This is all wrong.

I wake up the next day in the recovery room to find out that Rose is in serious condition. I ask the nurses, and my doctor. There were complications. They aren’t explaining much to me. They want me to rest. How can she still be under for a shoulder wound? I was shot in my chest and above my collarbone, and I’m the one who’s already in the recovery ward?

For hours and hours, I stare up at a spot on the ceiling above me. The monitoring equipment I’m connected to threatens to lull me back to unconsciousness as I wait for word on whether her condition has improved.

Nobody’s talking. Not the nurses, not the physicians, not even the fucking orderlies here in the private hospital I checked us into.

I quickly grow tired of the lying around. A day of rest and recovery is double what I’ve had on the field for worse injuries. Turning off the power to the monitors, I remove the IV needle in my arm, and rip off the leads tracking my vitals. It takes some effort, but I put on my clothes and slip out of the room.

Rose has to be somewhere around here.

After checking for a while, I find her in one of the small recovery rooms at the end of the hall. Her red hair is unmistakable.

I wait a few minutes for the nurse that’s with her to leave, then I go inside. I’m winded as I take a seat, dropping heavily into the guest chair beside her hospital bed. Some of this heaviness is from the anchor of guilt weighing me down. That last attack at the cottage wasn’t for her. It was meant for me. She was fine in the cottage for seventy-two hours. I’m the one who got sloppy and led that company man right to us. She was almost collateral damage because of my carelessness.

My chest is throbbing with pain as my meds wear out, but it’s nothing compared to what’s clenched around my heart. I look at the vitals on the monitor. They’re up and down, refusing to stabilize. I know Rose is strong. If anyone can pull through from an injury and complications, it’s her. But that knowledge does nothing to console me. I should be in that bed. If I could change places with her, I’d do it in a heartbeat.

I take her small, lifeless hand in mine.

“Don’t stop fighting, Little Red,” I whisper. Her skin is so cool to the touch that I keep looking back at the monitors. My heart races when her pulse drops, and eases when hers is in the normal range. I want to pour what’s left of my strength into her, but I can’t. All I can do is sit here, holding her hand, hoping she hears me cheering her on, hoping her body and mind hold on. I won’t rest until she opens her eyes.

“I’ll be right here when you wake up,” I say more firmly. “I just found you, Rose. Don’t you dare give up.”

Leaning forward, I rest my elbows on my knees and hold my head up with one hand. Every time my eyes close, I force them back open again, fighting off the images of her getting shot, her body jerked to one side. The blood that spilled, the two of us on that dusty wooden floor, teaming up to fight back. All of that was preventable. I caused this mess, and it fucking kills me that I can’t clean it up or fix it for her. Ending Murphy’s life felt like a victory at the time. His death will spare many other lives, but it won’t mean a damn thing if Rose can’t live one day without a fucking target on her back.

“Sir, you’re not supposed to be here,” says the nurse who returns to the room.

“We’re together,” I tell her.

“We can work through those details later, but you’re in no condition to be out of bed.” She presses the call button and comes to my side, then points down at my chest. “See what I mean? Your bandages are soaked with blood. If you keep this up, the doctor will have to remove those sutures and open you up again.”

“I don’t fucking care. Help her.”

Two orderlies enter with a stretcher for me. It pains me to go, but the nurse is right that the sooner I heal up, the sooner I can be back at Rose’s side. I want to be the first face she sees when her eyes open.

Giving her hand another squeeze, I let the two orderlies lift me onto a stretcher and wheel me out.

She has to pull through. I won’t be able to live with myself if she doesn’t.