nodded because I couldn't speak.
Then it was just me and Brian and the steady beep of the monitors.
He fell asleep around eleven.
The pain meds pulled him under gradually, his grip on my hand loosening, his breathing evening out. I sat in the chair beside his bed and watched his chest rise and fall.
His face was worse now than it had been hours ago. The swelling had spread, the bruises darkening from red to purple. Tomorrow they'd be black. Tomorrow, he'd look like someone had tried to kill him.
Because of me.
I reached out and brushed my fingers gently across Brian’s bruised cheek. He didn't stir.
"I'm so sorry," I whispered.
The tears came without warning.
I'd spent fourteen years not crying. Fourteen years of building walls so high that nothing could touch me. But sitting here in the dark, looking at the man I loved—beaten and bloodied because he'd chosen to stand beside me—
I cried silently, one hand pressed to my mouth to muffle the sounds, the other still resting on Brian's face. I cried for him. For Shane and Maya and their dreams for their family. For Garrett, quiet and loyal, his car was vandalized for the crime of helping a friend.
I cried for all of them. And I cried for myself—for the girl who'd learned to survive alone, who'd never wanted to need anyone, who'd finally let herself love and now had to watch that love become a weapon against everyone she cared about.
Brian's hand twitched on the blanket. Even in sleep, he was reaching for me.
I took his hand. Held it against my chest.
"I can't let this keep happening," I whispered. "I can't let them keep hurting you. Hurting everyone."
He didn't answer. Didn't hear me. Just slept on, trusting me to be there when he woke.
I watched the monitors blink. Listened to the steady rhythm of his breathing. Let the tears dry on my cheeks.
The guilt was still there, coiled tight. But underneath it, something else. Harder. Sharper.
I didn't know yet what I was going to do. The shape of it was still forming in the back of my mind, half-formed but certain.
But I knew one thing with absolute certainty:
I couldn't let them keep paying the price for loving me.
Whatever it took—I had to end this.
Outside the window, the first gray light of dawn was starting to creep across the sky. A new day. A day when I would have to make a choice.
I pressed a kiss to Brian's bruised knuckles.
"I love you," I said quietly. "I'm so sorry for what I'm about to do."
He slept on, peaceful, trusting.
I sat beside him. Watched the monitors. Waited for the sun to rise, and for the courage to do what came next.