47. Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Seven
Wrenley
I wake to the soft weight of something warm pressed against my side.
Hugo. His breathing is steady, heavy, his giant head resting against my hip like he’s afraid to stop touching me.
When I shift, he lifts his head just enough to look at me, eyes wide and glossy, before pressing back into me with a quiet whine.
The room is dim. Our room. The familiar scent of cedar, laundry soap, and the faint ghost of smoke lingering in the air, but it’s not the same kind of smoke.
Not his. My vision clears in slow pieces.
Doc sits on the edge of the bed, fingers wrapped around my wrist, counting my pulse.
Her expression is tight, tired, and relieved. She exhales when my eyes focus on her.
“There you are,” she murmurs. “You scared the hell out of all of us.”
I swallow, throat dry. Doc gives me a small, soft smile, one of the few she reserves for moments like this. “You’re going to be fine. That panic attack was a lot to take, but your vitals are steady.”
I nod, though my head feels heavy, my chest hollow.
She releases my wrist gently and stands. “Take it easy. I’ll be back to check on you soon.”
“Thank you,” Max says quietly from somewhere near the foot of the bed.
I turn my head. He’s pacing, running a hand through his hair in that jerky, restless way he only does when he’s barely holding himself together. The moment Doc steps out, he moves, crossing the room in two strides and dropping to sit on the edge of the mattress, close enough that our knees touch.
“Sparrow,” he breathes, voice cracking around the edges. “Are you alright?”
I blink up at him. Up close, he looks wrecked. Eyes red-rimmed. Jaw clenched tight. Shoulders bunched like he’s holding the entire world there.
“I was hoping it was all a bad dream,” I whisper. “But the look on your face tells me it wasn’t.”
Max’s breath shudders. He reaches out, slowly, like he’s afraid a sudden movement might break me, and cups the side of my face with a trembling hand. “No,” he says softly. “It wasn’t.”
A cold wave rolls through my body. My fingers curl into the blankets. “Max…” my voice fractures. “Tell me he didn’t leave.”
He closes his eyes.That alone is the answer. My heart sinks through the bed, through the floor, through the earth itself. It aches so loud I swear I can hear it. Broken. Crushed. Wrong. Max opens his eyes again, meeting mine with a grief that matches my own.
“I’m so sorry, Sparrow.” He whispers with tears in his eyes. “He’s gone.”
Hugo whines beside me, nudging my hand with his nose, as if trying to bring me back. But I feel myself drifting again. Not into unconsciousness. Into the truth. The horrible, suffocating truth. Liam left. He walked away. Alone. He did it to save me.
Max’s words echo through my skull like they’re ricocheting off the inside of my bones.
He’s gone. Gone. Gone. The word doesn’t land on my skin.
It sinks deeper. Into muscle into marrow.
Into the hollow space behind my heart, where I kept him safe.
Something inside me folds inward. And keeps folding.
“Wrenley,” Max whispers, thumb brushing my cheek. “Stay with me, Sparrow. Look at me.”
I try. I think I try. The world blurs around the edges, smears like wet paint running down a canvas. Max’s face dissolves into color and light and shadow, slipping away even though he’s inches from me.
My breath goes shallow. Not fast. Not panicking. Just… shallow. Like my body doesn’t care enough to do it right.
Max’s hand tightens on my jaw. “No. No, Sparrow, don’t you do this. Don’t you disappear on me, too.”
Disappearing. That’s exactly what it feels like. Like I’m slipping backward through myself, falling into a dark, soft place where everything is quiet. Numb. Muted. A place I haven’t been since the night Max was taken and my screams tore the world apart.
I blink. But my eyes don’t really focus. Everything feels distant, muffled behind a thick wall of cotton and glass. Max’s arms wrap around me and pull me to his chest. He holds me like Liam did that night, back when he was still Reaper, tight, protective, terrified.
Except this time, Liam isn’t here to share the weight. Max rocks me slightly, his breathing stuttering. “It's okay. I’ve got you. I’ve got you, Sparrow. Stay with me. Please.”
The door opens softly. Margot’s voice. Low, careful, and afraid. “Max… how is she?”
“She's dissociating,” Max murmurs, brushing his fingers through my hair. “Was this how it was when I was gone? Worse maybe?”
A pause. “Oh my god, yea, it was like this.” Margot breathes. Footsteps shift closer. “Wrenley? Hey. It’s me.”
I hear the words, but they feel like they’re coming from underwater. Margot kneels in front of me, her face blurring in and out. “Wren… look at me. Come on. Please.”
Nothing. I just sit there. Breathing, but not really.
Eyes open but not seeing. Present, but gone.
