Page 116 of With Spite

And my god.

She looked pale.

“Is she…”

Denver handed her to me. “She’s alive.”

She’s alive.

She’s alive.

She’s alive.

Maybe if I kept chanting it to myself, it would keep her that way.

Twenty-Seven

Damned if I do, bored if I don’t.

—Hux to Bernice

Hux

“She’s okay,” Creed said at my side.

We both stood in the doorway of her hospital room and watched her sleep.

Well, a medically induced sleep, anyway.

“Bruised ribs. Broken hand. Shallow cut on her throat. Ear to ear. Sprained ankle. Cuts and abrasions,” I croaked. “But she’s alive.”

She was lucky.

Everything was mostly bluster.

She’d woken up just long enough to have an asthma attack, so she’d been sedated.

Keeping her calm was the ultimate priority right now, and the doctor planned to keep her that way for at least the next twelve hours as her body recovered from the shock.

Boone came up to stand beside us, though he wasn’t able to get to our sides due to us standing in the doorway.

“You get him there?” I asked.

“Yes,” Boone answered.

“Good,” I said. “I’ll be there after I sit with her a bit.”

Then I went inside and took the lone chair next to her bed.

I picked up her hand covered in a cast and warmed her fingers up between both of my hands.

“Creed,” I called. “Get her a couple of heated blankets. She’s freezing.”

I heard his steps retreating and continued to study those cold fingers.

“You scared the shit out of me, Bernice,” I told her.

She didn’t reply and that was the worst feeling in the world.