Page 4 of Fallen Empire (The Fallen Trilogy #2)

Millie

The door clicked shut behind him.

Ben walked back in, silent as ever, but I knew something was off. His steps were slower. Tighter. His eyes landed on Savannah, then flicked to me.

I didn’t wait.

“Is he sober?” I asked, keeping my voice low. It wasn’t the question I wanted to ask, but it was safer than, what’s going on?

Ben nodded. “Yeah. He is. He’s on the way. Should be here in about ten.”

Ten minutes.

That’s all I had to figure out what the hell was happening.

My eyes drifted back to Savannah. Her chest rose and fell with the help of a machine that hummed steadily beside us. Her face—still bruised, still pale—looked more peaceful than before. But peace didn’t mean safe. And I knew the difference.

“You know…” I started, unsure why I was saying it out loud, “I never had anyone to count on growing up. It was just me and Jax forever. And when he left…” I let the words trail off.

There was more I could say. About Henry . About what almost was. About the way I nearly got my version of forever, only to watch it slip through my fingers like sand.

But I wouldn’t tell anyone else that story until I told her.

Savannah deserved to know the real me. The before. The broken parts. The shadows I didn’t show anyone.

We’d work through our truths together. Every messy, sharp-edged, painful piece of them. I’d make a vow of it.

I glanced up. Ben hadn’t said a word. Hadn’t interrupted. He just stood there, hands folded, watching me. Listening.

“Savannah is my world,” I said softly. “I know I haven’t known her long. But some people don’t need time to leave a mark. She walked into my life and changed everything. She made me… softer. Better. Less guarded.”

My voice cracked. I swallowed hard.

“I need a favor, Ben.”

His brows lifted just slightly, but he looked at me. Really looked at me. Like he saw more than I was saying. This may have been my way of getting him to tell me what I needed… but for some reason, I wanted him to see me more than anyone.

“If something’s going on,” I continued, “and it’s regarding her life being at risk… I need to know. I don’t care who’s involved, or what Jaxson’s keeping close to his chest. If she comes out of this, I can’t lose her again.”

She wasn’t mine in the way Jaxson loved her. But she was mine in all the ways that counted. My best friend. My heartbeat. My person.

And I wasn’t afraid to fight for her.

I could tell by the way he looked at me that my words struck something deep.

He didn’t have time to respond before a soft knock sounded, and the door creaked open.

The doctor stepped in with the nurse from earlier trailing behind, clipboard in hand. His eyes flicked to me, then to Ben, before settling on Savannah.

He moved with purpose, like someone who'd done this a hundred times before, but still carried the weight of it like it was his first.

“Hello,” he said softly, approaching the bed. “I’m Dr. Alvarez. I was called in about some movement?”

I nodded quickly. “She opened her eyes. She looked at me. Her fingers moved—she tried to talk. It wasn’t a reflex.”

He gave a small, thoughtful nod and turned toward the nurse. “Can you verify her latest vitals?”

She was already moving, checking the monitor and quietly relaying numbers.

Heart rate steady.

Blood pressure slightly elevated, but not dangerously so.

Oxygen levels—strong.

Dr. Alvarez leaned in to examine Savannah, gently lifting her eyelids and shining a penlight across her pupils.

He spoke to her in a low, calm voice as he checked for responsiveness, pressing gently against her nail bed, brushing his knuckles along her collarbone, watching for any twitch of recognition.

After a moment, he stepped back and faced us with a measured expression.

“I’d like to order a new CT scan right away,” he said.

“We need to assess brain function, check for any lingering swelling, and rule out complications like bleeding or hydrocephalus. If the imaging looks clean and her breathing trial is stable, we’ll move toward removing the ventilator this afternoon. ”

I felt my breath catch, hope blooming in my chest like something fragile and desperate.

“It’s a positive sign that she attempted to speak,” he continued. “That, combined with the finger movement and eye response, tells us she’s trying to come out of the coma. The swelling has likely reduced significantly, but we want to be absolutely sure before we take any next steps.”

Ben leaned forward slightly. “And the ventilator?”

Dr. Alvarez nodded. “That’s where we go next.

The process of removing a patient from mechanical ventilation is called extubation.

