Page 142 of Requiem
“Micah Prescott?” the doctor asks, his Russian accent thick.
Heather makes a broken sound beside me. “Yes. Yes, that’s us.”
The doctor’s eyes move between all of us, lingering briefly on the blood still dried across my clothes before settling back on our faces. “He is alive.”
Relief floods my body, tears automatically forming in my eyes. Heather’s knees nearly buckle beside me, and I instinctively catch her arm before she can hit the floor. She covers her mouth with shaking fingers, tears filling her eyes again, while the doctor continuesspeaking.
“The bullet missed the abdominal aorta by very little,” he explains slowly. “There was significant internal bleeding. We were able to stop it, but he lost dangerous amount of blood before arriving.”
Dangerous amount.
The words echo inside my skull.
“He’s alive?” Finnick asks again quietly.
The doctor nods once. “He is critical, but stable for now. Next twenty-four hours are very important.”
Heather breaks completely at that, sobbing into my side, relief and terror colliding so hard it looks painful for her smaller body. I wrap an arm around her, holding her upright while my own pulse pounds hard enough to make my vision blur for a second.
Micah’s alive. Jesus Christ. Micah’salive.
The doctor looks back toward the surgery doors then, and the pain in my chest is suddenly un-fucking-bearable.
“And Emma Easton?” I ask too quickly. “What about her?”
The doctor’s expression changes subtly, and dread floods the room so fast it feels suffocating.
Heather stills against me.
The doctor exhales slowly before speaking. “She is out of surgery,” he murmurs. “We were able to remove the bullet and stop the bleeding. However…”
The room is suddenly too loud. Too many peoplefuckingtalking when I need to hear what he’s saying.
The doctor glances down briefly at the chart in his hands before looking back up at us. “The next few hours are critical,” he says quietly. “And there were complications.”
A breath leaves me, like I’ve been punched in the goddamn chest. “What complications?” I ask, but my voice is barely over a whisper.
The doctor hesitates. And that hesitation is the most terrifying fucking thing I’ve ever seen in my life. “We need to talk privately.”
Chapter thirty-eight
JUDE GRAVES
“Can I see her?” I ask immediately, my voice rough enough that it hardly sounds like mine.
The doctor hesitates for only a second before nodding once. “Briefly.”
Relief and terror hit me at the exact same time. Because if I can see her, that means she’s alive. But it also means she’s hurt badly enough that I have to prepare myself for whatever waits behind those doors.
Heather shifts beside me instantly. “I’ll come with you.”
I glance toward her, and for a moment, all I see is blood. Micah’s blood soaked into the front of her shirt, Emma’s dried along the sleeve. Her face is exhausted beneath the fluorescent hospital lights, eyes swollen red from crying for hours, but she still looks ready to stand up and carry the entire world on her back if someone asked her to. That’s what a nurse does for us every day.
My throat tightens. “Can you…” I stop briefly, trying to steady my voice. “Can you go to Micah first?” The words almost fucking kill me to say, because I know what it means to ask her that.
Heather’s expression crumples softly.
“He shouldn’t wake up alone,” I whisper.
