Page 66 of Run Wild Omega

“Mara’s here?” My throat tightens. I don’t know why that surprises me, but it does. Mara, who has enough on her plate without adding me to it.

“She wouldn’t hear of staying in Denver,” Mom says, and I can hear the faintest edge of disapproval that’s really concern. “Daniel tried to get her to rest at the hotel, but she refused. She’s been here every few hours.”

“The hotel?”

“They’re staying at the Hampton Inn about ten minutes from here. Your father and I are there too. We didn’t want to be too far.”

I process this. My parents drove through a blizzard to get here. My brother and his pack drove up from Denver the moment the roads cleared. They’ve been sleeping in a hotel and taking shifts at my bedside for three days.

Guilt floods through me, hot and acidic.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper.

“Don’t you dare.” Mom’s voice sharpens. “Don’t you dare apologize for getting hurt, Tess. That’s not something you chose.”

But I did choose the ridge. I chose to go up that day. I chose the job, the mountain, the life that put me in the path of a collapsing cornice.

The door opens. I look up, expecting a nurse or a doctor, and instead see my father’s broad frame filling the doorway. His face is drawn, the lines around his eyes deeper than I remember, but when he sees me awake, something breaks open in his expression—relief so raw it makes him look like a different man.

“Tess.” He crosses the room in three strides and cups my face in his hands, his palms rough and warm. “You’re awake. Thank God.”

“Hey, Dad.” My voice wobbles. “You look terrible.”

He lets out a sound that’s half-laugh, half-sob. “Look who’s talking.”

He presses his forehead to mine, the way he used to when I was little and had a nightmare. I close my eyes, breathing him in—soap, coffee, the faint cedar scent of his jacket. Home.

When he pulls back, he’s composed himself, the steady father face sliding back into place. But his hand finds mine and doesn’t let go.

“How are you feeling? Honestly.”

“Like I got hit by a mountain.”

“You almost did.” He glances at Mom, some silent communication passing between them. “The doctor should be in soon to do a proper assessment. But your vitals have been strong for the last twenty-four hours. Your hemoglobin is back up. The leg…” He pauses. “The pressure in your leg stabilized. They were able to avoid a second surgery.”

I remember what Mom said about the swelling, the pressure on the nerves. A second surgery. They were preparing to cut my leg open again while I was unconscious, and they didn’t have to because—because what? Because the swelling went down? Because I got lucky?

“Who made that decision?” I ask quietly. “If I was unconscious, who decided to wait on the second surgery?”

A beat of silence. Dad’s hand tightens around mine.

“I did,” a voice says from the hallway.

Wyatt steps into the room.

He looks like hell. That’s my first coherent thought. His dark hair is unwashed, falling over his forehead in tangled waves. There’s a shadow of stubble on his jaw that’s bordering on a full beard.

The clothes he’s wearing are the same ones from the mountain—dark green SAR uniform, torn at the shoulder, stained with mud and something darker that I know, with a sick lurch of my stomach, is my blood. The gash on his forehead has been bandaged, but the edges of the tape are peeling, and there’s a fresh bruise blooming along his left cheekbone that wasn’t there before.

He looks like he hasn’t slept in three days.

He looks like he’s been fighting a war.

“The doctor recommended waiting,” he says, stopping a few feet from the bed. His voice is hoarse, like he’s been shouting or not speaking at all. “The transfusion was working, and your blood pressure was too low for anesthesia. We monitored the pressure readings every fifteen minutes. When they plateaued and started dropping, we knew we’d made the right call.”

“We?” I look past him. Dylan appears in the doorway, then Miles. Both of them look just as wrecked as Wyatt—exhausted, unwashed, held together by sheer stubbornness.

Dylan gives me a small, tired smile. “Hey, mountain goat.”