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At some point during the early hours of the morning, the medicine and exhaustion won out. I slept dreamlessly and soundly with Bridget tucked by my side. My eyes blink open to the bright sunshine filtering into the room and I turn my head, expecting Bridget still to be next to me, but the bed is empty. My heart trips and the monitor echoes the change in adrenaline.
A light sweat breaks out on my exposed skin and my breathing picks up as well. My eyes dart from corner to corner, looking for signs I might be missing. When my heart rate pulses in my temple, the door opens and a nurse rushes in.
“Where is she?” I ask, my voice hoarse from sleep.
“Mr. Ryan, I suggest you calm down,” she says very softly, her wide eyes dart to the display and then back to mine.
“She was here when I went to sleep,” I say as I try to calm my breathing, but my pulse continues to race.
“Who?” the nurse asks and checks my I.V. line. After a moment, the burn of medicine filters into my vein and I glare at her.
“I don’t need drugs,” I say, even as the edge seems to come off the panic gripping me.
She pats my hand. “You’ve been through quite the trauma, sir. It’s normal to have some disorientation.” She glances at the chart and then up at the nearly empty bags of blood. She smiles and leans over, unplugging the drip from my hand before pulling the empty bags from the post. She drops them in the hazard box and returns to my side.
The anxiety still resides at my core, but my attention focuses on the nurse removing the blood transfusion tube from my hand. “But Bridget was here with me last night. Where is she?” I ask again after she presses a band-aid over the entry point.
Before she can answer, the door opens and all the tension releases at the sight of Bridget carrying two Dunkin Donuts coffee cups. Her smile fades and a crease appears between her eyes as she meets my gaze.
The nurse turns. “Visiting hours aren’t for another hour.”
“She can stay,” I say and the nurse glances at me, raising an eyebrow in a challenge.
My gaze hardens. “Bridget can stay,” I insist pushing the command and the nurse purses her lips, but doesn’t contradict the command. She gives Bridget a glare as she leaves the room.
“I thought you might need some coffee today,” she says and puts the cup on the table next to me.
I glance at it. “I’m not sure I’m allowed yet,” I say and give her a smile. I don’t want her to know how panicked I got when I woke up and she wasn’t here, but I guess I don’t do a very good job of it.
“You were freaked out,” she says and leans back in the chair.
I let a little laugh escape. “No,” I add, but she knows. In the light of day, all my fears seem to be unwarranted, and I grab the coffee off the table, rules be damned.
“How are you feeling?”
I take a sip of the coffee and close my eyes, debating on how to answer. My chest still aches, as does every muscle in my body, but there is no pain. “I’m not bad,” I say after my self-assessment. “Considering I still smell like death,” I add and open my eyes.
“Well, now you smell like death and coffee,” she smiles and glances at her phone. “CJ said the cops are still trying to figure out what in the hell happened and what those things were in the yard.” She glances up at me. “Apparently, neither Michael nor Lucifer had a heart. It has completely freaked out the medical examiner. And no one can identify what kind of animal attacked your dog.”
My smile fades at the mention of Sam. I’m not sure the mystery of the hellhound will be solved, but the ache in my chest gets worse. “She was such a great dog,” I say and glance out the window.
Her hand touches mine and I glance at the contact.
“What happened to keeping your distance?” I ask and thread my fingers through hers.
Her cheeks flush and she looks at the ground. “You came back,” she whispers and shrugs.
“I’m still damaged,” I gently remind her, but keep her hand in mine.
“I’m not exactly a pillar of strength, either,” she says, and I laugh.
“You could have fooled me. You were fearless and pretty damned accurate with those arrows.”
She meets my gaze, but there is no smile. “I knew what was at stake if we lost.”
That nonchalant shoulder shrug appears, minimizing her contribution to the fight and I was having none of it. “You were the one who saved us. If you hadn’t created a diversion...” I close my eyes and take a deep inhalation, trying to loosen the knot that built as we discussed what could have happened. “You saved all our asses.”
“CJ did that.”
I shake my head and meet her unsure stare. “CJ ended the threat, but you gave him the time he needed to get it done.” I took another sip of coffee and sighed, running my hand down my face. “He got shot and I never asked him how he was doing,” I exhale.
“I’m fine, but for a while there I wasn’t so sure. It’s a miracle I didn’t bash my head on any of those rocks. As it was, I broke my hip when I fell, and halfway to the dock I blacked out. That’s why it took me so goddamned long to get my ass up the ladder and back in the game,” CJ says, stepping into the room. “I guess we are both damned lucky it was high tide.”
I had no idea how bad off he had been, but it does explain the lack of mental connection for part of the time I fought those bastards. I give him a nod of acknowledgement.
He smiles at me. “The yard is a fucking mess. I didn’t realize demon blood was black and as hard to get rid of as melted tar.”
“What are you talking about?” I clearly remember him blowing up a couple of demons and what went splat was red.
“None of the demons we ever fought before this were Lucifer’s guards,” he says softly. “And I think we’re going to have to dig up the entire back yard and reseed.”
Such mundane and utterly normal stuff to worry about pulls a smile to my face. “It’s nice for that to be your biggest worry,” I say and he huffs a laugh.
“Yeah, well, I’m sure when my daughters start dating, I’ll be a fucking basket case, especially knowing there are guys like you, out there.”
Bridget chuckles and glances at him. I press my lips together against the smile gaining traction, but both CJ’s etched dimples and Bridget’s laugh make me lose the battle.
“I don’t think I’ll be any different,” I say and tighten my grip on Bridget’s hand just in case she decides this is the moment to pull away and protect her heart.
She squeezes back.
The nurse steps in the room and a crease appears between her eyes as her lips thin. “Visiting hours are not for another half an hour.”
