“We need to talk to you,” Gabriel said gently.
The unease I had been feeling all day suddenly crystallized into something sharp and cold in my chest.
“About what?”
“About Athena,” Hayden said.
My world tilted slightly.
“What about Athena?”
“She was brought into the ER about twenty minutes ago,” Gabriel said, his voice careful. Too careful. It was the voice he used with families when he was about to deliver bad news.
I stared at him.
“What?”
“Nathan, Quinton, and Fitz are working on her now,” Hayden added. “We just got word from—”
“Working on her?” I repeated. “What do you mean,working on her?”
“Julien—”
“What happened?” My voice was too loud. Too sharp. Several nurses turned to look. “What happened to her?”
“We don’t have all the details yet,” Gabriel said. “But she was brought in by ambulance—”
“Ambulance?”
“—and they’re stabilizing her now. Nathan said—”
I didn’t hear the rest. I was already moving.
“Julien, wait!” Hayden called after me.
I didn’t wait. I didn’t stop. I didn’t think.
I just ran.
Down the corridor, past the nurses’ station, past the surgical wing, toward the elevators. My mind was racing, trying to process, trying to understand.
Athena is in the ER. My wife is in the ER. Nathan, Quinton, and Fitz are working on her.
Working on her.
That meant trauma. That meant something serious. That meant…
No.
No, no, no.
This wasn’t happening. This couldn’t be happening.
We’d just… we’d just figured everything out. We just surrendered to each other. We just started beinghappy.
The universe couldn’t—“The universe is going to test you.”
Athena’s voice, from a week ago, when she had been unusually quiet. When she held me a little tighter. When she looked at me with something that might have been worry.
