Page 18 of Fighting For You

I was halfway to the exit when someone caught up to me.

"Knox Sullivan." Liz Halstead fell into step beside me. "It's been a while since your crew dropped anyone off here. I feel like I haven't seen you in forever."

"Halstead."

"Why are you looking for Nora?"

"It's none of your business."

The exit doors shut behind me. I got in my truck and sat there for a minute with my hands on the wheel. She was in there somewhere, and I couldn't get to her. But I knew where she was now. I'd come back tomorrow. Hopefully she'd be awake by then.

CHAPTER 5

Visiting Hours

NORA

I woke up with someone's hand holding mine.

For a few seconds I didn't know where I was. The ceiling was white. Something beeped to my right, and the air had that sharp antiseptic edge I knew from twelve-hour shifts. Hospital. I was in a hospital.

Then it came back. All of it, all at once. The smoke pouring under my bedroom door. The orange glow at the bottom of the stairs. Being lifted off the ground and carried through heat by a man I⁠—

"Nora." Ian's voice cracked on my name.

He was in the chair beside the bed, hunched forward with his elbows on the mattress, my hand gripped in both of his. He was wearing a T-shirt I'd never seen, too big across the shoulders, and his sneakers were still on with the laces loose. A hospital blanket was balled up behind him in the chair.

"You're finally awake."

"Hey." My throat was raw. Every word scraped. "I'm here."

He dropped his forehead against our hands. His shoulders shook once, then steadied. When he looked up his eyes were red, and he wiped his face with the back of his wrist, quick, like he didn't want me to see it.

"Don't ever do that to me again."

"Do what? Get trapped in a fire?"

"Be unconscious for two days." His grip tightened on my hand. "The doctor kept telling me your oxygen levels were improving and you were stable, and I just sat here watching you breathe and waiting for you to wake up."

Two days. I had been out for two days.

"Why aren't you in school?"

He stared at me. "Are you serious right now?"

"It's a weekday, Ian."

"Our house burned down. You're in a hospital bed with a tube in your nose, and you're asking me why I'm not in class?"

He was right. The question was absurd. But it was the only one I knew how to ask, because asking it meant things were still normal, and if things were still normal, then everything was going to be fine.

"Have you eaten?"

"Yes."

"Does the school know you're here?"

"I called them. I handled it." He sat back in the chair. "Nurse Josie brought me food. She got me a blanket, a pillow, and a towel so I could clean up. She set me up right here and told me you were going to be fine." He pointed to the corner of the room, where I could see a folded towel on a shelf next to a tupperware container. "She checked on you every couple of hours."