Or unlucky.
Depending on how you look at it.
“Eyes on me,” he says quietly. His tired face is calm. The same expression I’ve seen him use with patients who are two seconds from losing it completely. “Breathe.”
I manage a full breath. Then another. A third.
The shaking doesn’t stop but it gets slightly less violent.
“I’m okay,” I tell him. My voice sounds wrong. Flat and distant. “I’m okay.”
He doesn’t call me on the obvious lie. Just nods in the chair beside me.
We sit there in silence once more. Ben’s breathing is slow and steady against my chest. Monitors beep from behind closed doors. Someone’s paging a doctor over the intercom. Normal hospital sounds.
Except nothing about this is normal.
My phone buzzes in my jacket pocket. I don’t want to check it but Ethan gives me a look that says I should.
It’s the ranger. The one who arrived first on scene. Who took the shotgun from my white knuckle grip and told me the bear was gone even though I already knew that because I’d watched it run into the brush after I sprayed it in the face with enough capsaicin to drop an elephant.
Found the bear. Put it down.
I stare at the words until they stop making sense. Then I put the phone away.
“They shot it,” I tell Ethan emotionlessly.
“Good.” His voice is hard. Protective brother mode fully activated.
I should feel something about that. Relief maybe. Justice. Closure. Whatever you’re supposed to feel when the thing that almost killed the man you love and might kill him yet gets killed in return.
Instead I feel nothing.
Just. Nothing.
The double doors at the end of the corridor swing open. A doctor appears. Young guy. Tired eyes. Surgical scrubs still on.
“Family of Marco Fiore?”
I stand up so fast Ben slides off my lap. Ethan catches her before she can fall and settles her back into the chair. Still asleep. Still breathing. Still okay.
“I’m his—” I stop. What am I exactly? His employee? His lover? The woman who let him get mauled because she moved the bear spray to her pack instead of keeping it clipped to her belt where she could actually reach it when she needed it?
“She’s family,” Ethan says firmly. “So am I. How is he?”
The doctor glances at Ben. Sleeping. Then back to us. “The surgery went well considering the extent of his injuries. We had to reconstruct significant portions of his face and shoulder. The scarring will be permanent and extensive but he’s alive. And stable.”
Alive.
And stable.
The word hits different than I expect. Not relief. More like a reprieve. A stay of execution.
“Can we see him?” My voice cracks on the last word.
“He’s in recovery now. Unconscious.Will be for a while. But yes. You can see him. Just keep it quiet. And brief.”
“How brief?” Ethan asks.
