Page 141 of Salvaged Hearts

GREYSON

Beep.

Mattie, curling into Leighton’s lap on the soaked sand and holding on for dear life. A silently sobbing Oliver wrapping them up in his arms.

Beep.

Leighton, looking more likely to kill the EMT than let him take her.

Beep.

Alice swaying as she fought to stay vertical where she kneeled in the sand, applying pressure to Jax’s chest. The sound of her screaming for help as first responders tore onto the bank.

Beep.

My wife loaded into an ambulance while Mattie, Leighton, and Ollie were stuffed into another. The first tearing onto the road with sirens blaring and Jax inside.

Beep.

The bruising crack of my knees as they hit the tile floor when they took Alice behind double doors, I couldn’t follow through.

“Grey?” Something warm that smelled like an ashtray was under my nose, jerking me awake. My brother’s stony expressionwas locked on my face, and I blinked into the gloom of the hospital room. The obnoxious beeping sound clicking memories like slides through my mind was Mattie’s monitor. I’d nodded off in the stiff, pleather armchair in the corner, my neck protesting the awkward angle. Sucking down a breath, I straightened, eyes darting to where my niece slept, still hooked to the IV with Leighton cocooning her little body.

“What is it?” I demanded, reluctantly accepting the offered cup of hospital coffee he was wielding in my direction.

“Come on,” he whispered, glancing back at the girls like he was afraid to wake them.

My stomach sunk. Throat tightening. Eyes burning.

I couldn’t… couldn’t follow. Couldn’t endure anything else.

Jax had miraculously survived a very tedious surgery and many transfusions. They were now treating him for infection, but he’d yet to wake. As if the gunshot wasn’t enough, he’d sustained a concussion and broken ribs in the wreck.

Leighton—the endearingly feral honey badger that she was—had discharged herself against medical advice because they wouldn’t let her stay beside my niece as a patient. In her words, there wasn’t shit they could do for her broken ribs or collar bone, anyway. The moment the papers were signed, she’d allegedly scowled at the front desk lady like the policy was her fault before stomping to the elevator to go back to Mattie. She’d slithered into a gap between Matilda and the bed frame that was much too small for a full-grown woman, and yet she managed. Although I’m sure an abundance of pain medication helped her settle in there.

My Alice had been the last priority—her jaw set, and eyes ignited with white-hot rage—as the others were tended to.

Right up until she passed out in the bathroom.

I watched in silent terror as the staff rushed in with a crash cart, maneuvered her onto the flat stretcher, and wheeled herbehind double doors. Unforgiving white tiles hit my knees when they gave out, and I prayed to any deity that would listen to bring her back to me.

Evidently, the tears burning my cheeks hadn’t been silent, because before I could catch my breath, a little blonde with Alice’s eyes was kneeling in front of me with her hands on my face, her chin trembling before she scooped me into a standing hug with alarming strength.

Hadlee, I distantly remembered.

In the next breath, another set of arms wrapped around us. Another.Another. One after the other, her siblings lent me their strength, heads bowed together until a football-sized huddle consumed the hallway.

Someone prayed.

Everyone murmured their assent and amen.

The next hours were the worst of my life.

Brexley, Max, and Quinn reluctantly left the waiting room huddle to go to Oliver’s so the baby could sleep. Broderick attempted to get Elora to follow suit, to no avail.

Drips of information were leaked to us by nurses that came and left just as quickly.

Broken collar bone, sternum, and ribs.

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