Page 151 of Captive Omega

Blaine is out of the car, on the stretcher, and being rushed inside before I can climb out the other side. I follow with Garrison and Vaughn at a much slower pace, chewing on my lip, and forgetting to look around for white coats.

All I can think about is Blaine dying as I lean on the wall outside his room, not knowing what to do with my hands or the guilt forming in my chest.

“Resa?” Garrison has a cell phone in his hand, a sleek silver one, almost a copy of the one I launched out of my bedroom window.

Meeting his gaze is hard when he must know I’m to blame for Blaine being shot. “Yeah?”

“Vaughn is going to watch the front, and I need to make a call. Can you stay with Blaine?” he asks.

After I just got him shot? After I pointed a knife at his throat before that?

I blink at him like an idiot. “Me?”

He nods. “You.”

I hesitate, not sure Blaine would want me anywhere near him.

“He might need a friend right about now,” Garrison says. “I’m not sure what happened back at the house, and we’ll deal with it when we get home, but right now, I don’t want either of you alone, and I need to make this call.”

Just before Sadie and the nurses wheeled him down the hallway, I caught Blaine’s expression.

He’d been stiff as a board. Because of the pain, I thought, until Sadie gave him a reassuring smile and said, “We’ll have you out of here as soon as we can, Blaine.”

Not the usual response I’d expect to hear from a doctor.

A nurse hurries past me, slipping into Blaine’s room.

I look at Blaine, stretched out on the bed, face tight. I remember how desperately I did not want to be alone when Sadie did the scan. And of how Garrison squeezing my hand helped me not fall apart for the second time in one night.

Before the door can slam shut, I catch it. Garrison nods at me, then walks down the hallway with his phone clamped to his ear.

As I step into Blaine’s room, Garrison’s voice echoes down the hallway. This isn’t the sexy rumble that turns me on. This is someone shoving a boulder down a mountain. Hard, unflinching, and coldly furious.

“No, I do not care about your schedule. No, I do not give a fuck what meeting you have to move around or what the judge is saying.” He stops pacing, his back to me. “One of mine took a bullet for your trial. Only your team knew when and where we would be, and they were waiting for us. You will be at my home in the next hour to discuss the leak in your office, prosecutor.”

My eyes pop.

“Resa?” Sadie’s voice drags my attention back to Blaine’s room.

She’s standing beside his bed, gloves on, curious.

“Do you mind if I come in?” I ask. “I mean, unless?—”

Her smile is faint. “You can. Maybe stay over on that side of the room. It’s not as bad as bullet wounds go, but he’s going to need some stitches. We’ll have him out of here before too long.”

There she goes again with this talk of rushing her patient out the door. If I hadn’t seen evidence she was a good doctor, all this talk would make me wonder.

I look at Blaine, wanting his read on all this.

He’s on his back, staring up at the ceiling, radiating so much tension I can’t help but think he’s in pain.

“I’m okay,” he assures me, darting a rapid glance my way.

He’s not even close to being okay. If anyone knows how to fake it like the best of them, it’s the girl who had two years of hiding her pain behind a façade of rage.

I hover inside the room, not sure where to look or even what to do. I just stand there, awkwardly, and nearly get hit with the door when it suddenly swings open.

A nurse apologizes as my gaze latches on the silver tray she wheels in.

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