Where I Belong

Where I Belong
Damien’s POV

The hospital was in chaos the second we screeched into the emergency bay. The trauma team was already waiting…someone must’ve radioed ahead. A stretcher appeared. Hands pulled her from my arms. I tried to follow.

“Sir, you have to let us—”

I almost argued for them to let me be with her. But that will be a waste of time.

They wheeled her away. Double doors swung shut. I stood there, chest heaving, blood on my hands, my shirt, my face.

The other car pulled in seconds later and Agnes stumbled into the waiting area crying. Ellie right behind her. Jace last…face pale, knuckles bloody.

I hope he got those bloody knuckles from punching those bastards.

I paced the hallway outside the OR like a caged animal, ignoring everyone else. Back and forth. Back and forth. Every tick of the clock felt like a knife twisting.

Jace stepped in front of me, hand on my shoulder.
“She’s gonna be okay, man. She’s tough. You know she is.”

I spun.
And punched him.
Hard.

Jaw cracked under my knuckles. He staggered but didn’t go down.

“Isn’t this what you wanted?” I snarled. “She didn’t choose you. So you pushed them to go out alone. Happy now? Fucking happy?”

Jaxon grabbed my arms from behind. “Boss…calm down. Come on. Miss Isabella wasn’t forced to go out. She wanted to.”

Jace wiped blood from his lip, eyes wide. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“You insisted. You said let them have girls’ night. No security. No tail. This is on you.”

Agnes’s voice cut through, small and broken. “Stop. Stop it, Damien. Please. It’s my fault. If I hadn’t moved… if I’d just stayed still… she wouldn’t have jumped in front of me. It’s my fault!”

Jace went to her immediately, crouched down, voice soft. “Hey. Look at me. It’s not your fault. You know Bella. If we rewound time, she’d do it again. In a heartbeat. Because that’s how much she loves you.”

I rounded on them both instantly. “What about me?” My voice cracked wide open. “What if she doesn’t wake up? What the fuck am I supposed to do then?”

I know it sounded childish and stupid, but I couldn’t help but feel that way.

Ellie rushed over and threw her arms around me. “Shhh. Stop. Don’t do that to yourself, bro. Don’t go there. She’s going to be fine. She has to be.”

Agnes kept whispering “I’m sorry” over and over, rocking a little while Jace comforted her.

I paced again. And again. Until my legs wanted to give out.

Then…after forever…the OR doors slid open. The surgeon stepped out. Mask down. Face tired but calm.

“She’s stable,” he said. “The bullet entered the abdomen, nicked muscle, grazed the spleen…but missed the major vessels and the liver by millimeters. We got it out cleanly. She lost a lot of blood, but we transfused her. She’s out of immediate danger.”

I exhaled so hard I almost collapsed. “Thank God,” I muttered.

“When can I see her?” I asked. “And when will she wake up?”

“You can see her now. Per your request, we’ve moved her to the private VIP ward…Room 3. As for waking up…” He paused, expression shifting to something careful. “I’m not sure when.”

My blood turned to ice.
“What do you mean you’re not sure when?”

He met my eyes slowly and the hallway went silent.



Four days.

It’s been four fucking days of this sterile white room closing in around me like a coffin. The same fluorescent hum overhead. The same antiseptic smell that clings to everything. The same goddamn beep-beep-beep from the monitor that’s become the soundtrack to my slow descent into madness.

I haven’t left her side.
Not once.

They tried…nurses with kind eyes, doctors with clipped professionalism, Agnes begging to watch over her while I get some rest, even Ellie dragging me toward the door once like I was a feral animal she could reason with. I didn’t budge. I just looked at her until she backed off, muttering something about getting me coffee I never drank.

The chair beside her bed has molded to the shape of my ass. I haven’t gone home…I just change into whatever Jaxon brings over for me. I haven’t shaved, haven’t slept more than twenty-minute snatches where my head drops forward and I jerk awake convinced the monitor flatlined.

It didn’t.
She’s breathing. Chest rising, falling. Slow. Steady. Too fucking steady for someone who almost bled out in my arms.

The doctor keeps repeating the same script every time he rounds: “Abdominal wound is clean. No sepsis. No internal bleeding we missed. She’s young, strong, and vitals are textbook perfect.”

Then the pause. “The rest… it’s up to her.”

Up to her?
Like she’s just being difficult. Like she’s lying there choosing not to open her eyes because she wants to punish me?

Bullshit.

I lean forward again…same position I’ve held for hours…forehead resting against the edge of the mattress, her hand trapped between both of mine. Her fingers are cool. Too cool. I rub them between my palms like I can force warmth back into her the way I couldn’t force her to stay conscious in the back of that SUV.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper for the thousandth time. Voice hoarse. Barely audible. “I’m so fucking sorry, Bella. I should’ve put a team on you. Should’ve chained you to me. Should’ve never let you out of my sight after everything.”

No answer.
Just the beep.

I close my eyes and see it again… her body jerking when the shot cracked. The way she shoved Agnes. The way she hit the concrete like she weighed nothing. The blood on her lips when she tried to smile and tell me she finally did something right.

I choke on the memory.

My throat burns. Eyes sting. I don’t cry…not really. Not the loud, broken way Agnes did when she first saw her. Just silent, endless leaking that soaks into the sheet under my face.

I talk to her because the silence is worse.
About stupid shit.

How Ellie tried to smuggle in contraband pizza and got caught by security. How Jace keeps pacing the hallway like he’s wearing a trench in the linoleum, blaming himself even though I already punched him for it despite it not being his fault.

I just needed someone else to blame aside myself.
How Agnes hasn’t left the hospital either…sleeping in curled-up balls on the waiting-room couch, waking up every hour to check if I’ve moved so she can come in.

I tell her about the future I keep picturing when I can’t stand the present anymore.

A house somewhere quiet. Not the glass-and-steel penthouse…something with a garden she can ruin with half-dead plants she swears she’ll revive. A dog she’ll name something ridiculous like Sir Barksalot. Lazy mornings where I make her coffee and she steals half my toast and calls me old for reading actual newspapers.

Kids, maybe. If she wants them. If I don’t fuck it up too badly first.

I tell her I love her. Over and over.
Like if I say it enough times she’ll have to come back just to shut me up.

The door opened softly minutes later.

I didn’t look up at first…too many false alarms, too many nurses checking lines.

But then I hear Agnes’s voice, small and wrecked.
“Damien.”

And I lifted my head.

“Someone is here to see Bella,” she said quietly.

Who the fuck could that be?