“Come on, Mary, you know Tom’s my brother,” he says, rolling his eyes at her. I didn’t realize he knew the nurses by name, but I guess with Valerie’s connections, he probably knew most of the hospital staff by first name.
“Do I have to call your wife?” Her arms cross.
CJ does that puppy-dog eyes thing. “Can’t you just bend the rules for today? I’m already here, besides I brought him some clothes,” he says, holding up my duffel bag, and gives her that signature smile I have seen on television more than a dozen times over the years. It always causes a collective sigh from the female audience and this situation is no different.
She makes that sigh and comes to my side, breaks the grip I have with Bridget, and checks my pulse. She glances at the coffee in my free hand and plucks it out of my hand.
“No caffeine until the doctor has a chance to review your results.”
I balk, but don’t say a thing. We are already pushing our luck at this point, and I’d rather have Bridget and CJ here than a coffee anyway. Instead, I ask, “Can I take a shower and put on some real clothes?”
“As soon as the doctor takes a look at you,” she says. “He should be in here within the next half hour.”
“Okay,” I say, dropping my gaze. The need to feel clean is becoming as dominant as my need for food and my stomach growls in response.
She pulls out a small vial syringe and attaches it to the open port in my I.V. decompressing the handle until the vial is full. “Just checking your blood count,” she says when she unclips it and then she disappears out of the room.
I glance back at CJ and Bridget.
“I really want to get the hell out of here.”
CJ’s expression sobers up and he glances out the window. “Valerie explained the seriousness of your heart injury.” He shifts and looks at the floor before meeting my gaze again. “You need to make sure your heart is as close to normal as possible before you check yourself out of here.”
I bite my lip trying to read into his mind, but he’s blocking me.
Bridget turns and stares at CJ. “Why?”
“He could have a heart attack if he’s not careful. That’s why they are dancing around his aggravation and sedating him when he gets too... excited.” CJ looks from Bridget to me. “You aren’t out of danger yet.” His hands slide into his pockets. “And Valerie’s magic can’t fix it.”
The seriousness in both his features and his tone makes me nod slowly.
“So, if I push my luck, my ticker gives out?” My hand rises to cover my heart and I flinch at the pressure against the cuts underneath.
“Pretty much,” he says.
“For how long?” I glance at Bridget for a moment, before I meet CJ’s gaze. He just shrugs.
“I’m not a doctor,” he says.
“This isn’t... permanent?” The monitor echoes the increase in my heart rate at the idea of being limited for the rest of my life, in ways I can only imagine.
Again, that fucking shrug. Before I can get any more uncomfortable with this conversation, the doctor waltzes in.
He is studying his tablet, swiping from screen to screen before he takes a seat on the rolling chair. He rolls to the ECG output as we all watch him. His mental narration is too clinical for me so I glance at CJ. He gives me the ‘I have no fucking clue’ shrug.
The doctor starts whistling and my heart leaps into my throat. The auditory trigger catapults me back to the carving table in Georgia and terror grips every cell. My hands tighten on the rails of the bed as the pain spirals from my heart outward.
The whistling stops and he jerks his head towards me as the ECG goes haywire. He didn’t quite understand why his whistling knocked me into cardiac arrest, but my frightened stare meets CJ’s and the sound in the room fades to a high-pitched buzz.
I’m spinning, and my chest feels like someone just punched through it. I wonder if this is what Damian felt when I blew up his ribcage. My vision tunnels, darkening at the edges.
“You promised me!” Bridget’s scream breaks through and my gaze snaps to hers.
“I’m not going anywhere.” I try to speak, but I can’t, so I send the thought to her as CJ grabs her and drags her from the room.
It takes me a minute to realize I am not observing the room from the bed, from my wide-open and unfocused eyes.
Shit.
I am not in my body and that high-pitched buzz is the heart monitor flat lining.
I promised Bridget I wouldn’t die, and here I am, breaking her heart yet again.
“This is not happening,” I say, willing my spirit to meld with my own skin.
When nothing happens, aggravation flushes my vision. “Goddamnit! Do something!” I yell at the roomful of doctors.
“Clear!”
The electricity buzzes through my body and my viewpoint changes with the jolt. The doctor holding the paddles goes flying across the room, and I sit up, feeling every ounce of Raphael’s angel grace melding inside me. It’s just as painful as absorbing Lucifer’s grace was, but this comes with an agonizing side benefit, the mending of my heart. I curl into a ball as light pours from me, blinding everyone in the room, and I don’t realize I’m bellowing through the suffering until both the light, and my voice, fade.
I pant, scanning the shocked group of doctors and nurses, wondering why this didn’t happen on the battlefield when CJ pushed the grace inside me. My gaze stops at the open doorway and both CJ and Bridget standing with open mouths. Everyone is staring at me with open mouths.
“You could catch flies with that,” I say to my brother, resurrecting one of our mother’s lines from when we were little. His mouth pops closed.
I glance at the doctor who was thrown across the room. “Are you okay?”
He utters a high-pitched laugh as he climbs to his feet. Everyone in the room takes a shaky step backward. All of them have eyes locked on my chest, and I glance down. A sigil is burned right through the bandage covering my heart. I recognize it immediately and glance at CJ as I claw at the dressing covering Lucifer’s damage, ripping it from my skin.
I stare at the place previously marred by Lucifer’s nails, and only Raphael’s sigil remains, burned into my skin like a tribal tattoo. The heart monitor registers a strong and steady beat and I’m not sure what to say.
“I guess I should not stand outside in an electrical storm,” I finally say, and eyes widen before CJ’s chuckle rolls over the room and the tension splits into nervous laughter.