Because he’s hers.
I press my forehead to his, trembling with everything I can’t say. Every vow I can’t voice. Every terror I can’t bury.
I glance at the curtain again.
“Penelope…”
Her name is a wound and a prayer all at once.
The medic calls out, “We’ve stabilised her. She’s going into recovery.”
My knees almost buckle with relief.
I tuck our son closer, the living proof that she is still here, still fighting, still mine.
And for the first time since the lashings began, I breathe.
Chapter 40
BILLY
They wheel her past me.
She’s pale, too pale, her ivory skin the colour of something that’s been drained, wrung out, emptied. Her hair is damp and tangled, her lips parted, breath shallow. If I didn’t see the faint rise of her chest, I would think-
I can’t even let the thought form.
My body moves before my mind catches up. I clutch my son tighter, following the rolling cot as though held by a leash made of sheer panic.
A medic tries to stop me, “Sir, you need to rest, you’re bleeding-”
“I’m not leaving her.” My voice comes out low, razor-sharp.
And the look she gives me says she’s not brave enough to argue.
Gore stays at my side, his presence sturdy and strong, unwavering, everything I needed in the frantic hour we barely survived. Watching with me, tracking where they’re heading with my Pair.
Tolly places a steadying hand on my back, instantly wincing when it brushes a lash wound, “Billy,” he murmurs, “you’re going to pass out.”
“I said I’m fine.”
“You’re not. You're-”
“Shematters. I don’t.”
The words rip themselves out of me before I can stop them. My brother swallows hard, looking to Gore to back him up, his jaw working like he wants to fight me on it.
But when Gore doesn’t look at him, doesn’t agree, saying nothing, Tolly doesn’t fight.
He knows better.
He knows me.
We follow the cot all the way to her recovery room.
They get her onto a bed. Hook her to bags and lines. Wipe the blood from her arms. Tuck blankets around her.
All the while my son sleeps in the crook of my elbow, utterly unaware of the destruction we crawled through to bring him into this world.
