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"Rae?" His voice. Close. Solid. Unwavering.

She latched onto it instantly. “Noah?” Her voice came out hoarse, fragile.

“I’m right here.” A hand, warm and strong, slipped over hers.

Relief coursed through her at the contact, but beneath it lurked something unfamiliar. Why did it feel like there was something she should remember about him—something just out of reach?

Her fingers curled into his, her breathing uneven. “Where…?”

“You’re in the hospital,” Noah said gently. “You were hurt. But you’re safe now.”

Safe.The word didn’t feel real.

Ruth swallowed, trying to force her scattered thoughts into order. But the effort was like trying to hold on to mist. She sensed movement to her left. A presence she didn’t recognize.

Noah must have picked up on her unease because he squeezed her hand slightly. “Rae, there’s someone I want you to meet. This is my brother, Paul.”

Ruth took a slow breath, processing. “Your brother?”

“Yeah,” Paul’s voice came—calm, controlled, but carrying something else beneath it. Curiosity. "Hi, Ruth. It’s good to finally meet you."

She turned her head slightly in the direction of the voice, though it didn’t make much of a difference. Ruth hesitated, unsure how to respond. Had they met before? Should she remember him? She felt Noah shift slightly beside her, his grip still grounding her.

* * *

Noah satbeside Ruth’s hospital bed, his fingers curled loosely around hers. She was too still. Too quiet.

The beeping of the monitors filled the room, a steady, relentless sound that somehow felt wrong. She was breathing. Her heart was beating. But something in his gut told him this wasn’t just exhaustion.

She stirred slightly, her fingers tightening around his. That small motion shouldn’t have hit him as hard as it did, but he felt it everywhere.

Paul stood nearby, arms crossed, watching them. Noah could feel his brother’s eyes on him, assessing. Paul had always been quick to read a situation, to pick apart the details everyone else missed. His gaze flicked back to Ruth, lingering. Then he frowned. Something was off, and they both knew it.

Before Noah could ask, the door swung open.

Tristan and James moved with the kind of quiet precision that came from years in medicine. Controlled. Experienced. Exactly the kind of people Ruth needed right now. “Hey, Ruth, it’s Tristan and James.”

Her eyes fluttered for a brief second, barely opening before closing again. Her breathing evened out—slipping back into sleep.

Noah’s chest tightened. Tristan didn’t say anything as he moved to check her monitors. James nodded at Paul before glancing at Noah.

“You must be Noah’s brother.”

Paul nodded. “I am. And I need to be caught up. Fast.”

James didn’t waste time. “Ruth suffered a large subdural hematoma from the blast. We performed an emergency craniotomy to relieve the pressure. The swelling is going down, but we don’t know if the blindness is permanent.”

Noah exhaled slowly, gripping her hand a little tighter.Blindness. The word alone was enough to make him feel sick.

Paul frowned. “Her confusion—how severe is it?”

Tristan’s gaze flicked toward Ruth. He hesitated for a beat before speaking. “We don’t know yet. Some of it could be post-traumatic amnesia. Some of it could be from the pressure on her brain. We are running bloodwork to see if the fake nurse injected her with something. We do see it is worsening. The picture is still foggy.”

Noah looked between them, his stomach knotting. “She… she doesn’t seem to remember things. She asked me a question earlier that she should have already known the answer to. Could the memory gaps be permanent?”

James sighed. “It’s too soon to tell. With head trauma, memory issues are common—sometimes temporary, sometimes longer-lasting. It depends on the extent of the damage.”

Not good enough.