There was so much I wanted to say, so many things I wanted to thank him for, yet none of them were coming to mind. My body was so damn tired, my energy reserves fading faster than I could force them to keep up with me.
Stay with me...
While falling back into that dark pit of nothingness, where pain and my consciousness evaporated, the last thing I felt was Blake’s lips brushing against mine before everything else faded away completely.
CHAPTER 23
Blake
The sterilityof a hospital was one of the only things in this world that truly got my skin crawling.
There was something about the smell of antibacterial wash clinging to the air, coupled with the soft and distant beeping of machines going off from down the hallway, that turned my typically calm and collected self into a twitched mess of anxiety.
Being crammed in this chair for the last few hours was pure torture. It had nothing to do with how pinched my back was feeling from how tightly I had my legs drawn up to my chest, nor the way I’d been hunched over for the better part of three hours while watching nurses and doctors come and go from the double doors leading into the emergency unit.
None of them stopped to update me on Marlow’s condition, which meant one of two things: either he was still in surgery, or something else had gone horribly wrong and they were gearing up to come break the news.
Both of which made my stomach twist.
I was fortunate to arrive alongside Marlow when he was transported to Ellington Medical, the search and rescue team not taking any chances with leaving Talos and I out in the wilderness seventy feet below the plateau of the mountain’s peak where we’d eventually found his beaten and broken body.
Seeing that image, belaying down to him while he lay motionless and stuck between a bunch of shrubs that had stopped his fall, was something I was never going to forget. It was going to haunt my worst nightmares for the rest of my life, no matter what the outcome of all of this turned out to be.
Around an hour into sitting in this waiting room, three people arrived at the nurse’s desk asking for Marlow. A woman who looked just like him, and two men, both around the same age as him. Taunt distraught was written in all of their faces, an emotion I felt gripping me tight from deep within me the moment I’d gotten my feet back on solid ground in the ambulance bay.
Talos had left shortly after arriving at Ellington Heights, per my request, even after he fought to stay with me to keep me company. As much as I would’ve loved the companionship, I needed someone that wasn’t my poor granddad back atAustin Adventuresrunning everything in my absence.
I could only assume the people sitting on the opposite side of the waiting room from me were Marlow’s family, also eagerly awaiting for a status update on his condition.
I’d kept to myself the entire time we were all here, not wanting to interject in whatever quiet solidarity was resonating between all of them while they spoke in hushed whispers and gentle shoulder rubs of support to tell them I was the one mostly responsible for this horrible accident happening in the first place.
What was there to say, anyway?
My confession wouldn’t make any of this better.
When the doors to the ER parted, a man in surgery scrubs, a cap over his hair, and clear plastic glasses perched on his nose walked over to Marlow’s family. My eyes were locked onto him as he squatted down in front of Marlow’s mother, her hands shooting out to grip the surgeon by the shoulders while she spoke to him in a hushed whisper.
The back of the doctor’s head nodded and then she burst into tears, thanking him loudly before throwing her arms around him.
Without meaning to, I melted back into my seat.
That was a good sign.
They all exchanged familiar pleasantries with one another, one of the men getting up to bring the surgeon into a one-armed hug while slapping him on the back a few times. After parting, they were gestured to walk through the double doors, a room number I couldn’t quite catch being given to them just as they all quickly shuffled beyond the nurse’s desk.
Slowly straightening up, I let my legs drop to the ground while pins and needles raced up from my toes. I supposed that was my cue to?—
I froze the moment the surgeon pivoted and headed my way.
He was probably a little shorter than Marlow but not by much, and with slightly wider shoulders. His scrubs fit snug over his muscular build, creasing slightly under his arms when he brought them toward his face. His arms were covered in tattoos, leaving no signs of visibly un-inked skin.
He snapped off his gloves one by one, a silent show of authority that didn’t go unnoticed by me.
“Blake, right?” His ice blue eyes were narrowed dangerously behind his protective glasses, the cloth mask covering the lower half of his face giving me nothing to work with outside of the very dull tone he was using.
I swallowed. “How is he?”
“He’ll survive.”
