I get the feeling that her words are meaningless platitudes, worth as much as dandelion fluff in the wind. But I don’t care. I read an article that listed the pros and cons of FPDR—family presence during resuscitation—and while it was something I had to read for school, it stuck with me.
I see why.
Because I’m in here, and I think I’d die if I had to stand in the hallway.
My fingers curl around Grainger’s right hand as I do my best to stay out of the way. Tears are freely rolling down my face and probably ruining the careful makeup job that I cooked up, but it doesn’t matter. It’s in those moments, those very last few when you know they’re the very last few, that the entire world becomes perfectly clear.
Nothing has ever been simpler or made more sense.
Each moment is special; each second matters.
I squeeze Grainger’s hand, lifting it up to my mouth for a kiss.
“I’m here,” I promise him, because I don’t think that—whoever Raelynn Grainger is—she’s coming. I’ve never heard Cade talk about his family in any way, shape, or form. Of all four men, I probably know the least about him. There’s no distant mention of a beloved aunt and a career in law enforcement like there is with Crown. No talk of a sister and a horrible father, a vengeance and a decimation of innocence like there is with Sin. And there’s certainly no championship belt with which to make rings out of the way there is with Beast.
It’s just … Grainger.
He doesn’t have anybody.
Just the club.
Just me.
My tears fall fat and hot on the surface of his hand as the team works—as promised—around me, and I look down at that man’s beautiful face. I crouch low beside him, so that I can put my lips near his ear.
“Please don’t die on me,” I whisper at him, my voice far stronger than I expected. “You are not allowed to get me pregnant and then die; that’s fucked-up.”
I choke on the words—I don’t even know if they’re true—but if anything is likely to rouse the man I love, it’s the idea of this. Some distant, weird, fucked-up dream of a family. And I don’t just mean because a kid could be involved. Not at all. I’m talking about myself. About Beast and Sin and Crown. About Fem-fem. About Reba. About learning to let Nellie in just enough that I can appreciate her accomplishments and not so much that when she stumbles, she can drag me down with her.
All of those things.
“You can do this, Cade,” I whisper, brushing a kiss against the side of his stubbled cheek. “I love you, and you’ve got this.” I move back, but I don’t retract my hand from his. I won’t, unless they need me to in order to save Cade’s life.
I will never fucking let go—physically or metaphorically.
Beast catches me when I stumble out of the trauma room. Pretty sure he isn’t allowed to be back here either, but that’s okay. I can no longer stand on my own; I’m sweating, and the dizziness isn’t going away. Maybe I do need to get a proper examination? We have a doctor on the compound though; he has own clinic with a staff and a decent amount of equipment for such a small, exclusive practice.
But that should be enough.
It needs to be because I’m running out of energy.
“Sugar?” Beast queries quietly, his voice tight with concern. Grainger might not have a hold on Beast’s heartstrings the way he does mine, but these men are as good as brothers. They trust each other implicitly. More importantly, they trust each other with me. That’s how I know for sure that this could work, as possessive as each and every one of them can be sometimes.
It takes me a moment to catch my breath because that was intense in there. It was the most unnerving thing I’ve ever seen in my life, someone I love resting on a wire, mired in a strange reality between life and death. When Queenie was shot, it was over in an instant. There was no wondering or hoping or waiting; it was just a fact. By the time I got to Posey, the result was the same.
She was gone.
Grainger … is not.
“He’s still here,” I breathe out, my knees weak. Beast helps me into a chair and cushions my head on his jacket when I lean it back against the chair. “He’s alive.”
The words taste sweet but uncertain. Granger is stabilized. But he was stabilized earlier in the day and crashed quickly. Based on what they said to me, it seems like his medical team’s located the cause, but I don’t speak hospital, so I don’t know other than to say he’s okay for right now.
“How’s Sin?” I whisper, because I’m not sure if I have the energy left to stand up and look for myself. If he’s stable, I’m not moving. If he’s not … I wait for Beast to reply, keeping my eyes closed.
“Same as when you went in. No change.” Beast takes a seat and pulls me into his lap. It’s a weird position for me to be in, for sure. Like, we barely fucking spoke to each other before. Even that day we had sex for the first time, I knew little to nothing about him. We were strangers.
I think, in many ways, we still are.
But I know this: I like sitting here with him.
“I can’t believe we got married today,” I murmur as he tucks me under his chin and grunts.
“That we did. And believe me, darlin’, I’m going to show you the way a man should treat his wife.” He strokes my hair with his right hand, the same hand that’s put so many people to death, buried them in Gram’s backyard, washed away so much blood. “Now go to sleep. I’ll wake you up if they need you.”
I don’t mean to listen to him; I really don’t.
When I wake the next time, I find myself faced with the same nurse from before. She looks annoyed with me. Maybe because I told that liaison worker that I was Grainger’s wife and here I am sitting in another man’s lap.
That’s the only part of this possibility, of these four men, that I don’t like, that there might not be a way to get others to recognize that I belong at Grainger’s bedside the same way I do at Sin’s or Beast’s or Crown’s.
I sit up as the woman stares down at me with such a confused expression on her face that I’d love to give a penny for her thoughts. She must know by now who we are. I wonder if she also knows that Cat will pay off whoever he has to in order to keep this quiet. Nobody needs to know that some of his people showed up here today, that anything at all went down on the compound.
This will be buried, just like anything else.
“Would you like to see your … friend?” she asks me, studying my swollen face with a well-earned cynicism that I cannot, in any way, fault her for. I force myself up to a standing position with Beast’s hand on my arm. I sway a little, but when he releases me, I’m standing and I feel a bit better already. That’s a good sign, right?
My friend, she said. Only, she can’t possibly know that Colton Young is so much more than that. He’s a part of me, an integral part. He’s a piece of my past, a majority of my present, and a hopeful beacon for my future.
So yeah.
I would like to see my goddamn friend.
My lover.
My … soul mate? Are damned souls even allowed to feel that way? Are they allowed to feel that way about more than one person?