Page 12 of The Ashes of Summer

"We’ll be at the side entrance," I continue. "We’ll need a trauma team at the door."

A beat.

Then—"We'll be ready."

I end the call. The truck settles back into engine noise, rain, and Reyes fighting for breath. No one says it. No one says Calder is already dead. No one says if Reyes crashes there's no chance we will get him back.

The town slides past in streaks of wet black and fractured light. Houses dark. Doors locked. People asleep inside, untouched by any of this. While one of my men bleeds out in the back of the truck. While she's out there—with him.

My fists clench. Not now. Focus.

The hospital cuts through the rain ahead, pale and clinical against the dark. Carter doesn't slow for the front. He swings wide, takes us around the side, under the canopy where things get handled quietly.

No sirens. No questions. No record unless I decide there needs to be one.

Tamara's already there. Coat open, hair damp, eyes focused. Another doctor beside her.

The truck barely stops before we're moving. Cold rain hits the back of my neck as I step out.Antiseptic cuts through the smell of blood in the air. Mason's already hauling Reyes out. Carter takes the other side.

"Careful," Tamara snaps. "Flat—keep him flat, for Christ's sake⁠—"

They lower him onto the gurney. Blood coating their hands as they step away. The other doctor—Rachel—steps in immediately, penlight up, checking pupils.

Her expression tightens almost instantly.

"He's circling," she says. "Move."

Circling. One step closer to losing him.

They take him through the doors marked RESUS, fast enough to tell me everything I need to know.

Mason follows a step—then stops himself just before the doors close, breathing hard. His hands hang at his sides, covered in blood that isn't his. He stares at them like he's trying to work out if Reyes is still there. Then the doors shut and it goes quiet.

Not real quiet. Hospitals never are. But compared to the truck⁠—

"What happened?" Tamara cuts through my thoughts.

She reaches out, puts her hand on my bicep. I look at her and can’t help but notice the expression. The bat of her eyelids. The slight pout.

Two years ago, that look might've meant something. Back then, Carter dragged me in here with my hand split open after I put it through a wall hard enough to feel bone shift. Knuckles torn wide. Blood everywhere. I told him I was fine. He didn't listen.

Summer had gone on a date with some little prick from town. That's all it took. It didn't matter that I had no claim to her. Didn't matter that she didn't even know what she was to me yet. I pictured her laughing with him. Letting him stand too close. His hands on her. Something inside me snapped.

I’d tried to stop it. Tried to tell Michael that his daughter shouldn’t be going on dates with fuckboys and staying out ‘til late at night. But he let her go anyway. I’d lost myself in bourbon. Riled myself up so much that I had to hit something. It was me versus the brick wall. The wall won.

Carter came by to collect some files and saw the damage, then the fucker dragged me here.

Tamara had been the one to stitch me up.

"Calm down," she'd said.

"Make me," I'd answered. Needing to feel something—anything—other than the rage of jealousy.

She stepped closer, her hand settling around my wrist. Her voice softened, her eyes dropping briefly to my mouth as though she thought she understood what she was looking at.

She didn't. She leaned in and I kissed her back. Hard. Messy. Wrong.

A stupid attempt to replace the image of Summer in my head with something else.