Page 19 of What We Become

“I need to be in there,” I say.

“You need to be out here. He’ll come find you.”

She turns on her heel and runs after Sage. The doors slam shut behind her.

The sound is nothing compared to the roar of the helicopter rotors.

Knox stands beside me. We’re in a corridor that smells like antiseptic and floor wax. There are plastic chairs against the wall. A water cooler in the corner. A poster about hand hygiene.

My knees give.

It’s a slow, downward slide, my back against the wall, until I’m sitting on the linoleum with my forearms on my knees and my head hanging between my shoulders. The foam crust cracks along my arms as I fold.

Knox doesn’t say anything. He lowers himself down beside me, back against the same wall, shoulder touching mine. We should be at home having dinner, listening to Sage drunkenly tell us about her afternoon while trick-or-treaters knock on the door and Milo chooses both trick and treat every time. That’s how tonight was supposed to go. Instead, we’re in a hospital ward hidden in the trees, covered in dried foam and sweat and the residue of the worst night of our lives.

I press the heels of my hands to my eyes and breathe, and breathe, and breathe.

Eighty-seven. Eighty-eight. Ninety.

She was at ninety when the doors closed.

She’s going to make it.

We can still have this.

Strangers have their hands on her now. Every one of them works for a man whose real name I don’t know.

Please, let us keep this.

SIX

HOLDEN

The oxygen mask fogs and clears with each breath. Fog. Clear. Fog. Clear. I’ve been counting them since the last nurse checked her stats.

One hundred and six.

I let go of her hand once to stretch my fingers. I lasted eleven breaths before I picked it up again.

I got here three hours after she did.

Three hours of crime-scene cleanup and mountain roads while the woman I love was fighting for every breath in the back of a helicopter.

Three hours. I spent them photographing brickwork. Working with Milo and Eli to direct Odin’s crew while they rebuilt a wall that was never supposed to exist. Cataloging zip ties and bagging foam samples from a crime scene that would never see the inside of a courtroom. Cleaning away the evidence that any of us were ever there.

I did my job. I did it well.

And she spent those three hours without me.

The room Odin’s people put her in doesn’t look like a hospital. It looks like a hotel suite that happens to have a ventilator in the corner. Mahogany panels. Soft lighting. Machines that hum instead of beep, as if even the alarms here are too well-bred to raise their voices. Money buys quiet. Money buys a nurse every fifteen minutes instead of every hour. Money buys Dr. Shahid standing at the foot of her bed within minutes of my arrival, telling me things I’ve already guessed through years of experience.

“Chemical pneumonitis. Significant airway inflammation. The cracked rib is stable—that’s common with effective compressions.” He pauses on effective, meaning to reassure me. “Her oxygen saturation is climbing. Ninety-two now. She’s young. She’s strong. The next twenty-four hours will tell us more.”

Young. Strong. As if either of those things stopped the foam.

I ask him one question. “When will she wake?”

“Her body will decide. She’s exhausted, and the medication will keep her drowsy. We’re monitoring the swelling closely. When she’s ready, she’ll wake on her own.” He waits for more questions. I don’t have any that he can answer. He nods once and leaves.