Page 106 of Distress Signal

Sighs of relief echoed from behind me as my body sagged with the same emotion, and I glanced over my shoulder to see my family standing behind me. Reagan reached for me, twining her fingers with mine, and I dragged her into my side. Wrapped my arm around her, needing to feel her warmth and vitality against me.

She was okay.

My sister was going to be okay.

Everything wasokay.

Except it wasn’t.

So fucking far from it, in fact.

Mama pushed past me and gathered Sutton in a hug. “Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you for taking care of our girl.”

Sutton smiled at my mom. “Just doing my job, Birdie. Plus, y’all are like family.”

Her eyes swept over the Lawless crew, though I didn’t miss the blip of…was it pain? that flashed across her eyes when they presumably landed on Lane.

One day, I’d have to sit my big brother down and ask him what the hell happened between them.

Once Sutton and Thomas left, we retreated to the waiting room.

The chairs were horribly uncomfortable, but I slouched down and did my best to shut my mind off for a while.

Naturally, it didn’t work, though I must’ve zoned out for a lengthy period of time, because the next thing I knew, a doctor was pushing in the room, calling for Aria’s family.

All of us stood, and the doctor blinked in surprise at the five hulking men standing before him.

“How is she?” Mama asked.

“Stable,” the doctor said, and we breathed a collective sigh of relief. “She sustained a concussion and needed twelve stitches to patch up the wound on her skull, but the CT scan didn’t reveal any internal bleeding or brain swelling.”

“Oh, thank the goddesses,” Reagan whispered.

“When can we see her?”

“I can take two of you back right now,” the doctor said. “She’s awake and asking for her mom.”

Mama stepped forward, then turned and faced us. Before my brothers and I could launch into an argument about which of us was going first, Mama reached for me.

“You found her, Finny.”

Hardly a good enough reason for me to face her first, but I wasn’t about to say no to my mother. Still, as we walked down the long hall behind the doctor, into the emergency area, I couldn’t stop my hands from shaking.

Mama merely squeezed tighter.

As we approached the end of the cordoned off emergency bays, the only one with the curtains entirely concealing it, the doctor explained, “She’s not in a room because we’ll be discharging her shortly.”

“Oh, that’s excellent news,” Mama said.

“Like I said, there’s no cause for concern. The concussion of course will have to be monitored, but I can send you home with infor?—”

Mama cut him off before he could finish. “No offense, doctor, but I have six sons. I know how to handle a concussion.”

Doc grinned. “Fair enough.”

He reached for the curtain and pulled it back, revealing Aria laying on the hospital bed. A bandage wrapped around her head, and tubes ran from her arms, one connected to a bag of fluid, the other to one of blood, though both were nearly empty.

“She lost quite a bit from that head wound, which caused the loss of consciousness,” he explained. “We needed to replenish it.”