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Dylan

M y throat felt like I’d swallowed broken glass, my head felt like it had been beaten with a hammer, and my body felt like it had been run over by a truck. Or dropped from a tree. Fuck, everything hurt. But I was alive. For a minute there, up in that tree, I hadn’t been sure we’d make it.

“Dylan?”

Juliette’s sweet, scared voice broke through the haze, and I tried to open my eyes.

“He’s awake!” she called out, the sound piercing through my brain.

“Sorry.” She gently grazed her hand down my arm, and despite the blinding light and just as blinding pain, I forced my eyes open to see her.

Juliette leaned closer, her other hand tracing my jaw. She tried to smile at me, but her lips quivered instead. I tried to smile back to show her I was okay, but I coughed, and fire seared through my throat. I closed my eyes against the pain.

“Water,” I croaked.

Juliette lowered the oxygen mask and held a straw to my lips. It stung going down, but felt so good.

“Hey, good to see you awake, brother,” Liam said from the other side of my bed.

I opened my eyes and slowly turned to look at him. “Benji? The baby. Is he okay?” I rasped out.

“He’s good,” Liam said. “He was on oxygen and they’re monitoring him, but looks like he’ll be fine. Sarah’s good too. She’s already been discharged. Ryan is with them now. We’ve been going back and forth to keep an eye on them.”

My eyes drifted back closed, and I relaxed for the first time since I saw that fire.

“Looks like you took better care of them than yourself, jackass,” Brady said.

I didn’t have the energy to respond. Instead I turned my head to find Juliette with her red eyes and puffy face smiling at me as tears streamed down her face.

“I’m okay,” I mouthed.

She nodded, the tears coming faster as she gripped my hand tighter. She was settled into the chair next to me with a pillow and a blanket, looking like she’d been there for too long already.

With peace in the knowledge that Sarah and Benji were okay, Juliette was by my side with her hand in mine, and my brothers were here to look out for us, I drifted back into oblivion.