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Declan’s hand came up between my face and it.

“Don’t,” he told me quietly. “Please.”

I looked back at Ben. “Below.”

Something passed through his face. Gone too quickly to name.

The trainer moved closer. “I need to check her.”

Declan didn’t move, didn’t even look at her.

She looked at him. “Bishop.”

His hands stayed on me. “No.”

“I’m not asking you to leave,” she said.

That worked.

He shifted enough to let her in.

I grabbed his wrist as it shifted from me, holding it in place. “Don’t,” I said quietly.

He turned his hand, entwining our fingers, and shifted closer until he was crowding me, giving the trainer my other side. “That better?”

I took a jagged breath and gave a minuscule nod.

Dad watched every movement.

Riot was already on his phone.

Dad looked over. “Our guy?”

Riot nodded once. “Checking.”

I looked between them. “What are you checking?”

“Nothing you need to worry about right now,” Dad said.

“That sentence has never once made anybody worry less.”

Normally Riot would have smiled. He didn’t.

The trainer shone a light in my eyes. Asked my name. The date. Where I was. I answered everything.

I knew what had happened right up until I tried to explain it.

That part had no words. Only images. Dirt. Trees.

Black. Blood. A voice under the earth.

And Declan. Bringing me back from it.

Always Declan.

The trainer didn’t give anybody much choice about the emergency room.

There they gave the whole thing cleaner words.