We shouldn’t have taken her to a regular hospital. Not with the questions they would ask. Not with two buildings littered with bodies that would burn any time now. But we’d had no other choice.
I knew from the second Doc arrived at my side that it was bad. Really bad.
He’d done everything he could, but we had to get her into surgery, and Doc didn’t have the facility or tools to do it himself.
If I ended up in prison again, it would be nothing compared to her dying if she didn’t get the help she needed.
We were sitting in the hospital waiting room. They’d taken her right in for emergency surgery and relegated me to a plastic chair to wait.
Her blood was still on me. I’d gone to wash it away, but it stained my clothes. It clung to the leather of my cut. I couldn’t even see that. Just being in that bathroom and seeing it on my skin,p made me sick. Actually, physically fucking sick. It was a first that I could remember, but I took the thing off and handed it to Doc. Right there, agonizing as the minutes ticked by, I wasn’t the president. I wasn’t a Savage Disciple. I wasn’t even Stone.
I was just Austin, and I could very well be losing the woman I loved.
My mind wouldn’t stop churning over the images of the last couple hours.
Her bound to the chair.
The stain of blood forming on her shirt.
Having to stop holding the wound to carry her out to the van I was going to be eternally grateful someone brought.
Watching the ER staff wheel her away on the stretcher.
It was the worst nightmare I could imagine and every second was real.
I heard Doc on the phone at one point, giving orders to keep the club clear of blowback, talking to Andrews to see what he could do, arranging money to be sent to people with badges and who investigated fires. It was all my job, but it meant jack shit to me.
Eventually, I made myself speak though it felt like I’d swallowed glass.
“Can they fix her?”
“Stone…” Doc warned, but I wasn’t going to listen to how I shouldn’t think the worst.
“Tell me straight. Can they?”
He sighed, a sound that carried the weight of too many years, too many patients on carts, too many that didn’t make it.
“I don’t know where that bullet went, what it hit. I can’t say for sure without knowing that. What I do know is I’ve seen entry wounds in roughly the same spot where the patients survived. I also know the man in there operating. Two hospitals were possibilities to bring her to, I drove us here because I know he’s the best bet.”
That was something.
I wasn’t even sure what hospital we were at. It hadn’t mattered when we drove up and I’d been keeping as much pressure as I could manage on her wound. It had all been a rushing blur to get her through the doors. Now that things had all but stopped, there was nothing around but light wallpaper, tiles, and chairs.
“I’m not a praying man. Don’t know you to be one either. But your girl is. Right now, you hope we’re both wrong, and that girl’s got some divine power on her side that’ll see her through. You start making promises to whatever fucking thing out there you think might listen. You rage against the fucking Devil if that’s what works. But you don’t give up. You don’t even think of giving up,” Doc ordered.
I hadn’t thought about God or prayer or anything like that since my mom passed. She’d believed. She’d brought me up with it, but it never really stuck. Doc was right, though. Evie believed. Evie had faith. I didn’t have it in me to suddenly find that now, but I hoped for the first time that she was right. Because anything, God or man or fucking animal, that experienced her love would have to love her in return. It couldn’t be helped.
I’d barely got a taste of what that was like, and I’d started falling.
She’s going to be okay.
I chanted it in my mind, held onto every word. I couldn’t give up. I wouldn’t give up. Not because Doc told me not to, but because I knew they’d have to lower me in the ground before Evie ever gave up on me.
She’s going to be okay.
She’d get better. We’d get all those days we should have. I’d fucking marry her, give her babies I knew she’d shower with all that love that poured out of her. I’d spend the rest of my godforsaken life getting to drink in all that sweet, and I’d never take a second of it for granted.
She’s going to be okay.
There was just no other fucking choice.
“I love you, honey.”
Her skin was pale.
I couldn’t stop looking at how pale she was without the rosy blush to her cheeks. I’d never noticed before that it wasn’t just when she was feeling embarrassed. It was more pronounced in those moments, but it always colored her cheeks a bit.
At least, until now.
Now, without that color, without the light that seemed to shine out of every inch of her, she hardly looked like my Evie. Even the honey of her hair looked dull.
It’d taken hours to get her out of surgery. Hours of waiting until I was ready to rip that plastic chair they’d stuck me in out of the metal base and throw it. At one point, a nurse had forced me to go to one of the emergency bays to get the wound in my arm sewn up. I’d spent the whole time they cleaned and stitched the wound wanting to get back to that waiting room. Though, the second I was back, I remembered what torture it was to be there. At least the pain of the stitches had given me something to serve as a distraction.
The brothers had started to gather. Vic and the Mayhem boys stayed behind, taking care of business so the Disciples could be with me. No one forced me to acknowledge all that was going on beyond the walls of that hospital. No one even mentioned that shit to me. They’d handle it.
I wanted to appreciate that, but I was too numb to anything but my fear for Evie.
Ace and Sketch brought the women, who’d all tried to get close and comfort me. It was only Avery who found a way. She didn’t try to hug or talk or make promises that it’d be okay when she didn’t know. She’d just sat beside me, close enough that I could feel her there. There was something steadying about that.
