Page 78 of Run Wild Omega

Mara slides off the bed, giving Tess’s hand a squeeze before stepping aside. “I’ll go grab some water. Henry wanted to talk to you about something, Daniel—meet me in the family room?”

Daniel nods, touching Mara’s lower back as she passes. They disappear into the hallway.

Wyatt pulls a chair up to the bed. Dylan takes his usual spot on the other side. I remain standing near the foot, where I can see both Tess and the monitor at the same time.

“Press conference?” Tess asks.

“Done,” Wyatt says. “We blamed the weather.”

“Good.” She sinks back into the pillows. “Did they buy it?”

“For now,” I say.

She closes her eyes. “For now,” she repeats, and the echo carries a weight she doesn’t need to explain.

None of us tell her about the investigation. None of us mention the insurance gap or the discovery motions or the fact that Daniel is already building a legal fortress around Leo’s company with nothing but paperwork and sheer force of will.

She’s carrying enough.

We’ll carry the rest.

Tess

The discharge paperwork takes three hours.

Three hours of signing forms I barely read, nodding at nurses I barely see, and listening to Dr. Evans run through a list of instructions that blurs into a single, incomprehensible hum.

Elevate the leg. Ice for twenty minutes at a time. No weight bearing for six to eight weeks. Follow-up appointment in ten days. Watch for signs of infection—redness, fever, increased pain, drainage from the incision sites. Call immediately if any of those occur.

I sign my name so many times it stops looking like my name. The letters become meaningless shapes, a scrawl that could belong to anyone.

Mom handles the logistics. She talks to the pharmacy about my pain medication, to the medical supply company about the crutches, to the hospital administrator about the billing. She does it all with a calm efficiency that reminds me of how she used to coordinate the school bake sale and the church fundraiser and the neighborhood watch simultaneously, just another item on an endless list of things that needed doing.

Dad carries my bag. It’s a small duffel—Mara packed it from my apartment, filling it with soft clothes that won’t catch on the cast and a few personal items she thought I’d want. A book I haven’t finished. My phone charger. A photograph of Mara and me at the Lodge on her wedding day, both of us grinning like idiots.

I don’t remember packing that photo. I don’t remember putting it anywhere Mara could find it. But I’m glad she did.

The wheelchair ride to the exit is the most humiliating part. Not because of the wheelchair itself—I understand the liability, the hospital policy, the practical reality that I can’t crutch my way through a parking lot on a surgically repaired leg. It’s the hallway. The long, bright, sterile hallway that runs past the main lobby, where the floor-to-ceiling windows offer a clear view of the parking lot.

And the parking lot is full.

Not as full as it was three days ago—Daniel’s press conference bought us some space, and Maggie’s security cordon has held—but there are still cameras. Still reporters camped out along the curb, coffee cups in hand, scanning the entrance for movement.

Maggie routes us through a service corridor instead, bypassing the lobby entirely. We go through a back hallway that smells like industrial cleaner and boiled vegetables, past the kitchen where someone is loading a dishwasher, and out through a side door into a narrow alley.

Dad’s truck is idling there, exhaust pluming white in the cold air. Wyatt’s truck is parked behind it, and beside that, Dylan’s. Miles’s sedan is at the end of the line, tucked against the dumpster enclosure.

They’ve staged a convoy.

“Subtle,” I mutter from the wheelchair.

“Get in the truck, smartass,” Dad says.

The ride home takes forty-five minutes. Mom sits in the back seat with me, her hand on my shoulder, watching the road like she expects an avalanche to appear on the highway. Dad drives below the speed limit, which is so out of character for him that I don’t even comment on it.

The convoy stays tight—Wyatt right behind us, the others falling in line. In the side mirror, I can see the dark shapes of the vehicles following us through the canyon, a procession of headlights cutting through the gray afternoon.

No one speaks until we hit the town limits.