Page 64 of Run Wild Omega

I take Tess’s hand again.

Her fingers are still cold, but not as cold as before. The color in her face hasn’t improved much, but her breathing is steadier, deeper.

The transfusion is doing its work. Her body is fighting.

I lean closer, my lips near her ear.

“You’re going to have opinions about those headlines,” I murmur. “You’re going to want to fight every single person who called you reckless. And I’m going to be right there next to you, holding you back so you don’t get arrested for assaulting a cable news anchor.”

Her fingers twitch.

I freeze. “Tess?”

Nothing. Just a small, involuntary movement. Probably a muscle spasm. Probably nothing.

But I felt it.

I look at Maggie. She saw it too. A tiny flicker of something crosses her face—hope, maybe—but she doesn’t say anything. She just makes a note on her chart.

I settle back in the chair. My hand doesn’t leave hers.

The monitor beeps.

Thirty point nine.

Below thirty. Almost there.

Outside this room, the world is spinning. Reporters are circling. Strangers are debating whether she deserves to be called reckless or reckless and stupid. Someone with a drone turned her worst day into content.

And I don’t know how to fix it for her.

Tess

Iwake up in pieces.

First, the smell. Antiseptic and something else—plastic, sterile, the faint sweetness of saline. It coats the inside of my nose like a film, wrong and unfamiliar.

Not my apartment. Not the mountain. Not the café.

Then, the pain. It doesn’t arrive all at once but in waves, rolling through my body in slow, nauseating crests. The worst of it is in my left leg, a throbbing fire that pulses in time with my heartbeat. It feels like someone has filled my shin with molten lead and wrapped it in barbed wire.

I try to move and find I can’t. Not fully. My right hand twitching against rough sheets is the extent of my mobility. The rest of me feels pinned, weighted down.

My eyes open. Or at least I think they do. The light is blinding, harsh, and fluorescent. I squeeze my eyes shut again, a dry groan scraping out of my throat. It sounds like it belongs to someone else. Someone barely human.

“Tess?”

A hand closes around mine. Warm. Familiar.

I force my eyes open again, slower this time, letting them adjust. A face swims into focus—soft lines, graying hair pulled back in a loose bun, tear tracks carved into flushed cheeks.

Mom.

She’s sitting in a chair pulled right up to the bed, her upper body angled toward me like she’s been holding this position for hours. There are dark circles under her eyes, and the collar of her blouse is wrinkled, but her gaze is locked on my face with an intensity that makes my chest ache.

“Mom,” I try to say, but my mouth is so dry the word comes out as a rasp.

“Don’t talk yet, baby. Here.” She reaches for something on the nightstand—a cup with a bent straw—and holds it to my lips. The water is lukewarm and tastes faintly of plastic, but it’s the best thing I’ve ever tasted. I drink greedily, the liquid soothing my raw throat.