My grip tightens.
"I'm sorry." The apology carries the weight of a man whose history with the person who caused this injury is the reason the injury occurred and whose guilt is not theoretical but causal, the specific, agonizing, if-I-had-never-existed-in-his-orbit-she-would-be-safe accountability that my analytical brain has already calculated and found devastating. "I'm sorry for not protecting you right. For not seeing him on the ice. For not tracking his route the way I track every other variable because tracking him requires acknowledging him and acknowledging him has been the thing I've been avoiding since the day he took what he took and I lost what I lost."
The ambulance sways. Taking a turn. The siren wailing above us, the sound muted by the vehicle's insulation into a distant, persistent, urgency-communicating pulse that accompanies my whispered confession like a metronome.
"I'm so fucking sorry, Sage."
The words land on her unconscious hand. Absorbed by the glove. Carried by the vibration into whatever frequency her sleeping mind can access.
I hold her hand as tightly as my grip can produce without causing damage, the pressure calibrated by the specific, desperate, if-I-hold-hard-enough-she-will-feel-it-wherever-she-is logic of a man whose only tool for reaching the woman he loves across the barrier of her unconsciousness is the physical contact that their pack has established as the language they speak when words cannot cross the gap.
The ambulance accelerates.
The hospital lights visible through the rear window, approaching with the growing brightness of a destination that holds either the confirmation of her recovery or the news that will convert the greatest game of her career into the last.
And I can only pray for a miracle.
Or at least one lucky shot at playing a wild card that ensures my Omega will make a full recovery.
CHAPTER 40
Wildcard 2.0
~SAGE~
"If this is going to be what childbirth feels like with this damn back pain, someone better knock me out just like on the ice until that baby pops out!"
The hospital room receives my declaration with the specific, acoustic resignation of a space that has been absorbing my morphine-enhanced commentary for the last forty minutes and has adjusted its expectations for the caliber of statements its current occupant is producing.
Jeffrey, standing beside the window in his immaculate suit with his hands clasped behind his back and his expression carrying the specific, patient, I-have-survived-worse quality that twenty-four years of Holloway family service has permanently installed on his features, elaborates for the room's benefit.
"She's still somewhat elevated from the morphine, it appears."
I huff. The sound carrying the indignant resonance of a woman whose pharmacological state is being narrated by her butler as if she is not present and capable of narrating it herself.
"Or I could have just smoked a joint, which would probably do the same thing. Honestly, Jeffrey, the hospital should invest in recreational options. This morphine is pedestrian compared to what we had at the frat party. Remember the frat party? Best night of my life. Well, second best. The first best involved pasta and an inverted kiss and a man whose glasses are ugly but whose mouth is?—"
Jeffrey clears his throat.
"Your father is indeed present."
I slowly turn my head on the hospital pillow, the morphine converting the motion from a quick glance into a dramatic, cinematic, slow-rotation reveal that places my father's face in my field of vision with the specific, building-tension pacing of a movie scene where the protagonist discovers a crucial piece of information.
Rick Holloway stands at the foot of the bed. His arms crossed. His coaching jacket still carrying the specific, ice-rink scent of a man who left a game in progress to reach a hospital and did not stop to change. His expression is the one I recognize from a decade of post-game debriefs: the evaluative, processing, I-am-cataloguing-everything-you-just-said face that my father deploys when his daughter has provided him with data he did not request and now cannot un-receive.
He is judging me.
The judgment is visible in the slight compression of his jaw and the elevation of his left eyebrow and the specific, restrained, coaching-grade disapproval that Rick Holloway produces when his player has made a tactical error and he is debating whether to address it immediately or file it for a future conversation where the player is not under the influence of hospital-grade narcotics.
I shrug.
"True. BUT." I raise a finger. The motion requiring more coordination than morphine permits, the digit wavering in theair between us with the specific, unsteady, wind-in-a-storm trajectory of a finger being operated by a brain whose fine motor controls have been temporarily outsourced to pharmaceutical management. "I am officially off the hook because that was by far the most brilliant performance I have ever pulled off in my life. Spectacular. Oscar-worthy. Award-season-caliber acting that deserves its own press tour and possibly a bronze statue in the Valenridge lobby."
Archie is pinching the bridge of his nose. The gesture so familiar, so characteristic, so perfectly Archie that its execution in this context carries the specific, domestic, I-have-been-dealing-with-this-woman-for-weeks energy of a man whose patience is a renewable resource and whose Omega is currently testing the renewal rate.
The twins are losing it.
Rowan's composure has degraded to the specific, shoulders-shaking, lips-pressed-together, tears-forming stage of contained laughter that is approximately four seconds from becoming uncontained. Ronan, whose self-control is typically the more durable of the pair, has abandoned the pretense entirely and is leaning against the wall with his hand over his mouth, his amber eyes streaming, his body producing the specific, silent, full-torso convulsions that occur when a man finds a situation so funny that his vocal cords have temporarily resigned from their post.
