But instead of turning away in disgust, Ryker gripped my shoulder, his fingers digging in with fierce loyalty. “Whatever happens, Blake, I’m with you. All the way.”
My throat tightened. This was what family felt like. Not the emptiness I’d known as a child, but unwavering support in the darkest moment of your life. The knowledge that someone would walk through fire with you, no matter what sins stained your soul.
The cardiac monitor’s steady beep pulled my attention back to Tessa as they wheeled her gurney down the hallway. Sinus tachycardia, 130 beats per minute. Oxygen saturation dropping to 88%. The doctor in me cataloged every detail with clinical precision, even as my hands trembled with fear.
“Where are you taking her?” My voice cracked, betraying the terror I’d been trying to contain.
“ICU,” a nurse called over her shoulder, not breaking stride.
Dr. Calder appeared beside us, his face grim. “We have her on 100% oxygen with a mask right now.”
“Partial pressure of oxygen?” The question came automatically, my medical training kicking in like muscle memory. But while my mind raced through protocols and procedures, my heart screamed that this was Tessa. Not just another patient with cyanide poisoning.
“65 millimeters of mercury and falling.” Each of Calder’s words felt like watching a patient flatline on the table. That moment when the monitor’s steady rhythm dissolves into a single, merciless tone.
As a physician, I knew exactly what those numbers meant. As a man in love, I felt the weight of each digit crushing my chest.
“Early intubation would prevent further tissue hypoxia.” The words tumbled out, mechanical and desperate. “Have you started?—”
“Hydroxocobalamin is running wide open,” Calder cut in. “Sodium thiosulfate as a secondary treatment. IV fluids for pressure support. Anti-seizure prophylaxis. Activated charcoal since ingestion was recent.”
I nodded along, my doctor’s brain ticking through the treatment algorithm, even as my heart threatened to shatter. Every detail was textbook perfect, exactly what I would have ordered myself. But knowing the medicine didn’t help. Not when I could see the cyanosis tinting her lips blue, not when I knew exactly how cyanide was stealing oxygen from every cell in her body.
My medical knowledge wasn’t a comfort; it was torture. I understood with horrifying clarity exactly how the poison was destroying her from the inside out.
“Current lactate levels?” I heard myself asking, even though I didn’t want to know. Even though each lab value was another dagger in my heart.
“12.4 and rising.”
The number pierced through my chest like an OR scalpel. Metabolic acidosis. Cellular death. My medical mind translated the values automatically while my soul rebelled against their meaning. I pressed my palms against my eyes, trying to erase the textbook predictions of mortality rates associated with numbers like these.
“Will she be okay?” The question came out raw, stripped of all medical pretense. In that moment, I wasn’t Dr. Morrison, trauma doctor. I was just a man terrified of losing the woman he loved.
Calder’s hesitation became a fresh blade between my ribs. “At this stage, there’s a lot of uncertainty. We’ll be monitoring her in the ICU.”
“Time to consciousness?” I barely recognized my own voice.
“If she regains consciousness,” he emphasized, and the wordifshredded what was left of my composure, “it won’t be for several hours, maybe a day, as her body recovers from cellular damage caused by oxygen deprivation.”
The unspoken prognosis hung between us. I knew the statistics. Knew the likelihood of anoxic brain injury, of permanent cardiac damage, of multi-organ failure. My years of medical training painted vivid pictures of every possible complication. A thousand ways to lose her, each one more terrifying than the last.
I’d spent my entire adult life in a prison of isolation, its walls built from fear, each brick cemented in the belief that if you loved anyone, they’d choose to leave you. That caring for someone was just volunteering for pain. I’d been my own warden, my own sentencer, my own executioner.
But Tessa had slipped through the bars like sunlight through clouds, her affection seeds promising to take root and grow. She chose to love me, showing me through her actions that she’d never leave.
And now I understood. All that darkness that had poisoned me, that had turned me bitter and withdrawn, had a cure all along.
She was the antidote.
I’d wasted so many years fighting this love. But now that it coursed through my system, it transformed everything it touched. Each beat of my heart pumped it deeper, dissolving years of calcified pain. Where I’d built walls, light began to crack through. Where shadows had pooled, warmth began to spread.
Love wasn’t a prison sentence. It was freedom.
But only if she lived.
Ryker’s hand found my shoulder again, anchoring me as my world spun out of control. That’s when I heard heavy footsteps approaching from behind.
“Dr. Morrison.” The police officer’s voice was steel wrapped in false courtesy. “We need to ask you some questions about Eli Porter’s death.”
