Page 75 of Lifeline

“Someone else needs to go with Jake,” I said and slumped in his grip. “Let me go.”

“Okay.” And he did.

I considered going after Xander anyway, but Colin was right; I needed to go with Aidan and Reno. Sucking in a breath, I turned away. “Jake!”

“I’m going,” Carter announced, and I looked over to see his gear was torn and there was a goose egg on his head.

“No,” Colin yelled, and when Carter whirled around, Colin shook his head. “Not unless you’re getting your head checked out while you’re there.”

“He will,” I said, and yanked Carter around to stare at him. “Won’t you?”

“Fine, fuck it, whatever,” Carter said and marched toward the EMTs.

“We can only let family in,” an EMT said, looking so young he must have been in diapers a couple of years ago.

I grabbed the front of his shirt. “I am their fucking family, try and stop me and I’ll shove my foot so far up your ass you’ll be tasting my toes for years.”

“Mika?” a soft voice asked, and I let go of the EMT without realizing I was doing it, shoving myself between the two stretchers to take Reno’s frozen hand in mine.

“I’m here,” I told him, tears stinging my eyes before rolling out freely. “You’re okay; we’re taking you in.”

“Aidan?” he asked.

I glanced over and took Aidan’s hand, even though he wouldn’t know it. “Alive and stupid as hell.”

“J-j-j,” he stuttered and closed his eyes, his fingers going limp in my hand.

“Reno?” I barked.

An older EMT put his hand on my shoulder. “He’s just out cold. We’re going to need you to take a seat so we can do our job.”

I didn’t even question it; I smoothed Reno’s hair and kissed Aidan’s cheek before I slumped in the corner, out of their way.

The night had only just begun.

* * *

I had once gone a couple of weeks with only three hours sleep a night. And even that didn’t compare to the exhaustion that filled my body as I sat next to my brother and Aidan’s bedsides and watched them sleep. Reno had woken up earlier and asked some questions, mostly about Aidan and Jake, and I’d answered to the best of my knowledge. About himself, he had only asked if he was going to live, which he was, and if he was going to work again, which the doctors had said he would, and that was all he was worried about.

Idiot.

Aidan had yet to wake up, and I tried not to let that bother me as I watched him sleep. He’d taken a nasty knock to the head, and they’d said the swelling was enough to monitor, but they were confident he would wake up. I knew full well how doctors played things down; they didn’t like making hardline statements if they could help it, and while I hated it, I understood.

The two had gone straight to the ICU, as had Jake. Reno and Aidan had been moved into a normal room a few hours before, but Jake was still hooked up to machines and monitored closely. There had been no talk of ‘confidence’ in him waking up; in fact, they’d said they’d know he was through the worst part if he woke up. After that, they would have to see what kind of damage his brain had taken because the rest of him had been beaten to shit. They admitted that if it wasn’t for his size, then Carter, Xander, and Mav would have been fishing a corpse out of the river.

I fucking loved how cheery hospitals were.

“They wake up yet?” Reno asked, making me jerk in my chair and turn toward him.

“No,” I said, pushing hair out of his face. “You need a haircut.”

“People have a hard enough time telling us apart without having the same hair,” he grumbled, and hearing such a stupid, pointless, petty complaint loosened a knot of worry in my chest.

“Well, it’s a good thing I’ve always been better-looking,” I told him with a small smile. “Because you look like you went into the ring with a bear.”

“You’d love to be in a ring with a bear,” he said, swatting at my hand.

I rolled my eyes. “Okay, you’re apparently going to be fine, so I’m done worrying about you.”