The word repeated in my head over and over.
Please.
Magnet jerked again beneath the compressions, mouth slightly open, skin turning that horrible grey colour I’d only everseen on dead men. Sophie didn’t stop. None of them did. Sweat dampened the back of her scrubs. Blood streaked one glove. Her voice stayed level anyway. And somehow that made it worse.
Because she already knew.
I could see it in her eyes before anyone said the words. The clot was too big. Too fast. Too final. The room slowly changed after that. The violence went out of it first. The urgency. Compressions slowed, voices lowered. Hope disappeared so subtly that I almost missed the exact second it left.
Then came the sound.
One long continuous tone. Flat. Empty. Final. Nobody moved. Not properly. Sophie glanced at the man to her left, and he looked up at the clock.
“No….” I whispered. “No…” like I could make a difference. Stop them from saying it.
“Time of death…”
The rest blurred.
I stared at Magnet lying still beneath white sheets and suddenly all I could think about was him laughing two fucking minutes ago. Calling Chaos a pussy because he cried during Marley and Me. Punching me in the shoulder after I got patched in. Standing beside me outside the prison gates the day I got out like no time had passed at all.
Gone. Just fucking gone.
I braced one hand against the wall because my legs suddenly didn’t feel right. Nobody noticed me.
Sophie stood completely still at the end of the bed, chest rising unevenly now the adrenaline had nowhere to go. The consultant touched her shoulder gently.
“I’ll go let the family know…” he said, like I wasn’t even fucking standing there.
I knew. I’d watched him die in front of me. No.
“No,” Sophie said quietly. “I’ll do it.”
Fuck.
Around us, the room had already started shifting back into motion. Quiet now. Controlled. One nurse silenced the monitor while another began peeling bloodied gloves from shaking hands. Someone pulled the sheet properly over Magnet’s chest with a gentleness that nearly fucking finished me off. The crash trolley rattled softly as it was pushed back out into the corridor, traces of the chaos already being cleared away because somewhere else in the hospital another poor bastard would need it next.
I glanced at Sophie. Our eyes connecting. Wordless stares. We moved away, pulling the curtains around him. I stayed half a step behind her the entire time, watching the tension build in her shoulders as we moved out into the corridor. She looked exhausted now. Pale beneath the fluorescent lights.
I saw them first. Coming back from the hospital canteen. Suzy, Emmie, Indie and Fury in the front. The twins and Baz behind them. Visiting time. They stopped when they saw us, Indie’s gaze meeting mine, knowing before we even said the words. He eased the coffee cup from Suzy and passed it to Fury, and she looked back at him quizzically and then to us.
Terror tore across her face so violently it made my chest hurt.
“No…” she whispered instantly. “No, no…”
Sophie stopped in front of her, and for the first time since I’d met her again, I saw her composure crack. Just slightly.
“We did everything we could.”
Suzy stared. Looking at Sophie, then at me, and then at Indie. Then she broke, her legs going completely and a sound ripped out of her that I’ll hear for the rest of my fucking life. Not screaming. Worse. Pure grief tearing itself out of someone’s chest.
Indie caught her before she hit the floor, and nobody else moved for a second.
Fury turned away sharply, jaw clenched hard enough to crack teeth. Baz sat down heavily in a nearby chair like his knees had given up holding him. Chaos covered his mouth with both hands while Carnage stared blankly at the wall like his brain had stopped working. Indie lowered his head. Just for a second. One hand covering his eyes before he dragged it away again. Controlled. Contained. Destroyed anyway.
I went to Suzy without thinking. Wrapping my arms around her and pulling her into my chest, too choked to say anything. She sobbed against me, her body convulsing. And I held her there. While my brothers sat in silence around us. My heart breaking harder than I could have ever imagined.
When I let go of Suzy, I looked behind me. Sophie stood quietly. The overhead lights sparkling on her cheeks, catching silent tears. Not running. Not judging. Just grieving with us, like Magnet belonged to her too.
