Beep. Beep. Whir.
The sounds echo in my head, combining with vise-like pressure that’s enough to make me want to scream.
Every muscle and bone in my body throbs.
When did I get hit by a truck?
Beep. Beep. Whir.
Heat licks across my skin like a raging wildfire.
Why is it so hot in here?
I try, unsuccessfully to open my leaden eyelids.
Why are they so heavy?
A heavy fog drowns me, threatening to pull me under. I fight it.
Beep. Beep. Whir.
Why doesn’t someone turn off that damn noise?
Something brushes my hand. Tugging. Burning pain slithers up my right arm into my shoulder and then throughout my body.
Beep. Beep. Whir.
The darkness creeping in is so damn inviting.
It will take me away from the damn noise.
Beep. Beep. Whir.
“Gabe, can you hear me?” Soft, cool hands cup my cheeks and the scent of vanilla wraps around me.
Skye.
I try to turn into her inviting touch, but my body won’t cooperate.
Something wet hits my face, and I hear a sob.
Why is she crying?
Beep. Beep. Whir.
All I want to do is drag her against me and fix whatever’s wrong, but my body won’t cooperate. I can’t move.
A stinging burn and that beautiful, black fog clouds my head.
I try to take a deep breath to immerse myself in Skye, but pain tightens my chest.
Her fingers move soothingly over my face.
There’s something mingled with her scent. Something familiar.
What is that?
Beep. Beep. Whir.
Another deep breath brings more of the cloying smell.
Antiseptic. That’s what it is.
Beep. Beep. Whir.
That sound, coupled with the scent, finally clicks.
Shit.
I’m in the hospital.
What the fuck happened?
Beep. Beep. Whir.
A black wall of nothing pops up when I search my memory.
I was at the club alone. The storm was getting worse. Skye sent a text saying she was leaving the hospital.
Warm breath flutters against my neck. “I really need you to wake up. I’m so sorry.”
Skye’s whispered words open the flood gates.
Her apartment…Savage and Danika…Lucas’ place…driving through the storm…the cabin…the lightning…the gun…the pain…Lucas falling…Skye…
I try to speak, to tell her that I’m okay.
Something’s very wrong. I can’t move or talk to her. Even after the RPG incident in Iraq, when I was knocked unconscious, I wasn’t like this. Something is very, very wrong.
Am I dying?
Cool, familiar lips press against mine. “Everything will be okay. It has to be.”
“How’s he doing?”
Storm’s voice makes me jump in my seat.
“Shit. You scared the crap outta me.”
“Sorry.” She sets her purse on the chair in the corner and comes over to where I sit next to the bed. “I thought you heard me come in.”
It was only a matter of time before the rest of the Hawkes swooped in to give me the third degree about what happened to Gabe. Frankly, I’m surprised it took this long. I expected everyone to come running once they got my text about what happened.
They know.
Between bouts of moaning and passing in and out of consciousness while on the drive back into town, Gabe managed to tell me how he ended up at the cabin—including the long list of felonies he committed trying to track me down.
Mom and Stone have been texting for updates, but not a peep from Savage.
What a clusterfuck.
Storm leans over and kisses Gabe on the cheek. “He looks like shit.”
“I know.”
I contemplate his sleeping form, cataloguing his injuries for the hundredth time in the last two days. The angry gash on his head, now sealed with staples, and the magenta and purplish bruises surrounding it and scattered over other parts of his face are hard to look at. The rest of his body is covered by the blanket except his arm in the immobilization sling on his left side. Every time one of the nurses comes in to check his drain and surgical sites, I end up sobbing again. I didn’t think it was possible to cry this much.
At least his color is getting a little better. His eyes shift under his lids, bouncing around while he’s trapped in a Propofol-induced dream.
Is it a good one or a nightmare?
Now that his fever finally broke, he should be improving. But, thus far, there’s been little change. My gut twists, and I brush away tears from my eyes for the millionth time since I brought him here and return my gaze to Storm.
With a brief glance between us, she drags the empty chair over to the other side of the bed and begins her stare-down. I know what she wants but I’m in no mood to rehash what happened.
