13
Selene, seeing that all attention was focused on me, took advantage of the chaos to flee. No one noticed her slipping away down the hall, one hand protectively on her stomach, the other already on her phone.
The medical staff worked frantically around my body. After the third shock, a nurse gently pulled my brother away from the bedside.
“You need to let them work,” she said softly, guiding him to the corner.
He collapsed against the wall, sliding down until he sat on the floor, sobbing uncontrollably. All his Alpha pride and dignity were forgotten in the face of possibly losing me his little sister, his only family, the one he had betrayed so completely.
While the healers fought to save me, pumping my chest, injecting medications, shocking my heart, I floated above it all, I wanted to tell them to stop. I was so tired. The pain was gone up here, the betrayal distant, the suffering finally ended.
But perhaps I still had unfinished business in the world of the living, because after the fifth shock, a miracle happened.
*Beep… beep… beep…*
“We’ve got rhythm! BP coming up, 80/50… 90/60…”
My soul, hovering on the edge of whatever comes after life, reluctantly returned to my broken body. The peaceful weightlessness vanished, replaced by the heavy ache of existence.
I woke up three days later.
My brother had been by my side the entire time, refusing to leave even to shower or change clothes. He looked haggard and unkempt, with several days‘ stubble darkening his jaw, deep shadows under his eyes, and a hollow look on his face that suggested he’d aged years in days.
When he saw my eyelids flutter open, the change in his expression was immediate – like a man dying of thirst who suddenly spots water. His eyes brightened with desperate joy.
