“No.”
“Can I see him?”
“After the CT, when he’s cleared from RESUS and we get him a bed in HDU.”
“He’ll…be okay, though?”
Marc nods again. “I think so. Being young and fit works in his favour. Can’t say the next few days and weeks are going to be much fun for him, but I’d expect him to make a full recovery if he looks after himself.”
“I’ll look after him.”
“I know, mate.”
Marc rises from his chair. I snap out a hand to stop him. “What about Oscar?”
“We’re waiting for his brother.”
Subtext overwhelms me. I look to Mal for reassurance, but there is none. And that’s how it hits—Sol’s not in danger, but Oscar is, and the fear Sol’s prognosis has calmed comes roaring back.
A fear Marc can’t temper.
He leaves.
At some point, Mal does too. He tells me why and that he’ll be back, but I barely hear him, and I know I’ll have to sleep soon if I have any hope of being upright when Sol needs me most.
It takes me a while to realise I’m not alone in the relatives’ room. That of all people tasked with babysitting me, I’m sharing space with Cam O’Brian. “Why are you here?”
The Rebel Kings president sits close to the door, giving me a wide berth. He’s not wearing leather or even boots. Honestly, he looks like any other man who’s rolled out of his family Christmas to mitigate a disaster. “Oscar and Sol are kin. Even if I wasn’t in here with you, I’d be haunting the car park of this damn-fucking place.”
I absorb that. Accept it. Let it hang in the air as I go back to staring out the window, watching the night fade and daylight take shape in skies that are tauntingly clear. At some point, we get word that Oscar has moved to ICU, that he’s still unstable and the next few hours will be critical.
“He’s fucking sick,” the Rebel King who brings the news says to Cam without seeming to notice me. “Matis just got here, but they’ll only let Skylar in.”
Skylar. A flashback of him climbing into Oscar’s ambulance instead of Sol’s solidifies. Delayed understanding washes over me and leaves me dizzy.
I lean forward, bracing my elbows on my knees. The Rebel King soldier fades away and Cam moves closer to me.
He doesn’t try to comfort me and I’m glad of it. We’re not friends and we never will be. But a mutual respect hangsbetween us and even if I hate that he claimed a part of Sol I lived without for so many years, I’m glad he showed up for him. That Mal can be wherever he needs to be and leave me with the man who scooped Sol’s father from the streets and dumped him in rehab.
“Why did you do it?”
I can tell it’s been silent so long Cam’s forgotten I have a voice. He tears his own stare from the window and gives me his attention, brows pleating as he figures out what I mean.
“Dav?”
“Aye.”
“How much do you know?”
“As much as I’ll likely forget by tomorrow.”
Cam considers this as he stretches his legs out. Then he shrugs. “All right. It’s like this. The loanie Dav messed with doesn’t play about. The boat thing…it was bollocks. They were never going to take it. It was Sol they were after, because they thought Dav gave a fuck, and I’d have killed them before I let that happen. But I’m not—we’renot—about that life anymore. So we found another way to make it right and I ain’t gonna apologise for that.”
It’s a lot to take in. And without Sol or Mal with me, I can only focus on one thing. “You think Dav doesn’t give a fuck about Sol?”
Cam tilts his head, like he’s rethinking his harsh words. “I want to believe he does, but I’m not sure he can while he’s this deep into addiction, and his ma’s fucking useless.”
Can’t argue with that. But the urge to defend Sol’s family is strong. It has to be. He’s everything to me and these people who’ve let him down so badly will always matter to him.