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Nothing will be enough until I see for myself that Hawk is fine.
***
I’m supposed to rest. My blood was taken for analyses, the doctor examined me and asked me questions, and I was settled on a hard bed with an equally hard pillow and was told to sleep.
Ha. As if I could. I tell them that, and they smile indulgently and tell me to try.
Whatever. I can’t.
Of course I’m asleep so fast after I can’t remember anything after that—until I blink crusty eyes open sometime later and find Storm and Raylin sitting by the side of the bed.
It takes me a few moments to process this, and then I’m sitting up, alarmed. “Hawk? What happened?”
“He’s fine,” Storm says and gestures for me to lie back down.
My head is spinning, so that’s a good idea. I sag back against the hard pillow. “How is he?”
“He hasn’t woken up yet. But the doctors say the bullets didn’t hit too close to the spine. He’ll be fine.”
“So why hasn’t he woken up yet?”
Storm and Raylin exchange a quick glance. “His body is probably dealing with the trauma. He has several broken ribs and some organ bruising.”
God. “But that’s not all, is it?”
“He might have hit his head. It might be something else they haven’t yet figured out. But, Layla—”
I’m already swinging my legs off the bed, shivering in the thin hospital gown. “I want to see him.”
“He’s been seen by the best doctors. He has the best care.” Storm is hovering by my elbow as if afraid I’ll faceplant. I might. “Don’t worry.”
“Don’t tell me not to worry, when all this is my fault. I should never have left and put him in such danger. And then when I…” I glare at him. “Why are you snickering?”
I look down at myself, then twist my head to look behind me, in case this is one of those hospital gowns that leaves your butt hanging out.
Nope. Everything is covered.
“It’s just that… you’re so similar, you and him.” Storm rubs a hand over his face, his laughter dying.
“Similar?” Last I checked I wasn’t a six-foot-four hulking Viking with a beard.
“Yeah, similar. He also thinks all this is his fault—for getting you involved, for being an ass to you, for… everything. All this guilt and worry.”
I sit back down, trying to process this. He thinks it’s his fault. It makes sense, knowing Hawk, knowing how he thinks all his parents did, all the Organization did is on him. That he has to always put his life on the line to fix other people’s mess.
It’s part of who he is, and I love his selflessness. But it’s time someone told him he has a right to be selfish, too. That he deserves to live and let those who screwed up pay for their mistakes.
“How can you be laughing,” I ask Storm, “when your friend is lying unconscious in the other room?”
“He will wake up,” Storm says, and his eyes flash. “He’s too stubborn not to.”
He sounds so sure of it, but then Raylin puts her arms around him, and I realize it’s all a front. Storm is scared, like I am, but he’s hiding it. He’s lost people he loved, I remember from what I read in the newspapers a few months back. His parents, and his uncle, killed by the Organization.
“Take me to him,” I tell Storm and push to my feet again. “Please.”
I need to make Hawk listen, and although he’s out of it, I really hope he can hear and come back to me.
***
