Like we're not already destroyed.
Like we didn't just literally almost die together, which seems about right for our relationship.
She falls asleep again, and I watch her breathe, alive and warm and in my bed.
Miguel's going to notice she's missing. The warehouse raid will be all over the MC network. Everything's about to explode in ways we can't control.
But right now, she's alive and breathing, and that's enough.
That has to be enough.
Chapter seventeen
Sister's Anniversary
Lena
Hypothermia recovery sucked. Waking up in Zane Quinn’s actual bed, wearing his Metallica T-shirt that smelled like leather and catastrophic life choices, while my body performed its own medical rebellion? That sucked worse.
I wake up in stages, like coming out of anesthesia—first the pain, then the disorientation, then the absolute mortification of realizing I'm in a bed that isn't mine, wearing a shirt that definitely isn't mine, and my left ovary is composing symphonies about the shirtless man sitting guard in a chair beside me.
Sweet bleeding medical Mary, he's beautiful in that dangerous way that makes smart women stupid. Tattoos mapping trauma across his chest—Emma's name over his heart in script thatlooks like tears, dates that probably mark deaths, symbols I don't want to understand. Scars that tell stories I want to read with my tongue, which is clearly a sign of hypoxic brain damage because that's not a normal thought for someone who just almost died.
"You're awake." His voice is gravel and exhaustion and something else—relief maybe, or the specific flavor of worry that comes from watching someone you care about turn into a popsicle.
"How long—?"
"Six hours. Your friend Izzy knows you're alive. Your brother doesn't know you almost weren't."
I try to sit up. The room performs an impressive centrifuge impression, and my stomach considers evacuating the nothing that's in it. He's there immediately, hands on my shoulders, steadying me, and we're so close I can catalog his vitals by proximity: elevated heart rate (visible pulse at 95 BPM), dilated pupils (arousal or adrenaline or both), that copper scent of fear-sweat still clinging to his skin.
"That kiss you owe me," he says, voice dropping to that register that makes my recovering organs contemplate failure.
"Now? When I potentially have mild brain damage from oxygen deprivation?"
"Now." His thumb traces my jaw, and my skin lights up like someone's running electricity through dying nerves. "Before your brother finds out. Before this gets worse. Before—"
My phone erupts with Miguel's ringtone—"Hells Bells" because he thinks he's funny.
We freeze, inches apart, sharing the same recycled breath, while my brother's call screams between us like a Code Blue alarm. I can taste what the kiss would be—copper and danger and the kind of decision that requires informed consent I'm not capable of giving right now.
"Answer it," Zane says, pulling back but not far, his hand still on my shoulder like he's checking for a pulse. "Tell him you're at Izzy's."
My hands shake as I swipe to answer. "Hey."
"Where the fuck are you?" Miguel's voice could strip paint. "Izzy sounds like she's being waterboarded when I ask."
"I'm at her place." The lie tastes like hypothermia and betrayal. "Got sick after the warehouse. She's taking care of me."
"Sick how?"
"Exhaustion. Dehydration. The usual post-trauma collapse." Not technically a lie. Just missing the part about almost freezing to death with my body pressed against his brother's enemy.
"I'm coming over."
"No!" Too fast, too panicked. Zane's hand tightens on my shoulder. "I mean, I might be contagious. Could be flu. You can't risk getting sick with the—the thing coming up."
What thing? My hypothermic brain scrambles for MC knowledge.
