Page 65 of Run Wild Omega

“Slowly,” she urges, pulling the cup back. “You’ve been intubated. Your throat needs time.”

Intubated.

The word filters through the fog in my brain, bringing with it a cascade of half-memories. White light. Cold. The mountain. Falling. The crevice. Wyatt’s face, young and terrified. The helicopter. The whir of rotors.

“The avalanche,” I whisper.

Mom’s hand tightens around mine. “You remember.”

“My leg⁠—”

“Your leg is going to be okay.” She says it quickly, firmly, the way she used to tell me the thunder was just the clouds bumping into each other when I was five. “You’re in Glenwood Springs Hospital. They operated on you the night of the rescue. You’ve been here for three days.”

Three days.

The number lands like a stone dropped into still water, rippling outward, distorting everything. I’ve been unconscious for three days. That’s not a nap. That’s not sleep. That’s a void.

“Three days,” I repeat, my voice cracking.

“You had complications,” Mom says carefully. Too carefully. I can hear the effort she’s putting into keeping her voice steady, the way she’s choosing each word like she’s walking through a minefield. “Internal bleeding after the surgery. They had to give you a transfusion. And there was some swelling in your leg that caused pressure on the nerves and blood vessels. They monitored it very closely.”

Complications. Transfusion. Swelling. She’s giving me the medical summary, the kind of language doctors use when they don’t want you to panic. But I can read between the lines. Something almost went very wrong.

“Where’s Dad?”

“Down the hall. Making calls. He’s been…” She pauses, pressing her lips together. “He’s been handling things.”

“What kind of things?”

She doesn’t answer right away. Her eyes drift to the door, then back to me, and in that small hesitation, I feel the first cold finger of dread trace down my spine.

“Mom. What things?”

“Your father and Daniel are dealing with some… external matters. We didn’t want to overwhelm you the moment you woke up.”

“External matters.” I try to push myself up, but the pain in my leg explodes, pinning me back to the mattress. I gasp, biting down on my lip so hard I taste copper. “Ow. Fuck. Fuck.”

“Stay still.” Mom’s hand is on my shoulder, pressing me back. “Tess, please. You have a rod and screws in your tibia. You cannot move that leg.”

A rod and screws. The words paint a picture I don’t want to see—metal inside my bone, my body cracked open and put back together with hardware.

“I need to see,” I say, even though every instinct is telling me I shouldn’t. “My leg. I need to see it.”

Mom hesitates, then reaches down and carefully pulls the blanket back from my left leg.

I wish I hadn’t asked.

The leg is encased in a hard, cylindrical cast that runs from mid-thigh to just above the ankle. It’s bulky, sterile white, with a small window cut into the side near the shin—presumably for monitoring the surgical sites. Through the window, I can see gauze padding and the faint edge of a dressing, but not the actual incision.

The skin above and below the cast is mottled with bruises in shades of purple, green, and sickly yellow. My toes are visible at the bottom, swollen and slightly blue-tinged, but they move when I try to wiggle them, which sends an electric jolt up through my calf.

I look away. My stomach churns.

“It looks worse than it is,” Mom says. “The bruises will fade. The cast comes off in six to eight weeks, and then physical therapy⁠—”

“Where is everyone?” I cut her off. I can’t look at the leg anymore. I can’t think about six to eight weeks. I need to ground myself in something concrete. “You said Daniel’s here.”

“Daniel and Mara got in yesterday morning, as soon as the passes opened. Gray and Leo are with them. They’ve been taking shifts—someone’s always here.”