I woke to a change in the room’s rhythm.
The monitors beeped differently—faster, more urgent. Oliver jerked awake beside me. He was on his feet before his eyes were fully open.
I crossed the room in three strides.
Kiernan’s fingers curled into the sheets. It seemed involuntary at first, then his face changed. A crease appeared between his brows, a muscle jumped in his cheek.
“Kiernan?” I grabbed his hand and held on. “Can you hear me?”
His eyelids fluttered. Once. Twice.
“We’re here,” Oliver said. “You’re in hospital. You’re safe. Take it slow.”
His gaze locked on me.
I waited for the walls to go back up. For him to push us away.
He didn’t.
His fingers threaded through mine. His eyes filled, one tear slid down his temple, and he let it fall.
No mask. No command. Just Kiernan. Broken open.
23
KIERNAN
The first sensation I felt was pain.
My shoulder ached. The rest of my body felt disconnected, heavy, wrong.
Machines registered before I opened my eyes—the rhythmic hiss of air through tubes, an electronic tone marking time in steady intervals. The smell came next—antiseptic layered over old sweat and the sharp tang of old blood.
I was in hospital. The realization came slowly through the fog.
My eyelids refused to open. I tried again, and the muscles still wouldn’t obey. My throat was dry, my tongue thick and useless against cracked lips.
Memory returned in pieces, out of order. James’ face appeared, twisted with grief. A gun was in his hand, the barrel swinging away from me, toward Oliver. I acted on instinct, putting myself between the gun and him.
My whole body tried to jerk upright. Pain shot through my shoulder, and I gasped.
Had I been too slow? Were they alive? The questions slammed into me with more force than the bullet had. I needed to know if Oliver was breathing, if Ophelia’s heart was still beating, if James had fired again after I went down. I needed to know, and I couldn’t open my fucking eyes.
I fought my body. Screamed at it inside my own head.Open. Move. Do something.My eyelids twitched but wouldn’t lift. My fingers clawed at the sheets but wouldn’t close. I was trapped inside my own skull, and somewhere out there, Oliver might be bleeding out on a concrete floor and Ophelia might be?—
There had been a second shot. I remembered that now, a crack of sound muffled by the ringing in my ears. But I had no idea what had happened after. I had no idea if I’d saved them or failed them. Not knowing was worse than the bullet. The not knowing was its own kind of death.
Something warm pressed against my right hand. Someone was touching me.
“Kiernan?” A voice. Her voice. Ophelia. “Can you hear me?”
She was alive.
My eyelids fluttered once, then twice.
“We’re here,” Oliver said from somewhere to my left.
Both of them were alive.
