My heart was a frantic, sickening thing, lodged up near my throat as I set the bomb down in the most central location then went back to drag the bucket of gasoline over as well, carefully pouring it on the floor as I set the timer then as quickly as I could while being silent as possible, I made my way back out, closed the doors, and booked it.
The timer was set for thirty minutes and I wanted to be back at the hospital like nothing happened by then. It was a believable alibi. The staff knew I pretty much never left and certainly never for extended periods of time. They would see me walking back up onto the floor with a vending machine coffee and assume they just happened to miss me walking past a couple minutes before.
On that note, I got my coffee that I desperately needed. Adrenaline drained, I was feeling the lack of sleep. Four days strong. I was going to need to crash, nightmares be damned. My body would only take so much.
I slipped Digger's keys into his pocket and went to move past him. But he snagged my arm. "What'd you do?"
"You'll know in about ten minutes. Tell Lo that I don't appreciate being left out of the loop."
With that, I pulled away, closed the door, and took my first deep breath in over an hour.
I kicked out of my shoes, took a long pull of my coffee, then put it down and climbed into bed with Wolf.
I really wasn't supposed to. There were rules.
But those rules flew out the window when they saw exactly the kind of fit I was capable of.
No one even mentioned it anymore.
Wolf was colder unconscious than he usually was. In bed at any other time, he was like a furnace; I barely ever needed a blanket. But in that hospital bed, he was almost cool to the touch, something I found unnerving no matter how many nights I curled up with him and felt it. So I kicked up the covers and pulled them up to my shoulders as I nestled my face into his neck, breathing in a smell that wasn't his own because it was all hospital soap and sanitizer and plastic and wrong.
But it was still Wolf.
He was still mine.
Even if he didn't feel and smell like himself.
Even if he didn't even know I was there.
I felt the tears well up at that and the hopeless feeling it brought with it, but fought them off until exhaustion finally took a hold of me.--"You smell like bombs."
I had been teeter-tottering between sleep and awake for what had to have been twenty minutes, my body knowing it needed more sleep, but my brain saying it was better not to risk a nightmare by allowing that.
But at those words, at those four, beautiful words coming from a rough, horse voice that was so, so incredibly familiar, I jolted fully awake, shooting upward, not realizing that by doing so, I had slammed my hand into Wolf's stomach until he let out a grunt.
Another sound that was genuinely music to my ears.
As soon as I looked down and I saw those amazing, beautiful honey eyes on me, well, I lost it again.
I thought I had sobbed hard when they first brought him in and, well, pretty much every single night that followed, but none of that even came close. Apparently relieved crying was even more uncontrollable than sad crying.
"Shh," he said as I planted my face into his chest to muffle the noise.
But I couldn't. I couldn't stop and I couldn't be quiet and I didn't even try until I felt the last of the tears slip out, until I felt bone dry inside. Then and only then did I wipe my eyes, press up, and look at him again.
"How long?" he asked, hand moving almost comically slow off the bed to touch the side of my face. He must have been weak. He had been wasting away little by little every day.
I swallowed hard, knowing there was no way to sugarcoat the truth. "About nine weeks."
"Nine?" he growled, trying to push up, but I scooted back and placed my hands on his shoulder, pressing him back.
"You still have stitches," I warned him. "No moving until the doctor looks you over."
"Fuck the doctor," he hissed. "Details, Janie."
"Can you at least get..."
"Details," he ground out and, well, I didn't blame him. I would have felt the same way after waking up and realizing that much time was gone.
"Alright, um. We got you here. You went into surgery. Reign and all the guys came back from their pointless trips. Then, ah..."
"Janie..." his voice had warning and I looked up into his eyes and saw the need to know there.
"Reign, Cash, Repo, Duke, and Renny are okay. The rest..." I trailed off, shaking my head.