Page 128 of Snow

Nova nodded, grateful because she didn’t think she had anything left to give him.

The adrenaline that had carried her through the fight, the fire, dragging Snow down the stairs, and swimming away from the explosion seemed to disappear all at once. Her body suddenly felt impossibly heavy, and the sounds around her began fading together until she couldn’t tell who was speaking anymore.

She looked toward Snow one more time. Nails was still beside him, and Joker had knelt on his other side. Duke was there now, working on him. He was surrounded by his team now. He was safe.

“Nova?”

She looked toward Bear, but his face had started to blur.

“I think I’m going to pass out.”

Bear reached for her just as her body gave up. For once, Nova didn’t fight it.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Nova hated hospitals. However, this was her first time in a military hospital. After the team found her and Snow floating in the Gulf, they had been brought to the military hospital in Mississippi.

She pulled the chair she was sitting in closer to Snow’s bed. She looked at her watch, noting it was just a little after two in the morning.

The room was dimly lit from the overhead light on the other side of the room. The entire floor in the hospital had settled into that eerie overnight silence where even the nurses’ footsteps sounded softer, and there was barely a sound from the staff at the nurses’ station down the hall.

Snow still hadn’t woken up. The doctors had assured everyone that all of his scans looked good, and confirmed that there was no swelling, bleeding, or signs of any lasting damage. They said his body had been through hell and just needed time, and it was just a matter of time before he regained consciousness. But even though she understood what they were saying, that hadn’t stopped the knot of anxiety sitting heavily in her chest. She wouldn’t be content until he opened his eyes, and she could hear his voice.

She shifted in the chair, pulling the oversized Navy sweatshirt tighter around herself as she stared at him. She still looked ridiculous. After they had brought her into the hospital the night before, stitched up the gash in her arm, and finally convinced her to shower, one of the guys had shown up with a pile of clothes for her. Apparently, the Navy only manufactured clothing with the word NAVY stamped across every square inch of fabric possible because she currently looked like a walking military recruitment advertisement.

Still, the clothes were warm and clean, instead of smelling like smoke, saltwater, and fear, so she really couldn’t complain.

Her gaze drifted back toward Snow again. The bruising along the side of his face near his hairline had darkened, and there was a bandage near his temple where Brett had struck him with the pipe. But somehow, he still looked peaceful, as if he was just sleeping after an exhausting day instead of nearly dying in the middle of an exploding oil rig.

The team had been in and out of the room throughout the night. Most of the time they didn’t say much. They didn’t seem like overly emotional men, at least not outwardly, but every single one of them had checked on her too, asking if she needed food, coffee, water, or a blanket. Once, when she had gotten up to walk a little to stretch her legs, one of the guys had left a candy bar on the table for her.

It was sweet and comforting. She felt that despite only knowing her for a little over a week, they had already folded her into their circle without even discussing it.

Her thoughts drifted back to the conversation she’d had with Derek earlier out in the hallway while a nurse checked Snow’s vitals. He had stood beside her with a cup of coffee in his hand, exhaustion carved deep into his features, but there had still been sincerity in his voice when he thanked her.

“You saved his life, Nova,” he had told her quietly. “Don’t think any of us are forgetting that.”

At the time, she hadn’t even known what to say because all she could think about was that she had to kill someone for that to happen. Even now her stomach twisted when she thought about it.

“I killed someone,” she had whispered.

Derek had been quiet for a moment before answering carefully. “Yeah. You did.”

She appreciated that he didn’t try to sugarcoat it.

“But if you hadn’t, he would have killed you. Sometimes there aren’t good choices in situations like that. Sometimes there’s just survival.”

She understood what he was trying to tell her, even if accepting it emotionally would probably take a lot longer. She knew that Brett had been a monster. And deep down she knew she had done what she needed to do. It still didn’t make it feel good or erase the image from her head.

Derek had thankfully changed the subject not long after that, telling her that because of the evidence she uncovered from the rig, the authorities had managed not only to connect Andre Matisse to multiple international criminal operations but also to implicate others. Arrests were already happening around the world.

In the end, Brett was dead, and Clint had been arrested and was cooperating fully, swearing he hadn’t known the true extent of the operation hidden on the rig.

The part she was still coming to terms with was that she had played a major role in bringing it all down.

Derek had offered to call her family for her, but she had declined. She thought about calling Sophia, but opted not to, at least not yet. She wasn’t ready to handle all the questions, or even how to tell them what she had been up to. And honestly, they didn’t need to know.

Right now, she needed time. And selfishly, she needed to stay right here beside Snow.