Page 19 of Piece You Saved

“Kade will have to do it,” Dariel finishes.

“So, we’re not even going to talk about how this isn’t what he would want,” Kade snarls. He aims his question at Dariel, but he should be snarling at me too, because I’m not thinking about what Aden wants. I just want him to survive.

“Aden would be alive.” Dariel says the very words I’m thinking. “And alive is better than dead.”

Kade crosses over to Aden’s other side, leaning over the bed to pierce Dariel with a heated stare. “You can’t just fucking—”

A prickle of awareness clues me in that someone is watching me. I turn.

It’s Harley, and I get the impression he’s been doing it for a while now. His expression is curious but strangely hard to read. As if he knows something important and is waiting for me to ask him what it is.

“How long do we have?”

When he nods once, I know I’ve asked the right question.

Kade falls silent, and I feel him swing his attention to me.

Harley glances at the clock on the wall; the only thing of interest in this bland hospital room. It doesn’t even a TV. I guess patients in intensive care don’t need one if they’re all hooked up to machines that breathe for them. “It’ll take thirty minutes or so to prep the theater for Aden’s surgery. I can delay that for a little longer. Minutes, though, not hours, which doesn’t leave you long to do what you need to do and be out of the hospital before anyone notices you’re missing.”

“And if we just took Aden and walked out the front door?” Kade asks.

Harley glances at him. “No one will stop you, but theywillchallenge you. With Aden’s low blood pressure, I can’t tell you what will happen when we remove the ventilator. Will he breathe on his own, or will he stop? And if you’ve already bitten Aden and then someone stops you at the entrance to complete the release forms…”

“We may not get him out of the hospital before he shifts,” I whisper.

“He’ll start healing himself, and regular people don’t just heal themselves. If we stay, we don’t just expose him, but also ourselves,” Dariel says, not looking at me.

If this was Fight Club, and there was one rule, it would be that no one should know shifters exist. If the world knew about them and what they could do, the government would wipe them all out.

I thought Rylan was being dramatic when he told me some differences are so big, the world will turn against you if they knew what those differences were. That nothing you could say or do would ever make them think you were anything but a threat needing to be stamped right out.

Until I remembered what school had been like for me after Mom died and I became the girl with the alcoholic for a dad. I became… different. Something to laugh at or pity or bully.

Sometimes all three.

My difference was small, and yet it alienated me from everyone around me.

So I told Rylan I’d keep his secret since he’d saved me from Dad. I soon learned his idea of saving me meant chaining me to his bedroom wall.

“I’ll leave you to it.” Harley tucks his metal clipboard under his right arm, crosses over to the door he closed minutes before, and reaches for the handle. He wraps his hand around it but stops just shy of pulling it open, his back to us.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t save your friend, Jane.”

It’s my turn to nod, even though he can’t see me as I swing away from him to give Aden my full attention. “You did what you could.”

I wish it was more, but I saw the state of Aden’s chest. He shouldn’t have been breathing after what Rylan did to him. My eyelids burn, and I lift my hand to rub my burning, itchy nose.

“Jane?”

When Harley’s voice comes again, I jerk my head toward him. I thought he’d already left, but I just hadn’t heard him.

He’s peering over his shoulder at me. There’s no sign of the flirty doctor from before. His turquoise eyes glitter with fury. “The—I hesitate to say person—animal who did this to your friend… Can I assume it was the same one who is responsible for the scars on your neck and what happened to Simon?”

I meet his gaze steadily, not sure what, if anything, I should share. After a moment, I nod. It’s not like I’m ever going to see him again when we leave.

His lips curve up in an almost smile, and he nods again before he turns, opens the door, and walks out, closing the door with deliberate finality behind him. I stare after him, puzzling at the reason for the smile and why he didn’t ask me who was responsible for ripping apart so many lives. Surely, he’d ask, right?

“Angel.” A hand touches my arm, making me startle. I dart a glance to my right, meeting Kade’s eyes. “You should wait outside.”

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