When I pull away and turn back to Jacob, he’s stood, arms folded, looking bored. I pull a what the fuck is your problem face and move to him.He immediately unfolds his arms and holds one out to me. Embracing me when I get to him.
“ICU is on the second floor. We can wait for the elevator, but it’s a shit show here, always one out. Stairs might be best?”
“How do you?—”
“Most crimes end in injury Summer. I spend more time here than you’d like to think.”
Obviously, I hadn’t considered that his role involves regular hospital questioning. Nevertheless, he guides me with his arm.
“This way, baby.”
I turn to my girls and give them both a thank you smile. They both throw one back at me.
The door creaks open, the smell of antiseptic rushing out like a wave. Machines beep in slow rhythm, too steady for how violently my heart is pounding.
I step in first. And stop. The sight of him knocks the breath from my lungs.
Benny—no,notBenny—lies there like something already half gone. His face is covered with swollen bruises, purple and black blooming across the bones I used to know. His lip is split, his cheek stitched. A rigid white band circles his mouth, holding a plastic tube in place that hisses with each breath the machine forces into him.
His chest rises shallowly. Drops.
A nurse at his bedside checks the monitor with brisk efficiency.
“He came in with a punctured lung,” she says matter of fact, like she’s reporting the weather. “Multiple rib fractures. Trauma to thehead. Whoever did this….” She frowns, noting something down on her clipboard. “Well, it looks like he was attacked by a gang, at least three of them, I’d guess.”
Her words rattle around in my skull. Three of them. But I know the truth. There was only one.
I glance sideways. Jacob stands just inside the door, broad shoulders filling the frame, his expression smoothed into professional neutrality. But his eyes betray him. A flicker of pride. Satisfaction. The tiniest curl at the corner of his mouth.
The nurse doesn’t see it. But I do and my stomach twists violently.
She finishes her notes, adjusts the line running into his arm, and finally slips out with a soft, “I’ll give you some time.”
The door clicks shut and silence presses down.
I stare at the man in the bed. The stranger I thought I knew. Jacob’s hand covers mine, warm, firm. He leans close enough that his breath brushes my ear.
“It’ll be okay,” he murmurs, low enough only I can hear. His thumb strokes slow circles into my skin, the softness at war with the steel in his voice. “I’ll find out what’s going on. I promise.”
I swallow hard, my throat raw. My eyes flick back to the battered body on the bed.
And for the first time, I don’t know if I want him to wake up at all.
The hallway feels longer on the way out. My legs drag, every step weighted with what I’ve just seen. The smell of antiseptic clings to my skin, and in my head, I still hear the hiss of that machine pushing breath into him.
Jacob’s hand is a steady weight against my back as we push through the double doors into the waiting area.
Constance and Adelaide are already on their feet, faces pale, eyes wide. They rush toward us the second they see us, questions spilling out before we even reach them.
“What happened? How is he?” Constance’s eyes dart between us.
I stand there, frozen. My mouth opens, but nothing comes out.
Adelaide grips my hands, her touch warm but shaking. “Summer… please. Talk to us.”
Jacob steps forward, cutting through the panic. His voice is blunt. “He’s not Benny.”
Constance blinks at him, confusion hollowing her eyes. “What? What do you mean?”
