Page 66 of Where The Devil Kneels

I watch Silas get loaded into the ambulance, his blood still drying on my hands. The Hales and Merricks have kept this place standing for generations. Now it’s my turn — not because of some ancient covenant, but because I want it to be. Because this is where I belong.

Chapter eighteen

Surrender and Salvation

Theinsideoftheambulance flashes red, emergency lights painting Silas’s face and making him look even paler. Every pothole jolts us against the metal walls, the gurney groaning as the paramedics work over him, fast and focused. His chest barely rises. The hands that traced my cheek just hours ago, treating me like I was fragile, are limp in mine now. The monitors keep shouting numbers I can’t understand. The only sign he’s still here is the fog on his oxygen mask, a faint proof he’s breathing. There’s so much blood. It’s soaked through the bandages, smeared on my skin, and streaked across the floor in patterns I try not to see.

“Blood pressure dropping,” a paramedic barks, and I feel my own heart stutter in response. “Push another unit of fluid.”

“Is he—” My voice cracks, shatters like glass. “Please, is he going to—”

The paramedic doesn’t look up, just keeps pressing buttons, adjusting tubes. “We’re doing everything we can, ma’am. Try to stay calm.”

Calm? Fucking calm? There’s a knife-shaped hole in Silas’s chest because Garrow tried to kill me. My guardian, my watcher, my—what? What is he to me now? Partner sounds too formal, lover doesn’t feel right. The person who stepped between me and death without a second thought doesn’t fit into any relationship label I know.

“Silas.” I lean closer, and my tears hit the thin sheet before I even realize I’m crying. “You don’t get to die for me. That wasn’t the deal. Do you hear me? That was not the fucking deal.”

His eyelids flutter but don’t open. The ambulance wails through intersections, each siren blast sending jolts of electricity down my spine. I grip his hand tighter, as if I can physically anchor him to this world through sheer force of will.

“ETA two minutes,” the driver calls back.

Two minutes. A hundred and twenty seconds. I count them in the gaps between my own heartbeats, in the rise and fall of his chest, in the steady beeping that means his heart is still going.

The ambulance jerks to a stop, and suddenly we’re in motion again, doors flying open, gurney wheels dropping, voices shouting medical jargon that might as well be ancient Sanskrit for all I understand. I run alongside, still clutching his hand, until a nurse physically blocks my path at a set of double doors.

“You need to wait here,” she says, not unkindly. Her eyes drop to my hands, my clothes. “Let’s get you cleaned up while they take care of him.”

I look down, seeing myself as she must, a wild-eyed woman covered in someone else’s blood, knuckles split from punching a man unconscious. I probably look like I belong in a horror movie, not a hospital waiting room.

“No,” I say, the word tearing from my throat. “No, I need to be with him. He needs me there. He’s never had anyone, he’s always been alone—”

“The best way to help him now is to let the doctors work,” she insists, guiding me firmly toward a row of plastic chairs that look like they were designed specifically to prevent comfort. “Someone will update you as soon as there’s news.”

I collapse into the chair and my body finally gives out. Whatever kept me standing since Garrow’s attack is gone, leaving only a heavy, empty exhaustion. But I can’t sleep. Every time I close my eyes, I see it again: the knife, Silas falling, his blood warm on my hands.

I last ten minutes before I’m back on my feet, pacing the hallway. Seven steps one way, turn, seven steps back. The fluorescent lights make everything look off. Even the little landscape paintings on the wall, meant to be cheerful, look pale and sick under this light.

“This can’t be happening,” I mutter, not caring that I’m talking to myself. “Not after everything. Not when we finally—” I can’t finish it, because I don’t know how. When we finally what? Found each other? Figured out what we were to each other? Kissed once in a hidden passage while everything around us fell apart? Whatever this is between us, it’s still so new. Still so fragile. Like it hasn’t had the chance to fully exist yet.

A door swings open, and Dr. Rao strides through, still in the clothes she wore at the estate, though she’s thrown a white coat over them. Her eyes find me immediately, as if she knew exactly where I’d be.

“Elara,” she says, and something in her voice makes my knees go weak.

“Is he—”

“He’s in surgery,” she interrupts, sparing me from finishing the terrible question. “The knife missed his heart by millimetres, but there’s significant damage to surrounding tissue and blood loss remains a concern.”

I grab her arm, fingers digging into the white coat. “Are you operating on him? Please tell me you’re doing it. I trust you. He trusts you.”

“I’m assisting,” she says, gently extracting herself from my grip. “The lead surgeon is a trauma specialist, the best in the county. But yes, I’ll be there for every moment.”

“He protected me,” I say, the words catching in my throat. “That knife was meant for me.”

Dr. Rao’s professional mask softens slightly. “He protected you,” she agrees, not a question but an acknowledgement. “Now we’ll protect him.”

She glances at her watch. “I need to get back. The surgery will take hours. You should try to rest.”

Rest. That’s impossible. Instead, I start pacing again, counting time by the squeak of my shoes on the linoleum, the nurses changing shifts, and the slow brightening of light through far-off windows as dawn comes.