James didn’t answer—he didn’t need to.
Charlotte leaned over Alex, brushing her knuckles down his cheek. “I’m here,” she whispered. “I know you’re still fighting. Just hold on a little longer. They’re going to help you now. I promise.”
Then his body seized again, this time more violently than any of the times before. His head jerked back into the pillow as the monitors blared. The anesthesiologist worked to hold his headsteady so he wouldn’t disconnect the tube from the ventilator that was helping him breathe.
Tristan pushed Ativan to fight the seizure. He hung a drip of another powerful antiseizure medication, Levetiracetam. Alex’s entire body snapped tight, muscles locking as if he were being electrocuted. His back arched. His jaw clenched.
Charlotte screamed his name, trying to hold his hand—anything—but he was lost in the seizure.
“Heart rate spiking—170—180—190!” the anesthesiologist barked.
Sweat beaded on James’s brow as he adjusted the rate. “Let the drug reach threshold.”
Five long minutes later, the seizure broke. Alex collapsed back onto the mattress, limp, drenched, his breathing shallow.
For fifteen full seconds, there was silence. Then a long, steady beep.
Charlotte didn’t realize she was crying until her legs gave out and she sank to her knees beside the bed. “James?” she rasped.
Tristan was staring at the monitors, frozen.
“It’s working.” James leaned in with a penlight. “Pupils reactive. The neural monitors stopped flashing red. Deep neural scans holding. We may have arrested the spread.”
Charlotte pressed her forehead to Alex’s hand, sobbing now.
“Brain activity stabilizing,” the nurse confirmed. “Cognitive centers lighting up. No more seizure pattern.”
James let out a long breath. “He’s not out of the woods, but he’s not dying.”
Tristan exhaled hard. “We bought him back. Again.”
Charlotte didn’t move from the floor. She just held on to Alex’s hand, her own still shaking. But she didn’t let go.
Alex’s muscles no longer convulsed. The violent tremors had passed. He looked like he was sleeping—really sleeping—for the first time since Elias had carried him out of hell.
Charlotte climbed into the bedside chair, soaked in sweat and exhausted, both hands wrapped around Alex’s. She hadn’t stopped crying, but the tears had slowed. They were quiet now. Reverent. She was worn down to the bone, but she wasn’t leaving.
Tristan stood at the foot of the bed, arms crossed, watching Alex’s vitals like a hawk. James was hunched over a tablet, running neural activity scans in real time.
“Still no active seizure activity,” James noted. “No spike in cortico-thalamic pathways. I think the counteragent stopped the worst of it. We may have isolated the failsafe before it could wipe his memory.”
Tristan glanced at him. “What’s your confidence?”
James exhaled. “Fifty-fifty. We won’t know how much is left until he wakes up and starts talking. It could be days. Could be hours. Could be years.”
Charlotte didn’t take her eyes off Alex. “He’ll come back,” she said, more to herself than anyone. “He always does.”
Forty-Two
DAY 2, 11:00 AM
OPERATION ECLIPSE:PHASE ONE – MULTIPLE ARRESTS
Penitentiary Medical Office – Sublevel C
Pratt looked up from his clipboard just as the door opened, expecting one of the nurses. Instead, two Waverly County deputies and a federal agent stepped inside, flanking both sides of the narrow office.
“Medical Specialist Craig Pratt?” the lead agent asked.
