Maverick
We’re right behind you. Reed’s driving like a fucking maniac. We’ll meet you at the emergency room.
I pocket my phone, choosing not to answer. My focus stays on her—the only thing that matters right now. My time with her is precious, and I know how quickly the world can take someone from you without so much as a warning. I’ve learned that the hard way.
I lean closer, brushing her knuckles with my thumb. “You scared the shit out of me,” I whisper, my voice rough from holding it together for too long. “But I’m not letting you go. I don’t care what I have to do, what it takes. You’re not leaving me, not like this.”
No response.
I keep talking anyway. Because if she can hear me, if there’s even a sliver of her somewhere inside this stillness, I want her to know I’m not going anywhere.
The medic leans over and injects something into her IV, eyes locked on the monitor. He adjusts the oxygen mask, glancing over at me, giving a slight nod.
I give the medic a slow, tired grin, but I don’t take my eyes off her for a second.
She’s all I see. She’s all I’ve ever seen since she came to my ranch.
The woman who stormed into my life like a summer monsoon, loud and untamed, who shook up everything I thought I had settled. That was only six months ago, but time doesn’t mean shit when someone cracks you wide open, and fills every part you didn’t realize was empty. She became everything—my peace, my fight, my reason to start again. I didn’t know I needed her until I couldn’t breathe without her.
She made the noise quiet. She made the weight bearable. She made me feel like I was worth something again.
I reach out, brushing a strand of damp hair behind her ear, my fingers trembling from the ache I’ve been trying not to let devour me.
“Baby,” I whisper, barely holding it together, “please, come back to me. There is no me without you. I fucking need you.”
Her lashes barely flutter.
A flicker of movement that sends hope crashing into my chest so fast it knocks the air from my lungs. I hold my breath, waiting, begging.
The monitor beside us lets out a single, sluggish beep. Then another. A high-pitched shriek slices through the silence like a knife straight through my spine.
The green line on the monitor jerks once. Then flattens. One long, unbroken line stretches across the screen like a death sentence I wasn’t ready to read.
Flatline.
“No,” I gasp, my voice shattering in the space between us. “No—no, no. Catalina!”
The medic swears under his breath as another rushes forward, grabbing the crash cart, barking orders that sound a hundred miles away. Their hands shove me backward, outof the way. I stumble into the seat beside the stretcher, my body going numb.
Everything fucking slows. The world spins off its axis as I sit there, paralyzed.
All I can hear is that cold, mechanical scream filling the back of the rig. That thin, piercing tone that doesn’t care about love, promises, or how hard I prayed for her to stay.
carter
. . .
The hospital doors blast open, letting in a rush of chilled air that cuts through the panic. The medics don’t stop moving. They wheel Catalina through the entrance with clinical urgency, their voices sharp, clipped, already calling out her stats as if saying them louder might somehow keep her alive.
Overhead, the fluorescent lights blur together. They flicker past in quick succession, painting her skin in ghostly shades that make her look even more fragile than before.
The smell is the next thing that hits me. It’s sharp and bitter, the unmistakable mix of bleach and antiseptic, so thick it burns my nostrils. It’s meant to feel clean, but it doesn’t. It smells like fear. Like endings. Like every memory I’ve tried to bury behind hospital walls, it comes back to punch a hole straight through my chest.
“Sir, you have to wait here,” someone says behind me, their tone practiced but detached, like this is just another day.
The stretcher turns a sharp corner, as the wheels shriek against the linoleum as they pull her out of reach. Heroxygen tubes twist around her like tangled thread, and the doors swing shut behind her before I can even find the right words.
“No—wait!” I shout, pushing forward with everything I have. “I’m going with her. I’m not fucking leaving her again.”
