Page 52 of Run Wild Omega

I lean back against the wall, hands shaking as I look at Tess. She’s unconscious again, face lax. But she’s here. She’s alive.

“We made it,” Dylan says softly, reaching out to squeeze my shoulder.

“Yeah.” I watch the floor numbers tick up.

The elevator dings. The doors slide open, and the noise hits us like a physical wave. It’s a zoo. Gurneys line the hallway, curtained off in makeshift rooms. Shouting echoes off the linoleum floors. Alarms beep in a discordant chorus. The storm didn’t just trap us; it tore through the valley, and the wreckage is filling every available bed.

Maggie, the head nurse, pushes through the crowd like a battering ram. She’s got a clipboard in one hand and a look that says she’ll bite anyone who gets in her way.

“Clear a path! Trauma one incoming!”

She spots us. Her eyes widen when she sees the mud and the blood, but her voice doesn’t waver. “Bring her here. I was just on with Dr. McAllister. He briefed me on the leg and the head injury. We have an OR prepped.”

She signals a team of orderlies and they swarm the gurney, pulling Tess from my grip.

My hand falls to my side. Empty.

“She’s in good hands,” Miles says. He’s leaning heavily against the wall, favoring his left leg.

I watch the double doors swing shut behind her. The words Operating Room light up in red above the frame. “She’d better be.”

Maggie turns that steely gaze on us. “You three. Sit. You look like you went ten rounds with a blender. You’re not leaving until I clear you.”

We collapse into the nearest row of plastic chairs.

A resident approaches me with a tray of supplies. He starts cleaning the gash on my forehead. The alcohol stings.

I stare at the floor, letting the pain ground me.

My mind slips back. I’m seventeen again, sitting on the tailgate of my old truck behind the gas station. The sun is going down, painting the sky in shades of violet and orange. Tess is sitting next to me, swinging her legs, eating an ice cream cone.

She looks over at me and smiles. Her eyes are bright, full of that wild, unjaded light.

My chest aches. I loved her then. God, I loved her. It wasn’t a crush. It wasn’t puppy love. It was a bone-deep certainty that she was the only person in the world who truly saw me. I wanted to marry her the moment I saw her. I wanted to put a ring on her finger and build a life in the mountains where no one could touch us.

I was terrified. I thought I wasn’t enough. I thought I was trapping her.

I was an idiot.

The doctor tapes a bandage over my cut. “All set,” he says.

I stand up. The adrenaline is finally fading, leaving me exhausted, but my mind is clear.

I almost lost her today. I saw that crevice. I saw the bone. I felt the cold seeping out of her.

Never again.

I’m going to fight for her. She’s mine. She always has been.

And I’m never letting her go again.

I’m back in the cab of my old truck, the windows cracked to let in the summer breeze, and Tess is straddling my lap.

Her skin is golden in the afternoon light, damp with sweat. She moves above me, a slow, torturous rhythm that makes my head fall back against the headrest. Her hands are in my hair, her nails scraping against my scalp, sending jolts of electricity down my spine.

“Wyatt,” she breathes. Her voice is wrecked, husky with pleasure.

I grip her hips, my fingers digging into her soft flesh, anchoring her to me. I never want to let go. I want to live in this moment forever, buried inside her, where the world is quiet and she is mine.