Hands gently but firmly moved her aside as they worked on Kayne, stripping off his vest and pressing gauze hard against the wound.Someone asked her name, his name, and what had happened.The words slid past her, unreal and slippery.She answered because she had to, because stopping meant thinking too hard about the way Kayne hadn’t opened his eyes.
Danica was rushed past her on a stretcher, bedraggled but conscious, her gaze locking onto Chloe’s for a split second.Chloe squeezed her hand, a silent promise pressed into that touch that everything would be okay.
She didn’t know how to keep it, but she made it anyway.
Kayne was loaded onto a gurney and rushed to the ambulance moments later, with Chloe running close behind.
“I’m coming with him,” she said immediately, already climbing in without waiting for permission.She took his hand as the doors slammed shut.
The ride was a blur of motion and noise.Monitors beeped steadily, and the smell of antiseptic assailed her nose.The EMT’s calm voice called out numbers that made no sense to her.Chloe leaned close, brushing her lips against Kayne’s knuckles.
“You’re okay,” she whispered again and again.“Do you hear me?You’re okay.”
At the hospital, everything sped up and slowed down all at once.The gurney rolled through double doors she wasn’t allowed to follow through, and suddenly his hand was being gently pried from hers.
“I’m sorry,” someone said.“You’ll have to wait here.”
“No,” she breathed, panic flaring hot and sudden.“Please?”
The doors swung shut anyway.
Chloe stood there, shaking and staring at the blank wall where Kayne had disappeared, fear crashing over her in a wave so intense it stole her breath.This was worse than any threat.
A nurse glanced at her as she passed, then did a double-take at the blood on her clothes.
“Is any of that yours?”
Chloe looked down dully.Most of it was Kayne’s.She’d forgotten about the cut on her arm entirely.The nurse followed her gaze and ushered her into triage despite her protests.
The gash was long but relatively shallow.She wouldn’t need stitches, but liquid fire raced through the wound when the nurse cleaned it.Through pain-filled eyes, Chloe glanced at her arm to make sure it was still attached.
The nurse closed the wound with butterfly bandages and wrapped it in gauze.Then she handed her a pair of blue scrubs.Chloe removed her blood-soaked clothes and tossed them in the trash.When she was cleared, she drifted back into the waiting room.
She’d never been so afraid in her life.All she could do now was sit beneath flickering fluorescent lights and pray that the man who had come through concrete walls for her would find his way back.
#
Kayne returned to consciousnessas if he’d been fired from a cannon.
He surged upward with a snarl, heart slamming, lungs burning, and every instinct screaming one word.
“Chloe.”
Hands immediately pressed him back down.“Sir, sir, stop.Don’t move.”
His vision swam, white lights streaking overhead, and voices overlapped.He tried to fight it, to sit up again, but pain detonated across his gut that stole his breath.
“Where is she?”he demanded hoarsely.“Where’s Chloe?”
“She’s safe,” someone said firmly.A man in scrubs leaned into his line of sight.“You’re in the hospital.You were stabbed.We need you to stay still.”
Kayne’s jaw clenched.Safe wasn’t the same ashere.Safe wasn’t the same as breathing next to him.He tried to push up again and paid for it instantly as heat flared under the bandages, fierce enough to make his vision tunnel.
“Don’t,” another voice warned.“You’re bleeding internally.We’re fixing it.”
Bleeding internally sounded bad.Terminally bad, if his body had any say.
Chloe wasn’t in the room.
