“He shot you,” Zephyr says.
Jax grabs my hand. “You didn’t have to take the bullet for me.” He pauses. “But thank you. And you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.”
I exhale. My lungs burn. My chest aches with a pain I’ve never felt before. My arm is the worst of all.
Zephyr adds, “Whatever you want to do, Tiger. We’ve been looking into how to become foster parents, so we can get Zinnia.”
I look at all of them, and anxiety floods through me.
“They said it’s the only way,” Jax says. “We tried everything possible. I called this morning and they couldn’t tell me any information because I’m not family.”
I blink out more tears.
Callum kisses them away.
The nurse comes back in. “Okay, time’s up. We need to change her bandage.”
“They can stay,” I try to say. It comes out garbled.
“Hmm?” The nurse asks. Impatient now.
“Stay,” I manage.
They all look at her. She huffs and closes the door instead of kicking them out.
She washes her hands at the sink and explains everything she’s about to do with the bandage. How it might hurt. How I need to stay still.
She sits next to me and starts unwrapping the gauze carefully.
“You lost a lot of blood,” she says. “If you’re feeling lightheaded, that’s normal. But if you feel like you might faint, you need to tell us right away. Okay?”
I nod.
“We’re hydrating you with fluids. Do you think you can eat?”
She looks at me, waiting for an answer I don’t give her. My throat burns.
“We’ll try,” she decides.
When she removes the final layer of bandage, I see the bullet wound.
My skin is stapled together, bruised black and blue and purple. Swollen. Angry.
I look at the guys. They’re watching intently. It doesn’t seem to bother them.
I can’t look again.
The nurse finishes replacing the bandage, tapes it down, and washes her hands.
She looks around the room at all three of them. “If I bring food, will you feed her?”
They all agree immediately.
She eyes me like she knows something I don’t. “Okay.”
Then she leaves.
Callum says playfully, “She knows.”
