Page 202 of Cross Checked
Ryan’s hand tightens on my shoulder. Briggs curses behind me, low and broken, and Rider turns away. Easton moves toward Aura without thinking, but he stops short, like even now, he is trying not to take more than she offers.
A blue marble.
Bliss had been coming to me with a Never in her hand, wearing my hoodie, dressed by her girls, brave enough to tell me the thing I had already felt every time she looked at me and tried to pretend she didn’t.
Not because I hurt her or because I was another thing she had to survive without her mom.
Because I was good.
Because she was choosing me.
And Luke got to her first.
I look toward the double doors they won’t let me through.
“Let me see her,” I say.
Knox exhales. “Cade—”
“Let me see her.”
Daniel looks at the doors too, and the father in him breaks all over again. “They said they’ll come get us when we can go back.”
“I need to see her.”
“I know,” Daniel says.
“No, you don’t.” My voice cracks, and I hate it. I hate everyone hearing it. I hate that I don’t care. “I need to see her and tell her I’m her Never.”
No one says anything to that, and I accept that I sound crazy, but these people understand because, like me, they speak Bliss’s language.
A nurse comes through the doors then, and every single person in the hallway turns at once.
“Family for Bliss Bennett?”
Daniel steps forward immediately. “I’m her father.”
The nurse’s eyes move over the rest of us, cautious but not unkind. “She’s stable. She’s awake in pieces, but very disoriented. We’re keeping her for a few hours of observation. Immediate family only for now.”
Relief hits so hard I almost go down.
Stable.
Disoriented.
Alive.
Daniel looks at me, then at the nurse. “He needs to come.”
The nurse hesitates. “Sir—”
“Dammit,” he snaps, voice breaking but firm. “She’ll ask for him, and I care about her comfort more than your bullshit policy.”
My chest caves in.
The nurse studies Daniel’s face, then mine. Maybe she sees something there. Maybe she has worked enough nights inemergency rooms to understand that family does not always begin with blood.
“You can go with her father. Fifteen minutes,” she says. “If she gets distressed, you step out.”
