25
CAGED THUNDER
DOMINIC
The monitors beeped in a steady rhythm that had become background noise over fourteen days of watching Cal breathe. Fourteen days of counting each rise and fall of his chest. Fourteen days of waiting for those mismatched eyes to open and stay open.
I hadn't shaved in a week and hadn't left the hospital except when Adrian physically dragged me out for food. My reflection in the window showed a man I barely recognised—hollow-eyed, unshaven, running on caffeine and fear.
Then Cal's eyes opened.
Not the brief, drugged flickers I'd seen before, but fully open, focused, and present.
“Dom?” His voice was rough and raw, and it was the most beautiful sound I'd ever heard.
I was at his bedside before conscious thought caught up. “I'm here. I'm right here.”
His hand found mine, weak grip but there. “How long?”
“Two weeks.” The words came out rough. “You've been out for two weeks.”
Cal blinked slowly, trying to process. “Two weeks?”
“Yeah. You were shot. Surgery. Complications. You coded twice and spent four days on a ventilator because your lung collapsed.” I couldn't stop the words now they'd started. “There were times when the doctors said we should prepare. When the alarms went off and I thought—I thought I'd lost you.”
“Dom—”
“No. Let me finish.” My grip on his hand tightened. “Four days ago, your heart stopped. Just stopped. They brought you back, but it took three minutes—three minutes where you were gone and I couldn't—” My voice broke completely. “I couldn't breathe. Couldn't think. Couldn't do anything except watch them work on you and pray it was enough.”
Cal's other hand reached up and touched my face, found the wetness there. “You're crying.”
“Yeah. I'm crying.” I didn't bother wiping the tears away. “You scared the hell out of me, Cal. Watching you lie there for two weeks, not knowing if you'd wake up, if I'd ever get to talk to you again, if I'd ever?—”
I couldn't finish. The tears were coming too fast now—two weeks of holding them back, two weeks of being strong because crying felt like giving up, two weeks of watching him hover between alive and not.
“Hey.” Cal pulled me closer, his grip weak but determined. “I'm here. I'm okay.”
“You're not okay. You were shot. You nearly died. Multiple times.” I leaned into his touch without caring how desperate I looked. “But you're awake. You're talking. You're here.”
“I'm here.” His thumb stroked my cheek, wiping away tears. “I'm sorry I scared you.”
“Don't apologise. Just don't do it again.”
“Can't promise that.” But he was smiling slightly, with tears in his own eyes now. “Not if you keep getting yourself into situations where bullets are flying.”
“Then we both promise. No more bullets.”
“Deal.”
I pressed my forehead to his, careful of the IV lines and bandages. Just breathing together. Both alive despite everything.
“When you went down,” I said quietly, “when the blood just kept coming, when you stopped breathing in the ambulance—I thought that was it. That I'd never get to tell you?—”
“Tell me what?”
I pulled back and met his eyes, those mismatched colours focused on me with an intensity that made my chest ache. “Tell you that you matter. That you've become the most important thing in my life. That watching you fight for justice, for truth, for people you've never even met—it reminded me why any of this is worth it.”
Cal's eyes filled with fresh tears. “Dom?—”
