Chapter Twenty-Seven: Fall Hard, Fight Forever-8

I was disconnected to reality. It almost felt like watching myself from a safe distance, far away enough from the oppressive truth of the hell I just lived through. Within half hour of my arrival, Luke showed up at the emergency room, his face taut and ashen-much like the face of a stone masterpiece-his crystal blue eyes glittering with emotions he was stubbornly holding back. He half-gasped and half-laughed in relief when his eyes zeroed in on me. Where I had felt nothing now bloomed with a bright, searing heat, expanding inside my chest and chasing the chill of the last hour. It felt as inevitable as sunrise-the darkness just had to go simply because there was no room for it. Luke shouldered his way past nurses and a pair of cops and I got to my feet despite my protesting muscles so I could wrap my arms around him in the same second his own came around me. I was still shaken but the tremors I felt reverberate through me were all coming from Luke. He was trembling so much I thought I was the only thing keeping him up on his feet. "Luke, it's okay," I mumbled softly, running a hand up and down his back. He only clutched me closer to him. I felt the oxygen thin in my lungs with how tightly he held me but I made no sound because he needed to know that I was alive and safe and relatively unharmed. Maybe then he wouldn't fall apart. "I'm so sorry." Luke's voice was low and choked as he kept chanting the same sentence while rocking me in his arms. "I'm so sorry." "It wasn't your fault." "The mere fact that my past mistakes dragged you into the middle of all of this makes it my fault," he said bitterly. "I should've.. I... Oh, God." He dragged in a deep breath, his shoulders shaking, but made no move to release me. "That was complete and utter hell, Max," Luke murmured thickly against my hair, his fingers curling around the tangled locks as he buried his face in my neck. "I feel like I died over and over again in those agonizing fifteen minutes I thought I would lose you." I smiled in spite of myself, in spite of the tragedy that would forever cloud whatever comfort we could find in all of this. "You're alive. I'm alive. That's the only thing I want us to remember." He lifted his head away and gave me a stern look even though his eyes were still a bit glassy. "I'm pretty sure there was something else you kept telling me to remember earlier." He closed his eyes briefly and cursed. "Jesus, Max. I can't believe you were talking to me like that-like you were about to die!" Anguish was written all over his handsome face as he ran a hand through his hair, pulling at it until I reached up to stop him. He caught my hand and pressed my palm to his cheek. "Don't you ever dare say those things to me again, okay? No famous last words until we're fucking good and ready-in like a few hundred years. Do you hear me?" I laughed and quickly groaned when my sore back and shoulders reminded me of their current lack of sense of humor. "You okay?" Luke asked, eyes wide with panic as he gently gripped me by my arms and tried to steer me back to the gurney. "Oh, God. What the hell am I thinking? Of course, you're not okay. Is anything broken? Nurse! Doctor! We need someone here! Someone help her, goddamit-" "We're right here," a doctor said with a bemused shake of his head as Luke frantically whipped around, commanding attention like a king. "Don't worry. Ms. Moss is very lucky. She has some minor abrasions and bruising but overall, she's in good shape. She'll be very sore and uncomfortable for a week or two but other than minor whiplash, she's fine." I smiled at the acute relief on Luke's face and the amusement of everyone watching this tall, usually powerful man fall to pieces and collect himself back together. As the doctor had mentioned, I had no major injuries-a cut on my cheek where the gun had struck me, several scratches from the shattered windshield, and a few big bruises. And yes, I ached like a rotten tooth. But I walked away from what could've been a very different outcome. "Baby, I'm fine," I told him, squeezing his hand in mine before letting it go. "Officer Valencia and his partner have some questions for you, I think."