I stand near the medical room door, watching Vail work through the gap.
Watching Aesir—the club medic—check equipment and lay out tools.
Scalpels.
Gauze.
Sutures.
Things I recognize.
Things I don't.
They're preparing for something bad.
I can see it in their faces.
In the way they move with controlled urgency.
In the supplies they're pulling out—things that shouldn't be necessary for a minor injury.
Someone presses a cup of coffee into my hands.
I don't drink it.
Just hold it, feeling the warmth seep into my cold fingers.
Something to anchor me.
Something to focus on besides the fear eating me alive.
"Doctor Reynolds is on his way," Aesir calls out. "Twenty minutes."
Doctor Reynolds.
The club's doctor.
The one they call when things are too serious for field medicine.
The one who's patched up bullet wounds and stab wounds and injuries that should've been fatal.
If they're calling him, this is bad.
This isreallybad.
Mom appears beside me, takes the untouched coffee from my hands and sets it aside.
"He's going to be okay," she says softly.
"You don't know that."
"No. I don't." She wraps an arm around my shoulders. "But I know Gunnar. And I know he has every reason in the world to fight his way back."
Every reason.
Me.
I'm supposed to be his reason.
