Page 24 of Vital Signs (Wayward Sons #7)

The empty water bottle hit the van wall with a hollow crack.

"Fuck." My voice broke on the word. Four hours since we'd run out of water. Four hours of watching Hunter suffer with nothing to ease it. No relief. No way to stop the pain that ripped through him in waves.

Hunter writhed on the makeshift bed, skin slick with sweat despite the frigid January air creeping through the van's insulation.

His lips cracked and bled where his teeth worried them raw.

Dark shadows carved hollows beneath his eyes, and his hands, those capable hands that had made me scream hours ago, now clenched and unclenched without purpose or control.

Two days ago, I couldn't have imagined caring whether Hunter Song lived or died. Now I couldn't imagine breathing without him watching me like I might vanish.

"Water," he croaked, reaching toward where I'd thrown the bottle. His hand trembled so violently it might as well have belonged to someone else. "Please."

"It's empty." My throat tightened. "They're all empty."

Hunter's face contorted as another wave of pain crashed through him. A muscle spasm seized his left leg, twisting it at an angle that looked wrong, and the sound that tore from his throat wasn't human. Animal. Raw. Something dying by degrees.

I glanced at my phone, where Wright's files glowed in the darkness. I'd been studying them during Hunter's brief moments of sleep, trying to find something—anything—that proved Tyler's death wasn't an accident.

Tyler's file made my stomach turn. The dosage increases after his ER visit weren't just aggressive—they were deliberate. "OLEP Initiated–see ALT 5.3 log." Clinical language hiding murder.

My mortuary training let me recognize the pattern: escalating doses, no justifying diagnostics, death filed as "natural causes." But I needed real medical expertise to prove it.

The Laskins could have helped. Hunter could have helped if his hands would stop shaking long enough to read a chart.

Both options I'd destroyed by choosing this path.

Hunter moaned, another spasm seizing him. The files could wait. He couldn't.

I pressed my palm to his forehead. Burning hot. His pulse hammered at one-twenty-four under my fingers, dangerously high from dehydration.

I'd been rationing the last water bottle for hours, giving him drops when he could keep them down. It was gone now. And without water, his body would start shutting down organs. Kidneys first, then liver, then heart.

I could watch him die of dehydration, or I could leave him alone for twenty minutes.

Both options felt like abandonment.

"Hunter." My voice came out hoarse. "I need to go get supplies."

His eyes flew open, panic replacing pain for just an instant. "No." The word came out shredded. "Don't leave me."

"You're dehydrated. Your pulse is racing. You need fluids and electrolytes, or this will kill you." I kept my voice steady despite the fear carving a hole in my chest. "I'll go to that 24-hour Walmart. Twenty minutes, tops."

His hand shot out, gripping my wrist with surprising strength given his condition. "People die in withdrawal. Alone. I can't—"

"I won't let you die." I covered his hand with mine, my voice hardening. "I will not let that happen. Not on my watch. Not ever."

"Everyone leaves." His voice cracked on the words. "Everyone always leaves."

“Not me.” I grabbed my phone, wallet, and the stolen keycard from the clinic. Google Maps showed a Walmart Supercenter four miles away.

The drive was a blur of dark roads and swirling snow.

Black ice gleamed under the streetlights as I navigated toward town.

Athens slept like the dead in winter, storefronts dark and shuttered against the cold.

Only an occasional plow truck rumbled past, throwing up walls of dirty slush.

My phone buzzed as I turned onto East State Street.

Xander. The tenth message in the last hour. I ignored it like all the others.

I pulled into the Walmart parking lot around 4:30 AM, the van's quarter tank of gas enough to get us back but not much farther. Fluorescent lights washed everything in a sickly yellow.

A black sedan pulled in two rows behind me. Same car that had followed us from the clinic yesterday. My stomach dropped.

The driver pulled out a phone and made a call.

Maybe I was wrong. Maybe it wasn’t the same car. Either way, I didn’t have a choice. The sooner I got what we needed, the sooner I could get back to Hunter.

Before stepping out, I turned to him. He'd curled onto his side, knees drawn to his chest.

