Page 57 of Priest

Ink chuckles as we step out into the lot. “Nah. She’s gonna make you better.”

I breathe out slowly, the weight in my chest shifting into something sharper.

I know what needs fixing. I know who I am when I stop avoiding it. And I know I won’t let this club, or her, drift again.

19

Priest

The ICU smells like antiseptic and the kind of desolate fear nobody says out loud.

It’s different from the rest of the hospital, less movement and fewer voices, like everyone’s afraid sound itself might tip the balance. Ink slides the door open, and we step inside together.

Deacon looks smaller than he should.

Machines hum around him, steady and relentless, lines feeding into his body like he’s being held together by wires and willpower alone. His face is bruised, color washed out beneath harsh fluorescent light. There are tubes where there shouldn’t be tubes, bandages patching him up, and the weight of what almost happened presses down on my chest hard enough to make breathing feel like work.

Then I notice we’re not alone in the room.

She’s standing at the foot of the bed, chart in hand, shoulders squared like she’s bracing herself. Scrubs. Hair pulled back. Eyes too sharp to belong to someone detached from the man lying there. She looks up when the door slides shut.

“Oh,” she says. Not startled. Just caught. “I was just checking on him before my shift.”

Ink’s gaze flicks to her, quick and assessing.

“How is he?” I ask.

“Vitals are steady,” she replies, professional but tight around the edges. “He made it through the night. That was the big hurdle.” She exhales softly, and her eyes move to Deacon before she can stop them. “Now it’s day by day.”

She glances at the clock on the wall, already stepping back. “I should—”

“Wait.”

She pauses.

I can see it now, the way she’s standing too close to the bed, the way her fingers tighten around the clipboard when she looks at him. This isn’t just a nurse checking numbers.

“What’s your name?” I ask.

She hesitates, then says it anyway. “Lila.”

Something clicks.

“Lila,” I repeat slowly. “Deacon knew a Lila once. Talks about her all the time.” I look back at him, remembering too many nights overseas where that name came out of him like something he tried to bury and couldn’t. “The memory of her got him through some rough days.”

Her jaw tightens. “Yeah?” she snaps, heat flashing through her eyes. “Maybe she shouldn’t have been just a memory.”

The words land sharp enough to cut the air between us. I lift my hands instinctively, not defensive, more like I’m trying to keep the room from catching fire before I understand where the match came from.

“I didn’t mean—”

The door slides open behind us, and a bright voice cuts right through the weight in the room. “Well, Blue told me I’d find you here before shift.”

We all turn.

Evan steps into view in scrubs, messy hair, and that same too-easy grin he wore the night before when Blue tried to pass him off as something he very much wasn’t. His gaze lands on me first, then slides to Ink with open interest.

“Oh,” he adds. “Hey. You again.”