My eyes flutter open, and I stare around the brightly-lit room. My body is numb, and my throat feels like I’ve swallowed a heap of rocks. My vision slowly clears, and I realize I’m in a hospital. Memories of what happened come flooding back to me, and my heart starts racing as I glance around, wondering who is here. Is Treyton dead? Where’s Malakai?

A nurse comes into the room, smiling when she sees me, and she comes over, placing a hand on my forehead before saying, “Hi, Amalie. How are you feeling?”

How am I feeling?

I don’t know. I can’t feel anything.

Why is my head bandaged?

Why is my leg and arm bandaged?

How bad was the damage?

“You’re in the hospital,” she tells me when I stare at her blankly. “You had severe injuries. You’ve been in and out of consciousness for the last few days. Today is the first you’ve fully woken up. You have a cast on your leg and on your arm. You have some broken ribs and wounds over your body that we have stitched. You had some internal bleeding around your stomach that we had to do surgery to fix. You also had severe damage to your left ear, and extensive damage to your right. We’ve done what we can to fix both.”

They operated on my ears? But how?

“We’re aware you’ve had hearing loss in the past from a difficult accident. The doctors repaired as much as they could on top of what you’ve already had surgically. They’re confident they’ve saved some of your hearing.”

They did?

But I didn’t have any before.

“I’m going to get the doctor now and run some more tests. Your partner is waiting outside. I’ll send him in.”

He’s here?

He’s okay?

My heart explodes with happiness.

I look over at the door once the nurse is done, and I wait, just needing to see his face. When he steps into the room, I start to cry. Big, fat tears rolling down my cheeks. For a little while, when I was with Treyton, I never thought I’d see Malakai again. Or anyone I loved for that matter.

He walks over, going straight down and cupping my face, his eyes glassy. “Never thought I’d see your beautiful fucking eyes again. I’m so sorry, Amalie. I should never have let him take you.”

“You’re here now,” I croak. “I’m here. That’s all that matters.”

“He hurt you ... so fuckin’ bad.”

“Is he ... is he ... gone?”

Malakai nods. “I watched the life suck out of his eyes when I put a bullet in his head. He will never hurt you again.” He leans down, pressing a kiss to my forehead. “Nobody will.”

“Ch-Ch-Charlie?”

“She’s okay. Still in here. Her injuries were much like yours. She’s had a few surgeries.”

“Can I see her?”

“When you’re better. The doctor said they worked on your ears. He said he repaired some old damage. They won’t know if you have more or less hearing until the bandages come off.”

I reach up and lightly touch the bandages.

Will I be able to hear more?

Malakai covers my hand with his, and tells me, “I was so scared. Never been so fuckin’ scared in my life. Love you, Amalie. I need you more than I need my next breath. Don’t ever wanna feel what I felt over the last day, again, for the rest of my days.”

I smile weakly up at him. “I love you too, Malakai.”

He presses his lips over mine in a soft kiss, and then stands up when the doctor enters the room. The older man walks over to me, a smile on his face. “How are you feeling, Amalie?”

I shrug. “I’m a little numb.”

“Pain medication. You had some serious injuries. You’ll be here for at least a week.”

I nod, frowning.

“The nurse probably told you we did some work on your ears. We’ve yet to take the bandages off, although you don’t need them, because we wanted you to be awake when we did. Should we take them off now? I will need to pop on a device, that’ll help, and you’ll probably have to wear forever, but it’s better than not hearing, right?”

I nod, and suddenly my heart is in my stomach and I can’t breathe. What if I can’t hear anything, not even the faint humming I heard before? What if it’s all gone? Tears burn in the back of my eyes as Malakai steps away and the doctor unravels the thick bandages covering my ears. As he releases them, I wait, wondering if I’ll hear anything, or nothing.

When he puts the bandages aside, I look at him. I can’t hear anything. Not a thing. But I’m not entirely sure there is anything to hear. The doctor moves closer, inspecting my ears with his little torch. Then he reaches out to the nurse and she gives him a little black device. He clips it onto my ear, and plays around with it for a moment.

“Looks good. The swelling has gone down.”

I cry out.

It’s so sudden he leaps backward.

Tears explode and run down my cheeks.

I heard him. I heard his voice. It was faint, and a little muffled, but I heard him. I heard him. I press a hand over my face and I cry so hard my body shakes.

Malakai pulls me into his arms, and holds me until I stop crying enough to pull back and look at him.

“S-S-Say something to me.”

“Hi, baby.”

His voice, I can hear his voice. It’s far from clear, and it’s far from easy, but I can hear the different tones and make out his words. I’m sure to anyone else, it wouldn’t be much, and it would probably still sound so incredibly off, but to me, it’s like heaven has opened up and sent me a miracle.

“I can hear you,” I cry in pure happiness, burying my face into his chest.

He hands onto me for a while, clutching me close, then I pull back, wiping my tears and turning to the doctor.

“Thank you. Thank you so much.”

“You’re very welcome. We were unable to do much to one ear, so you’re probably going to find it is still deaf, but there was one semi-good ear and with the surgery and the little magical device, you should be able to hear just enough. We did what we could, and it would appear it worked. It’ll never get better than it is, and it’ll probably always sound a little different, but I’m sure you don’t mind.”

I still stare at his lips, because some of his words are unclear, and sound more like a hum than a word, but I can hear. I don’t care if it’s the smallest bit.

I can hear.

“I’m so grateful. Thank you. So much.”

He nods, and smiles. “I’ll leave the nurse to finish up here. I’ll send you for a hearing test in the next few days, to check how it’s going. Rest up.”

He leaves the room, and when he does, Scarlett comes barrelling in. She sees me, sitting up in the bed, and comes running right at me. She skids to a stop, tears running down her cheeks, and then gently leans in and hugs me, as tight as she can without hurting me. When she pulls back, she looks at me, and says, “I thought I’d lost you. Don’t you ever scare me like that again.”

“Scar?” I say to her, softly.

“Yes?”

“I can hear you.”

She starts crying now, too. Big fat tears. She swipes them away, and then more come. “Oh, God. You can?”

“Just a tiny bit, but yes. I can.”

“Oh, man,” she continues crying, and hugs me again.

I hold onto her tight.

And I send up a prayer. A prayer of gratitude.

I can hear.

~*~*~*~