“Were you ever going to tell us?”
I return my gaze to Gabe’s face and keep it locked there so I don’t have to make eye-contact with her when I answer. “I wanted to, but Gabe…”
My vision blurs. I swipe at my eyes and bite back a sob.
“Gabe what?”
I don’t really know what to say. If I tell her the truth, that Gabe never wanted this, and that he didn’t want anyone to know because we were never anything to begin with, that will be admitting to myself it’s over.
And I can’t do that.
Not yet.
Not before I get to talk to him again.
I squeeze his hand and go with the obvious. “He was just worried about what Savage would think, and we aren’t even sure what’s going on with us yet.”
After the semi-truth leaves my mouth, I turn to Storm. She narrows her eyes on me and crosses her arms over her chest. One of the biggest problems with sisters is they can read you like a fucking book and see through any bullshit. Storm is good but Star was great. Words wouldn’t even fully leave my lips because she would call me out.
My heart aches more than I thought possible. Losing her and Savage being injured was as bad as I thought it could possibly get. But now I might lose Gabe too, and that would be the trifecta of fucked up shit and too much for me to handle.
Please. Storm, just let it go…
Maybe she senses my distress or maybe she just doesn’t care. Either way, her expression softens, and she gives me a half smile. “Yeah, Savage was not pleased when I spoke with him.”
“He’s not here, is he?” I check the closed door, and my stomach sours imagining how that conversation will go.
“No. He didn’t want to drive with Dani yet. Once the roads are better though, you can expect him.”
I return my attention to Gabe and watch his chest rise and fall rhythmically under the power of the ventilator.
Between the blood loss and shock to his system from the lightning strike and hypothermia, he was practically dead when I finally got him here. Three hours of surgery later, I was told he went into asystole twice, and they had to revive him.
Gabe literally died. And it’s all my fault.
They had to transfuse so much blood into him, fluid built up in his lungs, and he went into accurate respiratory distress within twenty-four hours of surgery. They can’t seem to get his lungs to oxygenate properly. They’ve been pumping him full of antibiotics to try to prevent him from developing pneumonia, but they keep telling me we just have to wait to see how he’s doing in another day or two.
Like I needed to be told that.
That’s what made the last two days a hundred times worse—knowing how bad it was and how there was a good chance it could go either way.
There were so many times I almost lost him.
I wasted so much time.
And who knows what will happen even if he survives this. Both of us could be facing criminal charges. I provided a very lengthy and detailed statement after I brought Gabe in, but there wasn’t much they could do to investigate until the flood waters receded.
I’m fairly confident I would have ended up in cuffs if the shit with Lucas had occurred any other day. For once, the hurricane worked in my favor. If they had tried, I would have gone kicking and screaming, because there was no way anyone was going to take me away from Gabe.
“I never should have let him push me away at the wedding.”
“So this has been going on that long, huh?”
I turn back to her and shrug. “I guess. Maybe longer? I kissed him at the wedding.”
Storm nods and warm sympathy shines in her eyes. “As happy as it was, that was a hard night for all of us—you especially. I think we all may have done things we wouldn’t have normally.”
“He said something very similar.” Actually, I think he called me a train wreck at some point.
“You were also pretty drunk, weren’t you?”
I roll my eyes and nod. Who wasn’t? We never thought we’d see Savage that happy, nor did we imagine having to celebrate without Star.
“Stone disappeared for a while, too.”
She says it like a statement, but there’s an underlying note of question there. Maybe she thinks I know where he went. We comforted each other earlier in the night, but once I hit rock bottom with Gabe, I never returned to the festivities. So if she wants info, she’ll have to get it from Stone.
“He may have, I never went back after Gabe brought me to his room and left.”
“So you two have been dancing around each other since then, huh?”
That’s one way to put it.
“I guess you could say that. I’m frankly surprised no one noticed something.”
She shrugs and smiles at Gabe. “I guess I just figured you had done something to piss him off. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time.”
I smile, probably my first real smile in three days. “I definitely did that.”