Page 280 of Fearless

She watched, touched and amused, as Ghost returned and set the Coke and candy bar down on the little table at Ava’s elbow. He touched her shoulder, careful, gentle. “Eat a few bites,” he said, “so your mother will stop bitching about it.” His voice reminded Maggie of the one he’d used when Ava had been just a baby.

She had a flash of remembrance, a clear memory of the day Ava had been placed in her arms for the first time, pink, new, and squalling. Seventeen, just out of school, and her husband twenty-eight and beside himself with worry through every second of the labor.

“Do you want to hold her?” Maggie had asked him.

She’d wanted to cry watching the delicacy of his hands as he held his daughter that first moment. Maggie had thought of Ava – she loved the sound of the name – but Ghost had come up with Rose. His mother’s name.

However Ava perceived his gruff, dictatorial patriarchy, Ghost loved his daughter more than life. Always had. His face, when Aidan had told them over the phone about the accident, had stopped Maggie’s heart.

Now, in this sterile, lemon-smelling waiting room, Ghost perched on a chair three spots over, trying not to crowd Ava, watching alertly as she picked up the Snickers bar, unwrapped it, and took a tiny bite from one corner.

He glanced over at Maggie, with a face that said,I’m trying.

I know you are, baby, she projected back.

Then she jerked when she saw that Dr. Roth was pushing through the doors.

Ava drew upright as if pulled by strings, her back and neck rigid, the candy bar forgotten in her hands. It didn’t look like she breathed.

“Mrs. Lécuyer,” the young intern said, “Felix is doing just fine. He’s being moved to recovery. If you’ll follow me, you can see him.”

It was almost fifteen minutes before Mercy stirred. The surgeon, a severe, capable-seeming woman, came to brief them on the surgery. It had been complicated, she said, with the knee smashed so severely. She’d made the repairs, inserted several pins to hold the wreck together, and explained that he’d need at least one more surgery to regain full mobility.

Ava listened raptly, nodding, ensuring that she understood. All the while, she held Mercy’s limp hand.

It was in the quiet afterward, as they waited, that Mercy finally took a deep breath and his head shifted, his hand closing on Ava’s. His first word was her name. “Ava.” And then: “Shit, where…?”

“Right here,” Ava told him. “I’m right here.”

Maggie turned her face into Ghost’s shoulder. “I want to take them home. Let’s sign him out AMA, as soon as he can be moved, and let’s go.” When his eyes came down to her face, she saw the swirl of emotions in their brown depths. “I want to take them home,” she repeated, and knew that he understood her completely.

Mercy was theirs. He was, had always been, the only reason Ava was alive. His home was their home. Their family.

Ghost nodded. They wouldn’t turn him away again.

There was pain. A blinding red wash of it, pain that was remembered and current and projected for his future. The kind of all-consuming pain that had no boundaries. And beyond it, there was a black veil, separating him from the only thing he cared about.

He felt her hand against his. There was no mistaking those skinny fingers.

“Ava.”

Was that his voice? That awful dry croaking sound?

He forced his eyelids apart; they were heavy as painted-over windowsills, gummed and dry and resisting every fraction.

“Where…?” His fucking tongue wouldn’t work. He’d been run over by a truck, hadn’t he? Or maybe just slid under one. He couldn’t remember. His last conscious memory was of Ava’s fingers scrabbling against his as he unlaced them and pitched her off the back of the bike.

Oh, shit.

He needed her to understand. She had to know that he’d done that to protect her. It had been the hardest decision he’d ever had to make, but he’d made it in a snap, and he needed her to know…

But what if she was hurt? What if the hand he held belonged to a girl in the same sort of pain as him?

He tried to speak again. It was like lifting weights, opening his mouth.

And then, through the hazy slits of his eyes, he saw her face, haloed by a bright overhead light. Her hand tightened against his.

“Right here,” she said. “I’m right here.”

---