Page 145 of Beware of Dog

At some point in the journey, he realized that Ian must have called upon a private medivac team.

But then they were touching down on the roof of Albany Medical Center Hospital, and he didn’t worry about what sort of strings the man had pulled.

There was a slip-sidey, unspecified period that followed, the one in which he thought he’d shoved or hit somebody wearing scrubs, and been yelled at for it. He recalled Raven’s cool, smooth voice rising to capture everyone’s attention. He didn’t remember walking out here, or sitting on the curb. As he turned his head, his vision smeared and blurred like he was really drunk, but he wasn’t dizzy. Adrenaline crash.

He saw warm yellow lights, and brick walls, and a ways down the street, a skywalk stretched between two wings of the hospital.

This was the nearest Level 1 trauma center, right? Right. He knew that. Just like he knew his arm hurt like a bitch. And that Cass might…might not…

He heard the soft clip of expensive shoes on the sidewalk behind him, and it dragged him back from the precipice of despair. It could have been someone coming out for a cigarette, a breath of fresh air; a worried wife, or mother, definitely a woman, going by the click of the high heels, but it could have been any woman, one who needed to escape the Cloroxed confines of a building meant to save, but which contained so very much death.

He knew it was Raven, though, before he twisted around and caught sight of her.

She still wore her ice blue dress, the lower half of it stiff, crumpled, and dark with crusting blood. VeryCarrie. Someone inside had lent her a white lab coat, and she held it closed tight across her middle with one hand, the other lifting her ruined skirt out of the way as she walked.

Under the yellow streetlights, her face was lined and exhausted; her hair had escaped most of its up-do, and she’d done nothing to right it save tuck a few stray pieces behind her ears. She looked more like Cass than Shep had ever seen her look, and maybe that should have been an insult to his wife, given her current haggard state, but he didn’t think of it like that. The resemblance was comforting, in the moment.

She walked with her head bent, careful of her footing, until she reached the curb, then she scooped a hand behind her back to smooth her skirt as she sat down next to him. Close, her knees tucked together and angled toward him so they pressed into the side of his thigh.

“She still in the OR?” He knew she was, because Raven would have been waving and calling him from the door if she was out of surgery.

She nodded. “An intern came to provide an update. Her vitals are stable. They’ve cleaned the wounds, and checked for further internal damage. The surgeon’s stitching her up, now, but he thinks she’ll be fine.” She dashed at her eyes, a fast, precise movement. “There is of course a risk of infection, and she’ll need physical therapy. We won’t know if there’s any nerve damage until she wakes, but…”

She took a heaving breath, and then patted his knee. “You did well, Shep. You did a good job. At the house, with Cass,” she pressed on, halting, struggling to hold back her tears. “You did so well.”

It had been a very long time since he’d gone home to visit his parents. And he’d never had anything like a tender or familial relationship with one of the old ladies. No pseudo sisters or mothers. And so it took him several long moments to realize that’s what Raven was offering him, now: a sister’s love and grace.

It took him a long moment to understand his automatic impulse: to realize that he wanted to bend at the waist, and lay his head in her bloodied lap, and feel her fingers through his hair. That wasn’t really what he wanted; he wanted the lap to be Cass’s. He wanted her fingers, and her gentle chiding, and her…fuck, he just wanted her…

He pressed a hand over his eyes and concentrated on his breathing.

She laid her hand on his arm, right in the crook of his elbow. “Frank.” Low and earnest. “Let’s go inside and let the doctors look at you.”

Too shaky to argue, he stood at her urging, and let her tow him back into the building.

Thirty-Four

The surgeon who’d patched up Cass had a grandfatherly demeanor that Shep found comforting. As comforting as anything could be in the moment. Wearing a gift shop t-shirt, arm freshly cleaned and bandaged, he sat on a plastic chair beside Raven and listened to the man talk about Cass’s condition, the therapy she would need, the antibiotics she’d been placed on, and what they could expect as far as recovery went. Shep nodded where appropriate, and he heard what the doctor said, filed it away somewhere useful in the back of his mind. But as soon as he could, he said, “When can I see her?”

She was still asleep, when he slipped into the room. The dress was gone. Of course it was. She wore a white hospital gown with blue squiggles printed on it. No more flowers and jeweled combs in her hair. Someone had cleaned up all the blood, wiped her face; it was sallow and gray-smudged, marks like bruises under her closed eyes.

Shep lingered a moment just inside the door.

She was alive.

She’d made it.

Shep was afraid, for a moment, that he might sink to his knees, his legs too unsteady to hold him up. But he took one lurching step, and then another, and another, and then he was at her bedside, falling into a chair, and he took her small, cold little hand so carefully into both of his.

That first, small contact, unconscious on her part, unlocked something inside his chest. Yes, her hand was cold, but notdeadcold.

It was their wedding night, and she was in a hospital bed.

He bent forward and pressed his forehead against her hand. Breathed. In and out, in and out.

Her fingers twitched, the slightest movement along his temple.

His next breath actuallydidsomething, actually filled him up with air.

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