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Chapter 47
Mikel
Mikel followed the doctor into the recovery room. Remy had so many tubes and wires coming from her body. She was hooked up to a ventilator, the machine breathing for her. Purple handprint bruises showed on her neck. He clenched his fists at his sides. His chest was tight and his lungs burned as the weight of this reality settled on his shoulders.
“We’ll move her into the ICU in a few hours once she’s cleared,” the nurse explained.
He nodded.
“Surgery went well. Luckily the knife missed her artery, but she lost a lot of blood. She had to be resuscitated. We’ve done all we can do. Now we just need to wait and see.”
Wait and see.
What if she didn’t make it? He staggered where he stood. The emotional punch of imagining a life without Remy in it stole the breath from his lungs. He’d have a daughter to raise on his own.
The urge to use reared its ugly head as he wished for an alternate reality where his Dove was safe. What if he never got to see those brown eyes light up, or hear her laugh again? What if he never got the chance to explain and tell her how much he loved her?
“Is she going to make it?” His voice trembled as he used his remaining strength to remain standing.
The doctor’s expression was grim as she nodded to a nearby nurse. “She seems like a fighter. I’ll check back in a couple of hours. Nurse Dan will see to her care for now. Can you get Mr. Evans a seat?”
Dan moved a chair by Remy’s bedside and motioned for him to sit. Mikel did so and reached his hand out to Remy’s arm.
“If you need anything, I’ll be right around the corner. Just holler,” Dan said.
Mikel breathed in, searching for her scent. It was barely there, overpowered by sterile hospital smell. Her flesh was cooler than it usually was. He closed his eyes, no longer able to look at the pain she was enduring, all because of him.
“I’m so sorry, baby.” Tears streamed from his eyes. How could he let this happen to her? Why hadn’t he just told her everything? “Every time I come into your life, you end up hurt.”
Her family were sure to blame him for this, and rightfully so. He’d let them all down. Mikel had promised them he’d take care of her, but he’d failed.
He moved closer, laying his head as close to hers as he could without possibly hurting her. He squeezed her hand. “I wasn’t using. I swear, baby. I went to pay him back what I owed him so this could all be over. I should have told you he was out, that he had been sending me messages. I should have told you Bently was going with me to that meeting to catch him extorting me.”
He sighed, gently smoothing a few of her dark curls away from her forehead.
“I was doing all of it for us. I just wanted to keep you safe and face my problems instead of running away this time. I should have told you, but I didn’t want to see the fear in your eyes. I wanted to protect you, and all I’ve done is hurt you.” He kissed her cheek. His whole body ached as the weight of mortality settled on him. Losing Remy to death was something he’d once thought impossible, but now the tides had changed, bringing reality closer. Maybe the ancient Greeks had it right and the thread between life and death was just that—a simple strand for the fates to decide when to cut.
“Lyra’s safe. We kept her from seeing anything. She thought we were playing a game with her, but she keeps asking for you.” He sniffled. “You gotta come back to us, baby. We need you to fight a little longer. I can’t lose you. I can’t—” His voice caught with emotion as his tears soaked the pillow.
Remy didn’t respond. The machines hummed and beeped with each rise and fall of her chest.
Mikel kissed her shoulder as the ache in his chest grew, his insides eviscerated with the possibility of having to go on with life without Remy. He closed his eyes, picturing the first time he’d kissed her; the first time they’d made love; the night she’d asked him to marry her, and the moment she’d seen the ring he’d had made especially for her. He held on to every bright and happy memory and hoped with every piece of his heart that for once his wish would come true.
Beep! Beeeeeep!
Alarms and buzzers started going off. Mikel whipped from the bed. The monitor where her heart line should have been peaking and baselining went flat. Unable to draw a breath, his body filled with the weight of dread.
Nurses and doctors rushed in as everything blurred around him. He was pushed to the side as they tore open her hospital gown and laid her straight. Someone was pulling on his arm, but his feet were lead. He stared at her closed eyes and lifeless body as it was jolted with the paddles only a second after someone called, “Clear!”
Beeeeeeeeep.There was a bump from the electricity and then that flat line.
“No! Baby, no!” The scream that came from him was guttural as he was ripped away from her room by several arms.
Their words were drowned out by the ringing in his ears. His last thread of hope was cut as she flatlined.