It’s not something we rush unless her body’s ready.

We’ll start by decreasing the vent support, then gradually weaning her off over the next hour to see how her lungs perform on their own. ”

I swallowed hard. “So what happens now?”

“Now, we monitor. If her oxygen saturation stays stable as we reduce support—and if her CT scan confirms the swelling’s resolved—we’ll proceed with extubation later today. If not, we wait and reassess in twenty-four hours.”

He looked between us. “This is all encouraging. We’re not out of the woods, but she’s showing us signs of fight.”

My fingers tightened around the edge of the blanket draped over Savannah’s legs. Signs of fight. That was exactly who she was.

She just needed the rest of us to keep fighting with her.

“What should we expect after?” Ben asked, arms crossed tight.

“She may be confused, disoriented,” he said gently.

“Some patients wake up agitated. Others remember nothing at all. There’s also a possibility she won’t be able to speak immediately, especially if her throat is irritated from the tube.

But if she’s truly waking up, she’ll start showing more consistent signs—eye tracking, responding to voices, purposeful movement. ”

“And if she doesn’t?” I asked, needing to know every possibility.

Dr. Alvarez met my gaze squarely. “Then we keep waiting. But for now… this is huge progress.”

He paused, like he knew what I needed before I even asked it. Like he needed to say what came next—for both our sakes.

“But I want you to keep in mind,” he continued gently, “her body has been through significant trauma. She came in with an existing concussion. On top of that, she sustained additional head traumas. Blunt force injuries that have resulted in internal bleeding. She has a hairline fracture in the femoral shaft of her left leg, two broken ribs, and a gunshot wound that, while clean, still tore through tissue and muscle near her heart. All of that— plus the time she’s spent intubated and unconscious—means she won’t just wake up and be okay. ”

I nodded, trying to swallow the lump rising in my throat.

“She has a long road ahead,” he said. “Rehab. Pain management. Physical therapy. Emotional recovery. This,” he motioned gently toward the bed, “is the beginning of that process, not the end of it.”

He let the words settle.

And I felt them. Heavy, weighted, like they weren’t just about what was happening in this room…

but about what was happening outside of it too.

Like some part of him knew this wasn’t just recovery—it was a reckoning.

That the violence done to her body was only the start of something bigger.

That healing, in every sense of the word, was going to take a war of its own.

We weren’t at the end of anything.

We were at the edge of something that hadn’t even started yet.

“We’ll monitor her closely. I’ll be back in an hour to reassess. In the meantime, just keep talking to her. Familiar voices can make a world of difference.”

He gave us a small, encouraging smile before turning to leave.

The door shut behind Dr. Alvarez with a quiet click, leaving only the nurse behind as she adjusted the IV line and checked a few final readings on the monitor.

I sat frozen, still trying to catch my breath from the storm of information we’d just been given. Hope and fear warring for space in my chest.

The nurse tapped something on her tablet, then turned to leave.

But she stopped.

Her eyes narrowed as they landed on the figure standing just outside the door.

Jaxson.

He hadn’t even fully stepped in yet, like he was still deciding if he was allowed to.

His eyes locked on Savannah, and the raw emotion that crossed his face was enough to make my own throat tighten. He looked like a man on the edge of something final. Like seeing her again was both a blessing and a curse.

The nurse stepped into his line of sight, squaring her shoulders.

“Mr. Westbrook,” she said flatly, her voice low and firm. “You're lucky Dr. Alvarez cleared your name to be here.”

He didn’t speak. Didn’t blink.

“But let me be very clear.” She pointed to the bed without breaking eye contact. “That woman right there? She’s the priority. Not your guilt. Not your grief. Her. ”

Still no response from him. Just the sharp rise and fall of his chest.

The nurse softened just slightly, but not by much.

“She’s trying to come back. If you’re here to help her do that—stay. But if you’re going to fall apart and make this about you, do it somewhere else.”

She turned, tablet clutched tight to her chest, and pushed open the door with her shoulder as she mumbled something under her breath.

And then she was gone.

Leaving only me, Ben, Savannah—and the man who looked like he hadn’t taken a full breath since she collapsed onto the ground.