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“Fifteen minutes,” he repeats, sharper now. “Let me do my job.”

The line goes quiet for half a second before I force the word out. “Hurry.”

I end the call before I say something else I can’t take back. The car idles in the garage, but I don’t move. Instead, I pull the app back up, my hand not entirely steady as the feed loads again, and my eyes lock onto him immediately. He hasn’t moved. Not even a little.

Something in my chest tightens into something dangerously close to panic. I’ve never felt anything like it. My thoughts spiral as I watch the screen, willing him to move or show some sign that he’s alive. I zoom in to see if I can tell if he’s still breathing. The angle of his body makes it impossible to tell.

I’m so fixated on my screen that it takes me a second to register that Taylor has reached Jaxon. Taylor places his fingers on his neck. Then he rests his hand on Jaxon’s bare chest. My fingers tighten on the phone so hard I’m surprised it doesn’t crack. Rationally, I know that Taylor has to touch him, but the irrational side is screaming for him to get his fucking hand off what’s mine.

My brain goes quiet at that last thought. Jaxon is mine. I think I’ve known it for a while, but refused to admit it. I’m not sure why. It makes perfect sense now that I think about it. Why else would he be my fixation?

I answer Taylor’s call.

Chapter 14

Jaxon

The incessant beeping cuts through everything, sharp and repetitive, dragging me out of whatever half-conscious state I was in and refusing to let go. It doesn’t stop. I groan, squeezing my eyes shut tighter, wanting to somehow block it out. It’s not my alarm. It’s too even for that, too spaced out, that slow, deliberate chirp that drills into your skull one second at a time.

Shit. Smoke detector with a dead battery. Exhaustion sits heavy in my bones, making every thought feel slower, thicker, harder to push through. Do I even have batteries? I just want to go back to sleep.

My body aches all over, and my head feels heavy. Why am I so sore? Everything in me is begging to just roll over, shove my face back into the pillow, and pretend the sound isn’t happening. But the beeping keeps going. Relentless. And there’s no way I’m sleeping through that.

“Fuck,” I mutter, forcing myself to move even though every part of me resists it, already knowing I’m going to have to get up and deal with it whether I want to or not. But my body doesn’t respond. Not even a little. It’s like the signal gets lost somewhere between my brain and my muscles. I’m stuck in place no matter how hard I try to push through it.

Something tugs at my hand when I try again, a faint pull followed by a sharp pinch that doesn’t make sense, that doesn’t belong to anything in my apartment. Confusion spikes.

I try to open my eyes, but they won’t cooperate either, my lids heavy, sealed shut like they’ve been glued in place. What the fuck is happening to me? My breathing picks up without my permission, my chest tightening as panic starts to creep in, and I force myself to take a deep breath, trying to steady it, trying to get control.

Big mistake.

Pain explodes through my ribs, white-hot and instant, stealing the air right back out of my lungs as everything inside me locks up around it. A strangled sound catches in my throat. The realization comes slowly, sluggish and incomplete, like my brain is wading through fog, trying to piece together something it doesn’t want to understand.

This isn’t my bed. This isn’t my apartment. And something is very, very wrong. Think, damn it. I try to focus, to grab onto something solid. But there’s nothing there. Just the pain and confusion. And there’s also the growing, terrifying awareness that I don’t know where I am.

“Jaxon, don’t try to move.”

That voice cuts through the fog, low and steady, deep in a way that settles something instinctive in me even before my mind can catch up enough to place it. I know that voice. Even like this, even with everything spinning and disjointed, there’s no mistaking it.

Conor.

But that doesn’t make sense. What the hell is he doing here?

The question drifts through my head, slow and heavy, and I try to force my body to respond, to do something, anything, just to ground myself in something real. I manage to crack my eyes open. Just barely.

The second I do, the bright overhead light slams into me, sharp and blinding, cutting through my skull like shards of glass and making everything worse all at once. Pain flares instantly. I squeeze my eyes shut again, tighter this time, trying to block it out, trying to hold onto the sound of his voice instead of the light, because that feels safer.

I hear his footsteps move away from me, the sound grounding and terrifying at the same time, because even though I don’t understand why he’s here, I don’t want him to leave.

I try to call out to him, to tell him to stay, but the second I try to swallow, pain scrapes down my throat, raw and dry. No sound comes out. Just a weak, broken attempt that never makes it past my lips. Panic flickers again. Then his footsteps come back.

“I turned out the lights,” he says. His voice quieter now, closer, that same steady tone wrapping around me in a way that makes it easier to focus. “That should help with your concussion.”

Concussion. The word doesn’t make sense right at first. A concussion? How the hell did I get a concussion? I try to think. But everything is blurred, fragmented, slipping through my fingers before I can grab onto it.

Was I in an accident? Driving home from work? I remember the job site. Getting in my truck. It hits all at once. Everything comes rushing back in a violent wave that crashes through the fog in my head.

I finally manage to open my eyes, slower this time, more careful, letting them adjust to the dimmer light before focusing on what’s in front of me. Conor is leaning over the bed.