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My hands are shaking. I look down at them until they stop. It takes four seconds. The longest four seconds of my life.

"Okay," I say. Not to the room. To her, maybe. Or to myself. I’m not sure which.

I take a deep breath and say it again. "Okay." I find the field again. The repair. The work that was already in progress before my whole world rearranged itself.

Jensen's hand moves back in to blot. I let it happen, and the effort of that costs me more than I can explain. I grit my teeth and steady my hands. She needs me to be the surgeon right now. She needs me to be the best one in the building, in the city, in whatever universe saw fit to put her on my table today without warning me first.

So, for her, that's what I am.

fifteen

Beck

I’ve pulled the chair as close to the bed as it will go, elbows on my knees, watching her breathe.

She's small in the hospital bed. That's the first thing I notice now that the surgery is behind me and there's nothing left to do but sit here and be useless. She looked small on the table too but that was before I knew she was mine. Then she was a problem to solve. Now she's an omega. My omega. Pale and still, her blonde hair pushed back from her face, monitors beeping their steady reassurance that she is here and staying here.

I did that. She could have so easily slipped away. Before I ever got a chance to—

I push that energy away. She’s here and safe. I’ve seen this before and I know she’ll be okay. It’s harder when it’s your omega lying in the bed.

She came around once, just after we moved her. Eyes fluttered. Didn't open all the way. A small sound that might have been confusion or pain or both. And then she was gone again. Back under, her body deciding it wasn't done resting yet.

It’s all normal. For an omega, after anesthesia and the pain meds and the sheer physical shock of her injury, sleep is normal. It’s exactly what she should be doing. I know this. I've told families this a hundred times in this exact tone of clinical reassurance. It doesn't make watching it any easier.

Her chart says her name is Camelia James. No emergency contacts listed in the system. No bond marks on her neck. I looked. No pack scent on her at all, even accounting for the neutralizer.

Marco brought my phone from my locker an hour ago, set it on the bedside table without comment, and had the good sense to leave. My hands are finally still enough that I can use it. I pick it up now. Open the pack group chat. I stare at it for a moment.

Beck: Hospital. ASAP. I found our omega.

I close the app and set the phone face down on my knee. My hands might be steady now, but my leg won't stop shaking. I stand. Pace to the window, to the door, back to the window. This part of the hospital butts up against medical campus. Students mill around in a grassy area below. I have no interest in watching them. I sit back down. Pull the chair closer, which is not possible because it's already as close as it goes, which is somehow infuriating.

I take her hand. Carefully, keeping clear of the IV-line threading into the back of it. Her fingers are cold. There's a faint smudge of something on her wrist. No one had time to clean her up properly before we went in.

She's pretty anyway. Even pale like this, even with the remnants of whatever she was wearing before a stranger shoved her into traffic smudged beneath her eyes, she's pretty. Heart-shaped face. Full mouth. Blonde lashes against her cheeks. I find myself wondering what color her eyes are. I find myself wondering a lot of things.

Who would do this to her? Why?

My phone buzzes against my knee.

Finn: On my way.

I look at it for a moment. Then I set the phone back down and tighten my grip on her cold fingers. "They're coming," I tell her. She can't hear me, but it doesn't matter. I need to say it out loud anyway. "You're not alone."

There’s a tentative knock at the door. Everyone has been moving like that around me since the OR. The nurses have been coming in on schedule to check her vitals and adjust her drip, but they knock first now. And they wait to be called in.

"Come in."

Saanvi opens the door slowly. She takes in the room—me in the chair, Camelia in the bed, the way my hand is still covering hers—and to her credit, her expression doesn't change. "Dr. Marin has called for you," she says.

"I know."

"Beck." She says it steady and careful, the same way she said it in the OR. "He’s the chief of surgery. You have to go."

"Not yet." I look back at Camelia. "I can't leave until my pack gets here. I'm not leaving her alone."

Saanvi doesn't argue. She steps further into the room and stands quietly. We stay like that for a while. "He'll understand," she says finally. "Dr. Marin’s pack has an omega too." She lets out a quiet breath. "It's not like you could help it."