Page 293 of Cross Checked
He stood near the doorway of the new room in a clean KFU sweatshirt and hospital scrub pants, hair damp like he had scrubbed himself raw. His eyes found mine immediately.
“I stayed with him,” he said.
I stood and crossed the room before anyone could stop me.
Then I hugged him.
Ryan froze for one second. Then his arms came around me so carefully it hurt worse than if he had crushed me.
“He just wanted to know you were safe,” he whispered.
My face crumpled against his chest.
“Over and over,” Ryan said, voice breaking. “I kept telling him you were safe.”
I nodded because speaking would kill me.
“He believed me,” Ryan said. “I think.”
He sounded like he needed that to be true.
So, I pulled back and looked at him through tears. “He did.”
Ryan’s eyes went red, and then Knox was there, touching his shoulder, guiding him toward a chair, and for once, Ryan let someone else move him.
The surgeon finally came out sometime after the world had gone early-morning pink through the windows.
Everyone stood at once.
My body moved before my mind did, but Dad’s hand found my back, steadying me.
The surgeon looked tired in that terrifying way surgeons looked tired when they had been inside someone’s body for hours and were about to tell a room full of people whether they had won or lost.
“Cade Mercer’s family?”
Harrison and Elenore stepped forward together. “We are,” Harrison said.
The surgeon nodded. “I’d like to speak with you privately.”
My stomach dropped. Private meant bad. Private meant whatever came next was too awful to say in front of everyone who loved him.
But Harrison turned his head and looked directly at me, then at my dad. “We’re going to have his girlfriend come with us,” he said.
The surgeon hesitated, but Harrison did not.
Elenore reached for my hand. Dad stepped closer, his voice quiet but steady. “And her father, if that’s all right.”
For one strange second, it felt like the whole hospital paused to see if anyone was going to tell Harrison Mercer no.
No one did.
The surgeon nodded. “Of course.”
We followed him into the small consultation room. Harrison, Elenore, Dad, and me.
I sat because Elenore gently pushed me into a chair like she understood my legs were only pretending, and then the surgeon closed the door.
“Cade is alive.”
