It’s a jagged, pale line that stretches the seam of her sternum, curving the costal cartilage and spanning the joint between ribs. Seventeen delicate points of connection, mapping pain like the stars of the Hydra constellation.
A surge of fury cracks beneath my chest, so sharp and sudden, I’m forced to look away. I want those hidden truths she guards, but some resistant part of me dreads knowing them more.
The contacts she wears—the ones that conceal the solar storm of fury burning at the edges of her gray irises. Her hair—the lighter strands apparent at her roots. All the details the algorithm never revealed—her condition, her apparent medical procedure. Either something happened in her past and wasn’t reported, or?—
“Shit.” Collins bends awkwardly, reaching down to remove her boot. I exhale a rough breath and wordlessly drop to my knees before her, grasping the zipper. She braces her hands on my shoulders, fingers noticeably trembling as I ease the first boot off. As I remove the second, a small wince escapes her, the sound cutting right through me.
“How much pain are you in.” My voice cracks as I set her boots aside, rising to grip the counter hard enough the edge bites into my palm. No glove to dull the sensation.
After a hesitant beat, she says, “There’s some sternal soreness, like I got punched.” My knuckles bleach, her words like a fucking punch to me. “Deep breaths sharpen the pain, but I’m okay. There’s no fracture.” She takes a slow, measured breath to prove her point. “But I’m used to the pain. You know, we just…adapt.” Her fingers curl into her wet blouse, rivulets tracing a path down her skin. “I’ve suffered worse.”
What she leaves unsaid detonates in the air between us.
“It’s a sternotomy scar,” I say, my statement a demand for more.
Her fingers trace the raised seam of her chest. “Mitral regurgitation,” she confirms quietly. “I had a valve repair…a while ago. But I still have symptoms.”
Her clinical tone strikes a match inside my chest. She struggles to take a deeper breath, her features etched by unmistakable discomfort. Anger surges hot, and I reach for her pill case.
“Those aren’t for pain,” she says, halting my movement. At my narrowed gaze, she says, “Beta-blockers and amiodarone to slow my heart rate and keep it stable. Nitroglycerin for emergencies. When blood flows…wrong.”
I lower my hand, then drive it through my hair, rage clawing at my scalp.
“It’s happened before,” she continues, “and it can again, Orion. Sometimes a valve leaflet catches. It’s manageable, but… Nothing could’ve changed the outcome.”
Changed the outcome.
Her shallow cough threads my spine taut. Anger lashes hot across my skin. Everything in me wants to tear the room apart for a pulse-ox. Call in a trauma bay. Demand a chest film, an ECG—all the actions a sane man takes to prove he hasn’t broken the woman he loves.
“We should get you—” I stop, jaw hinged tight. “A doctor. Just in case.”
“No hospital. Please.” A tremor fractures her plea. “I just need to get warm. Stabilized. Let the medicine work. There’s nothing more that can be done, anyway.”
I start to grab the med kit from the lab and stop cold, muscles locking. The thought of her out of my sight for even a fraction of an arrhythmic heartbeat is a cavernous pit of fear opening beneath me. My fingers stutter an anxiousone, one, two, three, five, oneagainst my thigh.
I know precisely how long she was under. Exactly how long I lost her. I counted every terrifying second.
I hate that it makes me feel useless. I loathe even more that I question her.
What I want to demand is trapped behind the knot in my throat. And if I look straight into her starry eyes, there will be no holding it back. Every answer I want from her, every confession I owe her, is suspended like the silence between two notes.
Instead, I listen to the rattling sound of her breaths, uselessly counting each rise and fall.
How the hell do I demand anything from her when there’s no way toexplain this place without damning myself further. Admitting that I’ve imagined what crushing her heart would feel like. Obsessed over tasting her last breath as it trembled against my lips.
I blink hard, forcing the intrusive thought down deep as I attempt to bury my rage. Bowing my head, I turn to leave.
“How did you know, Orion.” Her whispered question is laced with the same fearful apprehension constricting my chest.
The knot thickens into an ache at the base of my throat. Keeping my back to her, I release a tense breath. “You wouldn’t believe me.”
“Try me.”
I lift my head, staring into the shadowed depths of the room across from me. “I’ve known since the night I carried you from that rock,” I say, letting that single truth hang in the gathering steam. Then, swallowing the anguish, I turn and meet her imploring eyes with fierce conviction. “I’ve known, and I’ve been fighting a fucking rising tide of desperation not to lose you.”
Something guarded and uncertain flickers behind her eyes. “You’ve known this whole time.”
“Yes,” I admit, utterly miserable.
