Saint clenched his jaw, fighting for words, a battle he won. “Nash isn’t going to die. You know that.” He pressed his fist to my chest. “In here, you can feel it.”
“I fuckin’ can’t.”
“You can.”
“It should’ve been me.”
“No.” Aggression crept into Saint’s stance. “It should’ve been Nash, and he’s not going to die because of it. The only thing that’s ever come close to killing him was when it wasyou.”
Saint gripped my forearm, hard, as if he was Rubi. As if he wasNash, and he was channelling every brother who loved him to keep my heart fuckin’ beating. To keep me breathing, cos he lovedme. And I loved him. And the only thing wrong with this moment was that not even Saint’s fraternal love would save me if he was wrong.
I hid my face in his shoulder, the crack in my heart fissuring wider, darkness hollowing out the light all these beautiful people had given me. I clung to Saint like a life raft, and he held me tight, fighting the waves, but it wasn’t enough.
Nothing was.
I pulled back, letting him go.Releasinghim.
It was still raining.
I stumbled away from him, towards the closed doors of the surgery building, with no real intent in my steps. No conscious idea of where I was going.
The entrance doors opened. A figure appeared, breaching them, drawing me forward with nothing more than their presence, like a missing piece of a puzzle older than my fuckin’ years.
I couldn’t make them out.
I couldn’tsee.
But I kept walking cos I knew it wasn’t a nurse.
Wasn’t a doctor or a porter or a fuckin’ admin assistant.
It was my brother.
27
ORLA
I watched through the window as the Halliwell brothers came together in the rain. Watched Logan catch Locke, take his face in his hands, and give him the strength I lacked. He put Locke back together. I saw it—Ifeltit, and I’d never been more grateful to a man I barely knew.
“Rubi’s here.”
I jerked my head from the glass. “What?”
“Rubi.” Mateo offered me his hands, helping me up. “And that other fireman found us a better place to wait.”
My surroundings blurred. I wound up in a room that was a carbon copy of others where I’d waited to learn that Saint and Embry would live.
That my dad hadn’t.
Cam was already there, battered and bloodied, standing rigid, despite the sedative the A&E doctor had prescribed to calm him down while they’d stitched the back of his head back together, as if he’d crumble to dust if he moved.
Saint slipped into the room.
River.
Finally Rubi, gaze splintered with fear. “What thefuckhappened out there?”
A doctor appeared behind him, saving me from the truth. She held her hands up as every set of eyes in the room skewered her. “I’ve been treating Nash. I’m sorry we’ve kept you waiting, but he was the last to be freed from the crash site and it took a while to stabilise him.”