Page 74 of Welded Defender
Her answer comes swift and certain. “Always.”
CHAPTER 41
Marcy
The hospital smells like antiseptic and recycled air. Too clean, too sharp. I’ve learned to hate it. But tonight—tonight I can finally breathe.
Because Landon is being discharged.
He’s in the wheelchair the nurse insisted on, looking like he’d rather walk through a blizzard barefoot. He’s paler than usual, a bit thinner too, but alive.
I keep one hand curled around the chair handle as we roll down the corridor. My knuckles whiten with each tile we cross. A week ago, those same fingers pressed against his chest, slipping in crimson that soaked through my jeans as I knelt beside him. I tighten my grip now, feeling the solid metal beneath my palm. Real. Present. Not slick with something I can’t stop.
“You don’t have to hover,” he mutters, glancing up with a tired smile.
“Too bad.” My voice shakes only a little. “Hovering is my new favorite hobby.”
He snorts—which in Landon is basically a laugh—and doesn’t argue.
The automatic doors sigh open and winter rushes in: frost and exhaust and the clean bite of cold. And there they are—our people.
Nova perches on the hood of Becket’s truck, waving both arms like an air-traffic controller. Becket stands beside her, arms folded, doing his very best impersonation of unimpressed while his jaw flexes with relief. Joon hovers on Nova’s other side, quiet but smiling in a way I’m not sure I’ve ever seen. Wes paces in a puffy coat that looks like a sleeping bag swallowed him, and Ravi balances two coffees on a cardboard tray, phone trapped between shoulder and ear.
Near the truck, Landon’s mom waits with Rick. Her eyes are red but warm—the kind of warm that makes my throat sting. She looks so much like Landon around the eyes it hurts.
The nurse stops the chair, and before I can straighten, Nova vaults off the hood and drops to her knees to hug her brother. “Finally,” she says, voice cracking, arms vice-tight around him. “Don’t you ever do that again.”
“Get shot?” Landon deadpans. “I’ll make sure to take that off my to-do list.”
“Smartass,” she mutters, and sniffs a laugh into his shoulder.
“Alright,” Becket rumbles, stepping forward to peel her off like a barnacle. “Let the man breathe.”
Nova flips him off without looking and clings harder. Becket rolls his eyes and waits her out.
Wes swoops in next, hands careful but eyes bright. “You look like hell,” he announces cheerfully, then grimaces. “A very handsome, brooding, tragic-hero kind of hell.”
“Translation: he missed you,” Ravi says, passing me a coffee and nudging Landon’s good hand with the other cup. “Here. Approved by the gods of caffeine. My mother also filled your freezer with her cooking. You’ll be eating roti and curry for months.”
“Tell her thank you,” Landon says, his voice soft as he takes the cup.
Then Landon’s mom appears in front of us, her cardigan smelling of cinnamon and her eyes the same amber-flecked green as his. My lungs forget how to work, throat closing like I’ve swallowed sand.
She kneels by the chair, the dimming sunlight catching silver strands in her dark hair as she cups his face in her hands, thumbs smoothing the cowlick off his forehead like he’s eight again. The thin gold band on her finger gleams against his pale skin.
“You scared me,” she whispers, her voice cracking on the last word. He leans forward into her touch the way only grown sons do when they stop pretending to be invincible, his shoulders curving inward.
“I’m sorry, Ma,” he murmurs, the words barely audible over the cars moving in and out of the hospital parking lot.
She kisses his temple, leaving a faint smudge of coral lipstick. Then she stands—knees cracking softly—and pulls me into her arms, surprisingly strong for someone so small.
I freeze, startled, then I’m wrapped in laundry detergent and winter air and the quiet strength of a woman who’s had to be both anchor and sail. “Thank you,” she breathes in my ear. “For being there. For not letting go.”
My eyes burn. “I—he—” The words get lost, tiny and insufficient.
She draws back, her smile watery but sure. “Welcome to the family, Marcy.”
The breath leaves me in a soft, shocked sound. Rick rests a steady hand on my shoulder. “We’re glad you’re here,” he says, and it’s such a simple sentence that it completely undoes me.
