Chapter 249: Madeline
Six days after waking, they unmoor me from the machines.
It feels like I’ve lived a whole extra lifetime between beeps. Every hour someone new has come through the door with a cuff, a light, a clipboard—“follow my finger,” “deep breath,” “any dizziness?”—and the little choir of nods when everything behaves. I’ve learned I was kept under on purpose, that they worried about my brain starving in the water, that I might not come back all the way. But my thoughts feel like mine. Tired, sore, slowed by bruises, yes—but mine.
Two days ago I did a royal parade up and down the hallway in hospital socks, ribs complaining, wrist caged, and the nurses clapped like I’d finished a marathon. I cried. Everyone pretended not to notice.
Jake and Reid haven’t given me an inch of empty air since I opened my eyes. If one left to shower, the other replaced him. If one ran downstairs for food, the other folded his too-big body into the plastic chair and watched me breathe like it was a job. They look at me with so much love and so much worry that guilt tries to bloom—but even that can’t take root. I didn’t do this to them. It happened to me, and they stayed.
I only learned what “stayed” meant when I noticed Jake’s hand wrapped like a boxer’s. I assumed… that Reid would be the one doing that kind of things. The cold, hard kind. But no—Jake lost himself on Nick while Reid jumped in the water for me. They both had to be sedated when I was brought in apparently, frantic and feral, and somehow that knowledge folds inside my chest like another rib growing back. I can’t fathom what those hours were for them.
Mom and Dad tried their softest ambush: Come home for a while. Reset. Be somewhere safe. I told them home is Northhaven. It’s the cove and the Vigil and a humpback that might be changing the map and a house where Finn and Liam yell about pasta and Charlie steals my hoodies. It’s also two men who make my bones unclench just by standing close.
About the wreckage: Sloane told Nick where I was, he wasn't lying about that; but at least now she’s gone. Nick’s under arrest. Cruz waved his badge and made sure Jake won’t see the inside of a cell for what he did to him. When Jake said with that velvet-dark voice that he’d do it again—“no one touches my girl”—heat rolled through me so hard I forgot I was made of stitches. My body isn’t ready; but my mind is shameless and wants to take them to bed.
My parents bring a little paper bag with my name on it—soft off-shoulder white sweatshirt, black leggings, a travel-size vanilla, a cheap mascara. I move slowly, like I’m operating heavy machinery. The wand trembles near my lashes; Reid’s reflection steps behind mine.
“Turn,” he says.
I do. He gathers my hair carefully out of the way of bruises and the splint, fingers gentle and sure. The elastic snaps once and holds. He tests the ponytail with a kiss to the back of my neck; my breath forgets its job. Then my jaw. Then my mouth—warm, careful, so alive I could weep. I taste salt and pine and him.
We make the rounds. Tasha, who snuck me warm blankets. The day doctor with kind eyes. The night nurse who braided my hair when the pain made me shake. They hug me one by one, and I promise them whales and postcards I probably won’t send, and tears keep happening even when I think I’m wrung dry.
They flank me down the hall—one on each side, big hands spanning my ribs without touching anything that hurts—and into the elevator. The world outside is loud and beautiful. Reid peels off to bring the SUV around; Jake lowers onto a bench and draws me onto his lap like he’s been waiting all week to put me exactly here. His palm finds my thigh, tracing slow, hypnotic circles that speak the language of you’re safe better than words.
“I love you,” he says, simple as tide.
“I love you,” I answer, because of course I do.
My gaze drops to his bandaged hand. The apology is out before I can stop it. “I’m sorry I put you—both of you—through that.”
His head snaps, startled. “Hey.” His thumb presses a firmer circle. “You didn’t put us through anything, Trouble. You went through hell. We’re just sorry we didn’t stop it sooner.”
He kisses me—soft, sure, a brand I’ll never take off—and when he pulls back there’s a glint that wasn’t there a week ago. “Unfortunate update for you,” he murmurs. “Reid and I are going to have a very hard time letting you go anywhere without one of us.”
A laugh bubbles up, unbroken and real. “That’s fine by me.”
Headlights sweep the curb. Reid rolls to a stop, already out of the driver’s seat, already building the little nest of blanket and careful seatbelt so nothing presses where it shouldn’t. Between the two of them, I don’t have to lift a finger. Between the two of them, I don’t have to do anything but heal.
Reid opens the back door and Jake eases me in, blankets my legs, props my splinted wrist on a hoodie. Instead of taking shotgun he slides in beside me, an arm around my shoulders, palm steady at the back of my head. Reid catches my eyes in the mirror. “Comfortable?”
“Perfect.”
We roll out of the city. Highway hum. Jake’s knuckles trace slow circles on my thigh through the blanket; Reid drives like he’s carrying glass—soft over bumps, checking the mirror every few minutes. The farther we go, the more the air turns briny. A flash of water between trees. My chest goes tight in the good way.
“Home,” Reid says.
“Home,” I echo, and Jake kisses my temple like he’s agreeing with both of us.
Down the last hill the sky is rinsed clean, marsh grass bright, gulls riding the breeze. I squeeze Jake’s hand, breathing in salt and cedar and the kind of quiet that only happens near the ocean.
“Northhaven,” I say, grinning.
“Northhaven,” they answer together, and Reid turns toward the harbor.