Page 89 of Anchor
Foley straddled the table, shouting, elbows deep in pressure dressings. Wires and tubes tangled from every limb. Apex was outside the room, back turned, stiff, watching the hallway with a hand half-drawn toward his holster.
None of it mattered. Not up here.
Because when he turned—when the space around him softened into something impossible—they were there.
His mother stood in the doorway. Not the way she’d died. Not weak, not sunken, not gray-skinned and shaking in that hospital bed he never forgave himself for leaving.
She was young. The way he wanted to remember her. Bright-eyed. Barefoot in a field of wildflowers, denim rolled to hercalves. Wind in her hair. A soft white sweater. That laugh she’d had before alcohol stole it. Before she lived in a bottle.
Her eyes locked on him. Knew him. Saw right through him like she always did.
Beside her, his father. Tall. Weathered. His Texas Ranger hat. That navy windbreaker, arms crossed like always, half a smirk hiding in the corner of his mouth. “You’re early.”
His mother didn’t speak. She didn’t have to. Her face said it all. The look that held his whole childhood in it. The way she smiled when she thought no one was watching. The way she used to rest her hand on the back of his neck when he cried as a boy, never saying a word, just letting him know she was there.
Reid took a step forward, but something pulled. Not on his body—on him. Not a hand. Gravity. A thread stretching from his chest back down to the gurney, taut and humming.
Below, Foley shouted again, something about compressions, about shocking again. His mother looked at him. Really looked. And slowly, gently… shook her head.
Not yet.Not this time.
Her eyes held him. That same soft warmth he’d chased in dreams. That wordless comfort that said home without sound. And still, she shook her head.Not yet.
Behind her, his father gave a quiet sigh, glancing toward the pull Reid felt, that humming thread stretched down and trembling.
A sound.
Sharp. Real. Cracking across the stillness like a whip through glass.
“Clear!”
Below, the room lit white as the defibrillator fired. Reid’s body arched. His back came off the table, ribs seizing tight, a jolt snapping through flesh and bone. The hum in the thread wenttaut, and then it snapped, pulling him down like a hook caught deep inside his chest.
He fell. Fell hard. Into pain. Into fire. Into cold and choking blood. His body. His real, broken body. He crashed into it with a scream caught in his throat andbreathed.
A raw, jagged breath that scraped the inside of his lungs like broken glass. His fingers twitched. Eyes fluttered.
Above him, Foley shouted again, “We got something! Diaz, give me another bolus! Get that pressure up!”
Reid gasped. His ribs were screaming. His side felt hollowed out, his shoulder wet and numb. But he was there. Not dead. Not yet.
Somewhere behind his eyes, the image of his mother lingered. Fading now. Distant. Like a photograph left in sunlight. But her eyes stayed. She had let him go. For now.
CHASE MEDICAL – OUTSIDE TRAUMA BAY
The moment the elevator doors clanged open, Tuck was already running. As he sprinted down the hall, a nurse was trailing him, trying to hand him gloves he didn’t stop to take. One of the bay doors slammed shut behind Foley. The red light over the trauma seal was blinking.
"Outta my way!" he barked, boots pounding the tile. "Move, dammit!"
Esteban opened the side access, and Tuck shoved through.
Reid was on the table. Pale. Soaked in blood, his chest rising in shallow jerks.
Foley looked up, relief and strain in equal measure. “Hanlon—thank God. We’re losing perfusion.”
Tuck snapped on gloves mid-stride. “Damn it. We need to crack his chest right now, or we lose him.”
“Already started.” Foley gritted his teeth, sweat pouring.
