Page 124 of Pack Me Up

Saint lets go of the gurney, and the doctors surge forward, wheeling Brittney toward a set of double doors. Fox follows, never breaking contact, and the rest of us trail behind, a wall of broken bodies and bottled fury.

They bring all of us to a large room full of beds. Cody collapses to the floor, leaning against the wall.

Saint steps towards Brittney, but the nurse fixes him with a stare so cold it could crack his bones. “You want her to live, you’ll listen,” she says. “Let us do our jobs. You can sit here and watch her breathe. That’s it.”

All of us stare at them while they run tests, administer medicine, and set up IVs. I don’t know how long it is before the pain rushes in.

It starts with my ribs, a dull throb that becomes a hot wire around my chest. Cody is still on the floor, but now he’s hunched over, breathing in short, sharp bursts. Colton’s nose is broken in three places, and there’s a chunk of glass in his bicep, but he paces the room like a caged bear. Saint looks fine until he isn’t, which is when his right leg buckles and he almost eats shit on the linoleum.

The ER staff sees their moment and swarms. First, it’s a pair of nurses, then a whole team. They descend on us like vultures.

“We need to assess your injuries,” one says, voice going up at the end like a question. He’s smart enough to keep a foot of distance. “You’re all losing blood.”

“We’re not leaving her,” Colton mumbles, head in his hands.

“You don’t have to,” another nurse says, and this one is older, her hair in a steel-grey twist. She’s not scared of us, not even a little. “This is a room for packs. You can all be together.”

Saint grunts. “Fine. But we’re not getting separated. Not for a second.”

I crash onto the nearest bed, keeping my gaze connected to my omega. My shirt is stuck to my back with blood, and when the nurse cuts it away, the air stings like a thousand wasps. “You got stabbed?” she asks, deadpan.

I try to remember. “Maybe? Lost track.”

She grunts and starts cleaning the wound, totally unbothered. “Alphas.”

Saint gets the bed closest to the door, which is probably a security thing. He sits ramrod straight, watching Brittney, every muscle straining.

Someone starts wrapping his leg, but Saint never flinches.

Colton refuses to sit. He paces the perimeter of the room, glaring at anyone who comes close, even as they dab iodine into his cuts and tape his nose into place. “You’re making it worse,” the nurse says, but Colton just growls and keeps moving.

Fox steps back from Brittney after talking to the doctor. He looks even more exhausted up close, with sunken eyes and fingers trembling. He leans against the far wall, arms crossed.

“They’re fixing her up,” he says. “The doctors think she’ll wake up soon. She’s got some internal bleeding…” He trails off, voice cracking.

Cody is half passed out, head tipped back, mouth open. Blood is crusted in the hollow of his throat, but he doesn’t care.

After what feels like days, the chaos fades. The nurses close the door behind them, and it’s just us, four wrecked alphas and a beta, waiting for the world to stop spinning.

Saint slumps a little, and for the first time, I see how tired he is. “You did well, boys,” he says, voice soft. “We’re alive. We keptheralive.”

It’s not victory, not really. But it’s enough to keep us breathing.

The doctors come in waves: checking our vitals, patching up wounds, running tests. They talk about internal bleeding and concussion and the risk of infection, but all I care about is that every time I blink, Brittney is still there.

A doctor stops to talk to us.

“She’s stable,” he says. “That’s the good news. But the swelling in her brain… We need to give it time. It wasn’t bad enough for her to need surgery, so we gave her the necessary medication to help. She might wake up in a day. Might be longer. There’s nothing else to do but wait.”

Colton explodes, voice loud enough to rattle the windows. “That’s it? Just wait? Do your fucking job!”

The doctor just nods, not defensive, not angry, just tired. “Sometimes,” he says, “that’s all there is.”

Fox asks the question we’re all too scared to voice. “And if she doesn’t wake up?”

The doctor looks down. “We cross that bridge when we come to it.”

He leaves. The room goes silent, just the hiss of the oxygen and the soft mechanical tick of the monitors.