Page 194 of The Wild Charge

He was so very, very tired after all.

“There. Much better.” Her touch withdrew, and when he opened his eyes, he was surprised by her expression; the concern pressed into it. Quietly, she said, “Are you okay?”

“Yeah.” His voice was rough at the edges.

Movement from the mouth of the hallway drew his attention. It was Reese, in a wheelchair, pushed by a nurse. He looked too small in his gown, paper bracelet on his wrist, one hand gripping unsteadily at the wheeled IV pole that he dragged along beside him. His face was a mess of bruises, rapidly going purple and black as the hours wore on; his bad eye was swollen hard and tight as an egg. But he surveyed them all with his good eye, and his lips twitched upward in a smile.

“Wow,” the nurse said, smiling, “you’ve gained yourself a crowd since we left.”

Reese said, “Can they come to my room with us? They’re my family.”

~*~

Abe was snoring. Bum leg extensively bandaged, he’d hobbled in on his crutches an hour ago with the assertion that he would keep Fox company.

“You’ll fall asleep.”

“Like hell.”

There he sat, slumped down in his chair, head tipped back at an angle that would leave a crick in his neck, snoring like a chainsaw.

Fox sat in the chair up by the head of Devin’s bed, attention fixed on the thick white bandaging wound around Devin’s middle. His chest rose and fell in time with Abe’s snores; a synchrony that Fox found himself matching with his own slow breaths. Three heartless killers running on the same frequency.

The sheer drapes across the window, stirring in the hum of the AC, had gone golden with midmorning light. The quiet sounds of traffic filtered up from the street below. Beyond the glass, it was a late September day, one heedless of the strange quiet in this room.

The door whispered open behind him. He could tell right away that it wasn’t a nurse, the soft, slow footfalls, but he didn’t turn around. Not even when a hand landed on his shoulder, slim but strong, and squeezed.

“Has he been awake yet?” Eden asked in a whisper.

“No.”

“He seems to be resting comfortably. His color’s good.”

“Yeah.”

He heard her gather a breath, and his brain skidded sideways.No. A curtain came down. Whatever she was going to say, he couldn’t listen to it right now. He just…couldn’t. Maybe later, in the days and weeks to come, but for now, he was just…shut down. Locked outside his own consciousness.

But she said nothing. Leaned down to press a kiss into his hair, hand squeezing again.

He reached up with his bad, bandaged hand, and bumped it clumsily over her knuckles.

Devin sucked in a sudden, deep breath, and his eyes slitted open. He coughed, and Eden moved to the bedside table, and the pitcher of water there. “Is it alright for him to have some?” she asked, pouring a cup.

“Dunno,” Fox said, because he didn’t.

Devin’s head rolled on the pillow and he groaned. “Christ.” His voice rasped, full of grit. He blinked a few times, and though bloodshot and slightly unfocused, his gaze fixed on Fox. “Look at that face. Who died?”

“Nobody important,” Fox deadpanned. “Only you a couple of times.”

A smile broke slow and crooked across Devin’s face, and he coughed a laugh. Glanced toward Eden as she moved to offer him the end of the straw she’d stuck in the water cup.

“Best to start slow, I think,” she said.

Fox leaned over and hit the call button.

By the time the nurse came in, Devin had downed a few careful sips of water – Eden pulled the cup away before he could make himself sick – and raised the head of the bed up a few degrees with the remote. The nurse was, unfortunately, young and pretty, and Devin put on his sire-of-ten-children smile when she swept into the room.

“Now I know I’ve died,” he croaked, “because only angels are this beautiful.”

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