Run.
Nate.
I tried to turn my head, but even that much movement sent pain crashing through me.
“Nate?” I rasped.
Georgia’s face crumpled with relief that I had asked something real. Something safe. “He’s alive. He’s in ICU too. He’s been awake twice and apparently asked a nurse if the gown came in black.”
A laugh tried to move through me.
It became a cough.
Bad mistake.
Pain lit me up from the inside. Georgia’s hand went to my shoulder, careful and panicked at the same time.
“Don’t,” she whispered. “Please don’t. You’re going to tear something.”
I breathed through it.
Or tried.
My body felt like a building half-collapsed and held upright by temporary supports no one trusted.
Georgia stroked her thumb across my hand.
I looked at our hands.
Hers smooth, warm, ringed.
Mine bruised, scarred, taped, attached to tubes.
Then memory slid beneath Georgia’s touch like a knife under cloth.
Another hand holding mine.
Smaller.
Strong.
Shaking.
Destiny’s lips on my knuckles.
I closed my eyes.
Georgia’s thumb stopped.
That was how I knew.
She saw something.
Maybe not the memory itself, but the shadow of it crossing my face.
She always saw more than I wanted her to.
“Dylan,” she said softly.