Maybe, when all this was over, I’d find the words to thank her.
Maybe, if I made it through this, I’d find a way to thank them all for being at my back.
Right now, though, I focused on her pale fucking face, and I started talking.
“Three days. It’s been three days since I saw you smile last. I’d give anything for that sweet, beautiful smile to be on your face now.” There was no smile for me now. There was no expression at all on her face. “I wouldn’t even need a smile. Just to see your eyes, or see that fucking nose…”
The words got stuck in my throat, my gaze fixed on that pert nose that didn’t wiggle now.
“If you could hear me, I’d tell you how I should have left that day in the diner when you asked me out. Not for good like I’d thought, but I should have walked out and gotten you a fucking ring. I should have put that thing on your finger and tied you to me in any way I could.
“I’d do it now. In a fucking heartbeat, I’d get you the ring, the dress, whatever the fuck you wanted. We could do it in a church for all I cared. I’d drag you there right this minute if I could and give you those vows.”
Evie didn’t respond, but I knew she wouldn’t. How could she?
“There was a time I’d have thought it’d be hard to get all the brothers into a church to share that shit with us, but it’d be easy. They wouldn’t even hesitate because you made them all love you, too.
“Biggest fuckin’ problem we’d probably have would be all the women wanting to stand with you. I’d have to put half the club up at my side to even shit out, and then we’d have damn near no one in the seats watching.
“Funny how that shit doesn’t seem like a problem at all.”
It wouldn’t be. Nothing would be a problem if I was swearing forever with Evie. The fucking sky could come crashing down around us and it wouldn’t matter.
Reaching out, I took her left hand in mine, hating that she didn’t hold me back.
It wasn’t a new feeling. I’d been living that hell for three days. The paleness, the silence, the agony that was not having my Evie.
The doctors had managed to find the bullet. They’d called it a near miracle that there had only been the minimal damage to the organs it grazed. Even a centimeter in any direction, it would have been a very different story. Still, they could offer no guarantees. They would monitor everything closely and see what her body did next.
Hour after miserable hour passing in that hospital room. My Evie in a coma, machines beeping away to monitor her, meds pumping through her system to heal and to keep her sleeping. The last had ended yesterday. They’d made no guarantees about when she might wake, but it could be any time.
Except it didn’t happen.
I never left her bedside more than a couple minutes to use the restroom. I didn’t even eat since I couldn’t bring food into her room. Hunger wasn’t even a thought. Being there if she woke outweighed anything. Even sleeping seemed insignificant.
“Please, Evie,” I pleaded, barely noticing the tubes and wires anymore. Just that pale, expressionless face. “Wake up for me, and we can have all that. Whatever you want, I’ll give, bunny. You just have to wake up.”
There was nothing in response, and I felt the weight in my gut, heavier each minute she slept on. I didn’t know how to say goodbye. Fuck, I wasn’t convinced I could.
I didn’t have more words to give her. Not then, not with that fear. Instead, I did what I’d been doing for days. I got out my new phone. Someone had replaced it for me so I could reach anyone I had to, though it didn’t matter since they were all still camping out in the hospital in shifts.
When I got it, I’d starting downloading songs. Anything I could remember her singing, anything I could think of that she might like. I played them for her while she slept. I knew how much that music meant to her. I liked to think it comforted her to have it.
I hit play, resuming the shuffle where it stopped before. The one that started was a song I added. I didn’t know if Evie knew it. It was one my mom liked when I was a kid. I knew the version I found wasn’t the original, but the woman singing reminded me of Evie. I let Cat Power sing “Sea of Love,” and I held her hand. There was nothing else for me to do now.
It was in the middle of the second verse when it happened. Her hand moved a bit.
My ass was out of my chair in a fucking second, leaning over to run my fingers across her temple.
“Evie, bunny, I’m right here,” I called. “You’re okay. Just wake up and show me those eyes.”
Her lids started to twitch, and I couldn’t fucking breathe. There was no air left as I watched them flicker again and again. And then crack open just a bit.
“Evie. My sweet girl,” I choked out, not giving a fuck that there were tears forming. Not giving a fuck if she saw them. She was waking up. She was coming back to me.
It wasn’t fast. Her eyes would peek open slightly, just to close again. When the song came to an end the first time, I’d fumbled with the phone, managing to get my shaking hands to put the song on repeat. It was just a coincidence. Some part of me knew that, but I wasn’t taking any chances.
Almost an hour later, I was looking into brown eyes. They were hazy and a bit scared as I explained that she was all right, that she was in the hospital, that she’d been hurt.
“But it’s going to be okay,” I promised. She was awake now so it fucking would be. “We’re going to get you better, bunny.”
She made a feeble attempt at lifting her hand, so I brought it up to my face like she always did. I was a mess, an absolute fucking disaster, but that touch centered me as it did every time.
“I love you, Evie.”
Then my girl—fuck, my girl—she looked right at me.
And her nose twitched.