Blood moved faster.
Hands moved faster.
The body on the table did not care how much I loved it.
That was the horrible truth of medicine.
Love did not clot blood.
Love did not repair tissue.
Love did not restart a heart.
But love could make a woman refuse to blink.
“Losing pulse.”
No.
“Start compressions.”
No.
“Dylan,” I whispered before I could stop myself.
The line went wrong.
Flat.
For one second, I was seventeen again and the world was burning.
Then something inside me went hard.
Not cold.
Hard.
Mandy was in me.
Regan was in me.
One mother blood and bone, wild and tragic and impossible to bury. One mother will and steel, the woman who had taughtme that love could survive shame, rage, bad choices, and men who did not know how to come home.
Both of them forces of nature.
Both of them loud in my blood.
No.
Not him.
Not like this.
The surgeon called orders. The team moved. Compressions. Medication. Time called. A nurse counted. Someone adjusted lines. The room became a machine built around one command.
Bring him back.
I held my place.
