But was there any further south than Hell?
Gage didn’t think so.
His brothers were there to make sure the doctor gave them answers.
But they were also there to lock Gage down if he uttered a death sentence.
“I’d start thinking of us as family right about now,” Brock continued, clapping the doctor on the shoulder. “Since we really look out for our family. Personally, I make sure my slightly unhinged brother doesn’t rip the arms off doctors I consider family. Doctors who tell me shit, that is.”
The man’s cheeks reddened with panic, his previously sterile and detached demeanor dissipating in the face of his possible demise. His throat trembled as he struggled to swallow.
“Ms. Garden is currently in a coma,” he said, voice slow.
Gage’s heartbeat slowed right along with it, his entire body beginning to shake.
“Easy, brother,” Bull said from behind him, likely preparing to hold him back if he decided it was time the doctor retired.
Gage barely heard him, his effort going toward staying lucid, to holding on to the slim hope that the world wasn’t going to take the last chance of his survival away from him. He was teetering on the edge of true insanity. The doctor didn’t know it, but he held Gage’s life—and his own—in his hands.
“Her liver and kidneys had begun shutting down,” he continued. “At this stage, we’re working toward stopping it. But we’re not sure what’s causing it, so we’re tentative to use any drugs to counteract her organ shutdown…”
“How the fuck can you not know what’s causing it?” Gage demanded. “You’re fucking doctors. That’s your job.” His voice was low. Controlled. Calm.
On the outside, at least.
The closing of the ranks around him told him his brothers recognized the tone. The one Gage used when he was shutting down his humanity to prepare himself to paint the world with his pain.
With blood.
Death.
“I’m trying to do my job,” the doctor said. “We’re doing everything we can with the information at hand. At this stage, we need to run more tests. Need to see if her lifestyle—”
“She’s thirty years old, healthy, doesn’t drink. Doesn’t smoke. Doesn’t even fuckin’ drink soda,” Gage interrupted before the doctor could say something that might get him killed before he could save Lauren. And he fucking would save Lauren. There was no other choice. No other option.
Gage forced his hands to stay at his sides when they itched to grab the lapels of that coat, shake him until he got the answer he wanted. “There is no natural fucking reason for her to be lying in that bed. So you find the unnatural one. You save her, you might save yourself too.”
And on that, he turned and walked out. Before he could do something he wouldn’t regret, but that might get him killed.
And he still had a reason for inhaling and exhaling.
For now.
Gage’s death threats had been real enough to get him into the ICU, where Lauren was currently attached to numerous machines.
Keeping her alive.
His entire vibrant, beautiful and broken world was being kept alive by fucking machines.
His knees gave out beside her bed. He collapsed to his knees, his arms outstretched over the mattress, clutching her hand.
It was cold.
Like his blood.
Like his soul.
He stayed kneeling for a long time. Mostly because he couldn’t physically make his body obey, his mind keeping him down with images of Lauren’s body decaying underneath the dirt.
“Never in my life asked you for anything,” he said to the room. “And you’ve only given me things in order to take them away. To punish me for every single one of my sins. Maybe I deserve it, but she doesn’t. No way in fuck, if you exist—which I highly doubt—would you let her wither away like this. It’s not fucking worthy of her. She deserves life. Maybe not one with me, but I don’t care. With everything you’ve taken away from me, I deserve that much. Her. And you’re going to give me her. Because if you do exist, and I lose her, I’ll do what even the Devil didn’t manage to do. I’ll reach up there and fucking lay waste to the heavens.”
That was where he was at that moment.
So fucking helpless he was taking to praying to and threatening an absent God.
Because that was all he could do.
Pray.
Twenty-eight thousand, eight hundred seconds passed until someone answered that prayer.
Or the threat.
Gage was thinking it was the latter.
That was why no one’s prayers got answered.
Because they weren’t brazen enough to threaten God.
And threats—promises—were what got shit done.
“Gage?” a soft voice asked.
He jerked to look at the familiar blonde doctor who’d worked on a number of the Sons family. Saved most of them.
She was well regarded.
By Jagger most recently.
Gage stood immediately from where he’d been on his knees.
She didn’t comment on that.
“Well?” he barked.
She didn’t flinch at his violent tone.