“Cam.” Skylar took my arm and guided me to an even quieter corner. “I’m not going to bullshit you because I haven’t got time and you deserve better, so I need you to listen to me, okay? Let me finish before you lose your shit.”
I forced myself to nod. “Is he alive?”
“Hanging in there,” Skylar said grimly. “They’re monitoring him for a delayed lung injury from the smoke inhalation, there’s a contusion on his brain, and his spleen was so fucked they took it out.”
“Surgery?”
“He’s out and in recovery. I’d have come sooner to talk to you, but I didn’t want to leave him in case he woke up. I figured you wouldn’t want him to be alone.”
“Did he wake up?”
“Once. He didn’t say anything, but I think he knew it was me.”
Against my will, I pictured Saint laid out on a hospital bed, surrounded by faces he didn’t know, unfamiliar hands touching him, his throat welded shut, unable to tell them to get the fuck off him.
River squeezed my arm. “Hey, it’s okay. Skylar knows he has a speech disorder. That’s why he stayed with him.”
“Disorder?” I’d never put a word to it. Never thought so hard about it that it needed one. Was that what it was? A disorder? A disability?
Fuckfuckfuck.
Skylar moved closer to me, he and River both crowding me against the wall. “I talked to the ICU consultant. They know about his speech and sensory issues. As soon as he’s out of recovery and they’ve got him settled, you can sit with him, okay? You can stay with him. As long as it takes.”
“For what?”
Skylar’s gaze clouded. “For him to wake up.”
* * *
ICU was a fresh type of hell. Beeping. Dripping. The whoosh of air as machines forced oxygen into Saint’s lungs.
I couldn’t tell you how much time had passed when a doctor came and told me the ventilator was unnecessary.
“He’s fighting it. We’re going to extubate him and see how he copes.”
To the surprise of everyone except me, Saint breathed just fine. They took the machine away. Placed oxygen tubes in his nose instead.
I waited for him to wake up.
He didn’t.
Evening rolled around again. Darkness. Shadows. The sky as grey as it had been when clouded with the smoke of the burning warehouse.
“Feds want to talk to you again.”
I raised my head from my arms, slumped over Saint’s bed, his hand in mine.
Rubi loomed over me.
I rubbed fatigue from my eyes. “I talked to them already.”
“That’s why I saidagain.”
He brandished a pair of AirPods, leaned across me, and fitted them in Saint’s ears.
“What are you doing?”
“Nash made him a playlist,” Rubi said as if it explained everything. “Songs he likes and songs he hates. Figured one of the two might wake his lazy arse up.”