"My mom said my name too," I hear myself say. "After the crash. Before she died. Like she was apologizing."
We stare at each other through screens, two broken people finding matching shards.
"We're both broken," he says, like he's reading my mind.
"Maybe broken fits together better," I reply, and watch something shift in his expression.
Behind him, soft and tragic, Hozier starts playing. "Work Song," because the universe has a twisted sense of humor about our soundtrack.
"This is our song," he says, matter-of-fact drunk. "This is playing when I marry you."
"You're drunk."
"Doesn't make it less true."
"Zane—"
"I need to hold you. For real this time. No freezer required." His voice breaks slightly. "Just need to know you're real. That you're okay. That we survived."
"We survived," I confirm, even though survival feels like a technicality when everything else is falling apart.
"Play the song," he says. "Play it and think about me."
I do. I lie in bed playing "Work Song" on repeat, thinking about a man I shouldn't want, who saved my life, who's mourning hissister while I'm betraying my brother, who talks about marriage like it's possible for people like us.
My body's recovering from hypothermia.
My heart's developing something worse—symptoms of a condition that's probably terminal, definitely inadvisable, absolutely irreversible.
I'm falling in love with Zane Quinn.
Miguel's going to kill us both.
Chapter eighteen
Unknown Recognition
Zane
Following the Ghost Clinic tip to a diner felt like fate laughing at my life choices, which, fair enough—fate's got plenty of material to work with.
It's Friday afternoon, and I'm at Rosie's Diner on Central because Ghost's intel said the medical van was spotted here during lunch rush. I'm supposed to observe, report back, maybe make contact if the angel nurse seems approachable. What I'm not supposed to do is sit here having a cardiac event every time someone in scrubs walks by.
It's been five days since the freezer. Five days since I held Lena Cruz's hypothermic body against mine and learned what her skin feels like, what her hair smells like, what her unconscioussounds like. Five days of texts and one drunk FaceTime where I told her I'd marry her, which would be embarrassing if I didn't mean it.
The door chimes. I glance up from my coffee—black, like my mood and my prospects—and everything stops.
Not metaphorically. I mean everything actually stops. My heart, my breathing, higher brain function. Because walking through that door is an angel in scrubs covered in what looks like blood, carrying a medical bag that's seen better decades, and looking like she's running on caffeine and stubbornness.
Lena. My angel.
The Ghost Clinic angel.
Of fucking course.
She doesn't see me. She's focused on the elderly woman in booth three who's clutching her chest, skin going gray, while her teenage grandson panics in Spanish.
"Call 911," Lena says, already moving, already in medical mode. "Now."
