I opened the door and stepped into the hall. A passing nurse glanced from us to the supply closet door, then looked away. Was it a hot hookup spot for doctors working long shifts?
“I think she thought I was blowing you in there or something,” I said as we continued down the hall toward Cassie’s room.
Hawk scoffed. “If anybody’s blowing anybody it’s you blowing me.”
“I’m secure in my manhood,” Jagger said. “You can put me wherever you want in the equation.”
The hospital corridors were busier now than they had been a few hours before. Food carts rattled past, a stream of doctors and nurses traversing the hallway as early morning visitors stepped off the elevators.
That was good for us, which was why I’d timed it this way: more activity meant less attention on anyone unfamiliar wandering the halls.
I grabbed a clipboard off the nurse’ station as we passed and continued down the hall.
We were halfway toward Cassie’s room when an older woman, her brown hair peppered with silver, emerged from one of the other rooms.
She scowled at us, her expression sour. “Excuse me, who are you?”
“We’re with Trauma,” I said as we passed.
“Which department?”
Hawk and Jagger didn’t even slow down.
“The traumatic one.”
I opened Cassie’s door with authority and stepped inside, leaving it open long enough for Hawk and Jagger to slip inside.
The room was dark except for a soft glow coming in from the room’s only window, the rising sun painting the walls and floor orange.
And there, at the far end of the room, was our girl, her head elevated halfway in the hospital bed, her face turned toward us.
She looked so small, and a strange feeling filled my chest, one that made me want to lock her in a tower where no one could hurt her, made me want to build a fucking moat around her.
“Hello?” She stared blankly in our direction. “Is that the nurse? Or… the doctor?”
I forced myself to move, forced myself to speak in the moment before I sat on the edge of her bed, forced myself to keep it light even though I felt like the heart I’d thought I didn’t have was shattering like the windshield of Cassie’s car at the bottom of the ravine.
I reached for her hand.
“That’s Doctor Vigo to you, mouse.”
9
CASSIE
I wasn’tsure I’d ever been as relieved as I was by the sound of Vigo’s voice, the shuffle of Hawk and Jagger as they moved around my bed.
I couldn’t see, but I knew it was them. Knew because they were always together and because when Hawk had held my hand inside the wreckage of my car he’d promised I wasn’t alone.
“I can’t see you.”
Not being able to see was terrifying, but not just because I didn’t know whether it was permanent.
For the time being at least, I was helpless.
Vigo squeezed my hand. “It’s okay.”
Someone tucked a piece of hair behind my ear and I knew that it was Jagger. Knew because the touch was tender and careful.
