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It’s pitch black by the time we pull up outside the hospital, and just the sight of the place makes me burst into tears. The ambulance parked up out front and the lights blaring from every single window, promising help, promising rescue, is more than I can take. We got her here. Somehow she made it this far.
Zeth collects her from the backseat again, and we run inside. Michael stays with the car. Michael takes the car away. I don’t know what happens to Michael. All I care about is Alexis.
The nurse on duty at reception drops her pen when she sees us. We must look like hell, covered in blood and dust, carrying a half dead girl between us. I’m rattling off Lexi’s stats before the girl can even process what she’s seeing.
“Gunshot wound to the abdomen. Severe kidney damage, hemodynamically unstable, tachycardic and hypertensive. She needs to be booked into an OR now!”
The nurse responds quickly, sending out an emergency page for all available bodies; a crash team and two doctors arrive almost immediately, taking Alexis without so much as a backward glance at me and Zeth. The nurse sticks around, though. What’s happened to her? What’s my relationship to the patient? What treatment has she received? Allergies? End of life, do not resuscitate wishes? I answer everything through a daze of exhaustion and a level of adrenalin that now feels toxic.
After that it’s just Zeth and me. Alone. In a hospital waiting room.
“Sloane?”
I can’t force myself to look at him. Instead I burst into tears. I let him wrap his arms around me, and I bawl my eyes out for god knows how long, feeling weaker and weaker with each and every passing moment. The likelihood of Lexi making it is so slim that I can’t even calculate such low odds. And what happened back at the compound… Zeth killing Teo…
“Sloane, she’s going to be okay. It’s going to be okay.”
“How can you say that?” I push him away, batting the tears out of my eyes. “How?”
Zeth is just as composed as he’s been throughout this whole nightmare day; he reaches out to me and sweeps my hair out of my face, shaking his head. “Because she’s your sister, angry girl. If she’s half as strong as you are, then she’s gonna be just fine.”
I can’t believe he thinks that. I stand up on shaky legs and start pacing, my arms wrapped around my body. “I hesitated. I took too long. She’s probably gonna die now, and if I’d acted quicker…” I pull in a deep breath, fighting against the tears. How many times have I told interns you can’t hesitate? How many times? And then the moment when I need to concentrate the most, I freeze. Lexi needed me and I froze. My limbs feel boneless, like I could collapse any second. Zeth comes and stands behind me, placing his arms around me as though he knows I need to be standing for this.
“You were brave. And you were fucking strong. You did what you had to do.” His voice is so deep, rumbling through his ribcage and vibrating into my back. I have to admit it to myself—I was terrified of him back in the compound when he attacked Teo so viciously. Absolutely terrified. But his words have been playing over and over in my head ever since I asked him if he had to do what he’d done, and sick as it may sound, I understand why he told me to work it out on my own.
In between freaking out, thinking that my sister was dead on the way here, I’ve run the scenario through my head over and over, time and time again. I’ve watched it play out a thousand times, and I’ve imagined every single outcome I can, too: Zeth not acting, and Teo shooting Michael; Zeth taking the time to try and wrestle the gun from the guy and getting shot himself in the process; Zeth attacking him in a million different ways, and each time the outcome is the same. Someone dies. I’m probably a terrible person, but I’ve come to the conclusion that he…he did the right thing. And by letting me decide that, to figure it out on my own, I know it’s the truth. A guilty man will plead innocent until he runs out of breath. That it was all an accident. That it was someone else. That he had no other choice. I wouldn’t have accepted Zeth telling me that he had to do it at the time. I would have just been afraid. And I still am afraid…just not afraid of him.
I carefully place my hands over his, folded on my stomach, and I let my head fall back against his chest. He’s got me. He’s got me now, and he had me back in Julio Perez’s kitchen, when I needed someone the most.
He was the one who got me through it.
“You did what you had to do as well,” I whisper. “I know that.” I don’t even need to explain what I’m talking about. Zeth knows, and his deep exhalation tells me he’s been waiting for me to make up my mind on that one. Waiting ever since we left Julio’s compound.
“Thank you,” he murmurs.
I shake my head, closing my eyes against the stinging in my tear ducts. “No. Thank you.”
Whoever he is, this man cautiously holding onto me, he’s killed to protect me and helped me save my sister, for however short a time that may be. He’s going against every single instinct he has even remaining in this hospital right now, knowing the sort of questions that are going to be asked. And he’s doing it all for me. He can hide behind the violence of his past all he likes, but I’m beginning to see the truth of him. I’m beginning to see the good that he so desperately hides away at all costs.
We stand together for a long time, not speaking. Just waiting, Zeth supporting me against him, breathing softly into my ear. It’s two hours later when a doctor comes to find us. A young woman, a resident like me, wearing the same business like expression I wear when I come to deliver bad news. I feel my throat closing up at the very sight of her, my legs finally buckling out from underneath me.
