He turned away and followed the doctor.
Leaning heavily on his crutches, the rubber tips thump-thumping across the tile, Wynn made his way around the curtain to the ICU bed where Holly lay hooked to every sort of machine imaginable, clear tubes snaking from the tender white insides of her arms to half a dozen IV bags on silver poles. She was such a small thing, and the bed swallowed her, the gown and pillows and blankets frothed around her, her hair fanning across the pillow, so she looked like a mermaid in the surf.
Michael had a chair beside her, his attention riveted to her face. She slept, motionless as death, and yet he couldn’t have looked more fascinated, his brow crinkled, as if he concentrated fiercely.
He glanced up at the sound of Wynn’s entry, and Wynn didn’t miss the way his hand fluttered down toward his calf a moment, a knee-jerk reach for the knife in his boot. He settled, though, when he saw who it was. He started to stand.
“Uncle Wynn–” An urgent, guilt-ridden whisper.
“Sit.” Wynn waved him back now. “I’m fine. Don’t you worry about me, just a little broken leg. How’s our girl?”
Michael sighed, sagging back into his chair. His gaze returned to Holly; his throat worked as he swallowed. “The doc said she’d sleep a while yet. Said surgery went well.”
“She’ll be alright then?”
Michael nodded.
“Thank God.” He released a sigh of his own.
Michael looked troubled, though.
“What’s the matter, son?”
Michael blinked. Once, twice. His eyes were slick when they cut over. “Other than the fact that I led those sick fucks to my uncle, left you sitting in the woods with a broken leg, and didn’t take care of them weeks ago like I should have?”
“Michael–”
“I have never, in my life,” he said quietly, fiercely, “met anyone who deserved to live so much, and she almost…” He swallowed again, overcome, unable to continue.
This was the dam bursting, Wynn realized. This poor, orphaned, broken boy had been storing up the hurt and the hate since Cami’s death, and he was living it all over again with Holly. He couldn’t have stood to lose her.
Wynn laid a hand on his shoulder. “She didn’t, though,” he said. “She’s lying right there, waiting on you, and she’ll be so glad to see you when she wakes up.”
Michael nodded, his face locked tight.
“Here.” Wynn fished into his pocket, curled his hand around the liquid silver lightness in the bottom, and scooped it up. “I had your friend – Rottie, he said his name was – fetch this out of the box in your old room ‘fore we came here.”
Michael turned, and Wynn let the silver cross fall into open air, swinging from its chain. Camilla’s cross, the one she’d pressed into her son’s hands the moment before she died.
“I thought maybe you’d like to pray for her,” Wynn said. “If you still believe…if you ever did…Anyway, it was your mother’s,” he finished gruffly. “I thought you ought to have it now, while you’re…”
With the other woman he loved.
Michael nodded, and took the necklace into his hand. He gathered a breath, like he meant to speak, but was forced to nod again instead.
“Ah, son.” Wynn patted him on top of the head. “I know it hurts, but it’s worth it.She’sworth it.”
**
It hurt. It hurt so bad. Not the precise cold pain of the knife going in, but this awful throbbing in her middle, wrapping around her sides, thumping in her back.
And there was a deeper pain. An anguish in her bones. Michael. Where was Michael? Jacob had had the knife…and Michael had been coming. Oh God, if something had happened to him…and she hadn’t even told him how much she loved him…
Her eyes were shut. She could see, but it was black, because the lids were down, and they weresoheavy.
She forced them up, up, up. Her head weighed a ton, and it took all her energy to shift it. Light bombarded her, burning her eyes.
Sounds assaulted her frayed nerves: beeps, hums, clicks…and…breath. Breathing. Someone was near her, with her.