The roommate.
I blinked at her.
“The fuck?” I whispered. “Doc was supposed to give me the good drugs.”
Lily’s eyes widened behind her glasses.
Destiny made a sound that might have been a laugh if it hadn’t broken in half.
“Dylan,” she said, voice shaking now. “You’re at the hospital. You were shot. We’re taking you to surgery.”
“No,” I muttered.
“Yes.”
“No, you’re not supposed to be here.”
Her hands moved over me, quick and sure, checking lines, checking pressure, helping prep me while other people worked around her. She was not the girl from the fire anymore.
She was not the birthday girl under the palm tree.
She was not the woman on the Santa Monica sidewalk with fury in her eyes and my cuff under her sleeve.
She was all of them.
Every version.
Every ghost.
Every choice I had made and every one I had run from.
“Pressure’s dropping,” someone said.
“Dylan.” Destiny’s voice cut through everything. “Look at me.”
I tried.
God, I tried.
Her eyes found mine and held.
There were tears in them now, but her hands stayed steady.
That was my girl.
No.
Not mine.
Never mine.
Always mine.
“Don’t leave me,” she whispered.
Maybe she didn’t mean to say it.
Maybe the ER swallowed it, and I was the only one who heard.