The door opens again. Torque’s voice is low and angry at someone who isn’t in the room.
“We’ve got a partial trail. Riot’s pulling feeds.
Elias is working on tracking his last pings from before he cut the tracker out. ”
Max doesn’t respond. His entire focus is on me, on keeping me tethered. Wrecker appears next, leaning in the doorway. His voice cracks when he tries to lighten it. “Hey, Wren. You’re okay. We’re here. He’ll be okay. We’ll get him home.”
But the words slide right through me. I hear them. I just don’t feel them.
Doc returns briefly, checking my pulse, my pupils, the set of my jaw. “She’s not unconscious. This is a freeze response. Keep grounding her. No sudden movements. No loud noises.”
Hugo whines and climbs halfway onto the bed, laying his massive head on my lap. His weight is warm. His breathing is steady. Somewhere… far away… I register it. But it’s distant. Max presses a kiss to the side of my head, whispering something quiet and desperate, a prayer without words.
Time passes, I don’t know how long. Minutes. Hours. A lifetime.
More updates come in hushed tones. Riot is saying they found something about a factory district.
Elias, cursing under his breath about wiped cameras.
Torque punching a wall outside the door.
Margot is fighting tears while she strokes my hair.
Through it all, Max holds me. He never moves.
Never loosens his grip. Never stops whispering my name like it might pull me back.
But I don’t come back. Because the world isn’t whole.
And neither am I. I have Max. But there is a Liam-shaped hole tearing through my chest, gaping, bleeding, pulsing.
A place inside me that went dark the moment he walked out that door.
A place that doesn’t know how to be alive without him. A place that feels incomplete.
Time stops meaning anything. There are no mornings. No nights. No meals. No conversations. There is only the bed. The ceiling. The quiet weight of Hugo pressed against my leg. The faint shift of the mattress when Max changes positions beside me.
People come and go. Riot’s heavy footsteps, Elias whispering updates, Doc checking my pulse, Margot brushing hair from my face, Torque cursing under his breath as he paces. They don’t reach me. Not really. Everything is muted. Blurred. Distant. Like I’m watching the world through thick glasses.
They speak to me. Touch me. Hold me. But it doesn’t land. My eyes stay open. But I don’t blink much. I don’t move unless someone moves me. I don’t speak. My soul feels somewhere… else. Somewhere dark. Somewhere far from here.
Through it all, Max never leaves. Not once. He sleeps beside me. He eats beside me. Sits on the bed with his hand wrapped around mine like he’s holding the last thread tethering me to this world.
I feel the warmth of him. I hear the sound of his voice but I don’t feel him. Not the way I used to. Not the way he deserves. Until one night, or maybe morning, or maybe hour forty or ninety, Max shifts beside me with a ragged, broken breath.
Not the normal kind from exhaustion or frustration or fear. A different sound. Wet. Splintered. A sob. Then another one. The next hits like it tears something inside him wide open. He curls into me, forehead pressed to my shoulder, body shaking.
“Wrenley…” His voice cracks so hard I swear something in him breaks. “Sparrow, please—please come back to me. I don’t—” his words splinter. “I don’t know what to do without you. I don’t know how to—fuck—how to breathe when you’re not here.”
Max doesn’t cry. He hasn’t cried in years. Not since his father’s funeral. Not when he was stabbed and beaten bloody for refusing to join the old Black Serpents. Not even when he thought he was going to die the night my parents had him kidnapped.
But he’s crying now. For me. Because of me. His tears hit my collarbone, warm, real, alive. Something in my chest snaps. Like a fault line giving way. Like a bone setting wrong. Like a scream cracking through concrete. I gasp. A sharp, broken sound that rips out of me without warning.
Max jerks back instantly, hands flying to my face. “Sparrow? Sparrow—hey---look at me. Look at me—”
My eyes focus. Actually focus. His face is right there, wrecked, red-rimmed, terrified. Suddenly the world isn’t underwater anymore. It’s bright. Too bright. Painfully bright. My breath drags in too fast and too sharp and too real. “Max…”
It comes out like a scrape of air.
He chokes on another sob, cupping my cheeks with both hands. “Yeah. Yes. I’m right here. I’m right here, Sparrow.”
Everything hits me at once. The bed. The room. Hugo is pressing against my legs. Max’s shaking hands. The ache in my spine. The dryness in my mouth. The hollow pounding behind my eyes. Then the grief. A tidal wave slamming into my ribs. “Liam.” The name tears out of me, raw and shredded.
Max swallows hard, thumbs brushing my tears, because now I’m crying too, ugly and violent and unstoppable.