"I'm coming back." I leaned down until my forehead pressed against his, the contact searing my skin. "I promise."

His eyes locked onto mine, searching for the lie he expected to find. He nodded once. The movement made him wince.

"Here." I pressed my keys into his palm, wrapping his fingers around them. "So you know I'll come back."

The confusion in his eyes cracked something I didn't know was still breakable. He stared at the keys like they were foreign objects. As if a set of keys could stop me from vanishing like everyone else. As if anything mattered when his body was cannibalizing itself.

"I’ll be right back," I repeated, then stepped out into the night.

The cold punched through my jacket. Ohio winters were vicious, unforgiving. The kind of cold that killed the careless. I'd spent my first American winter huddled under electric blankets, unable to comprehend how anything survived here.

The automatic doors opened with a mechanical whoosh that grated on my nerves.

After hours in the van's twilight world, the store's brightness forced me to squint.

The smell overwhelmed me next: antiseptic cleaning products, processed food, and the undercurrent of desperation that clung to every retail store after midnight.

I kept my head down through the store, avoiding eye contact with the few night shoppers. Even years after Paris, my face occasionally triggered recognition. The last thing I needed was someone taking photos.

My boots squeaked against the polished floor as I moved toward the health section, each step carrying me farther from Hunter. I grabbed only what we couldn't survive without: water, Gatorade, Tylenol, crackers, and protein drinks.

Near checkout, a display caught my eye. A stuffed dragon sat on an endcap, blue-black scales almost exactly like Hunter's tattoo. Something fierce and indestructible, even in plush form.

He'd call it stupid. Sentimental.

I grabbed it anyway.

At checkout, the night cashier's eyes lingered on my face too long. Recognition flickered in her expression.

"Has anyone ever told you that you look like someone famous?" she asked, voice too loud in the quiet store. "I swear I've seen your face on Instagram or something."

My heart slammed against my ribs. "No," I said, the lie automatic. "I get that a lot, though."

She nodded, not convinced but unwilling to argue. Her gaze kept returning to my face while she scanned the items, making my skin crawl.

Three Athens police officers strode through the automatic doors. The lead officer, a stocky man with a crew cut, spotted me immediately and nudged his partners.

My heart stopped. No. Not now. Not when Hunter was alone and suffering.

I abandoned the basket and bolted for the side exit. I pulled out my phone and scrolled through, searching for Hunter's number to let him know I was on my way.

"STOP RIGHT THERE!" The voice hardened, followed by the sound of boots against linoleum.

A hand grabbed my shoulder, spinning me around roughly. "Hands where I can see them!"

I froze, phone still in my hand. "I need to finish this call. Please, I have someone waiting—"

"DROP THE PHONE!" The officer's hand went to his holster, stance widening.

The phone clattered to the floor. Before I could speak, the officer slammed me face-first against the wall, jerking my arms behind my back.

"Michael Vasiliev, you're under arrest for breaking and entering. We have security footage from the Athens Community Clinic showing you and an accomplice stealing confidential patient files."

Cold metal bit into my wrists as the handcuffs ratcheted tight. The pressure against my skin sent me hurtling back through time and space. Not here, not now, but Paris. Roche's hands. Roche's restraints. Roche's soft whispers as they bound me.

My breath came in short, violent gasps. My lungs refused to fill. The store lights warped. My body locked rigid, then exploded into motion.

I didn't choose to fight. My body chose survival. Pure animal panic.

"STOP RESISTING!" An officer shouted as they forced me to the ground.

"I'M NOT RESISTING!" I screamed back, but my body thrashed against their holds. "He's waiting for me! You don't understand! He's sick! He needs—"

"Get his arms!" Another voice barked. A knee pressed into my back, crushing my chest against the floor. I couldn't breathe.

"Head down!" someone ordered while simultaneously yanking my head up by my hair.

"Knees to your chest!" another commanded while a boot kept my legs straight.

I couldn't follow their orders. I couldn't breathe under the weight pressing me down. I couldn't process anything but the restraints cutting into my wrists and the hand grinding my face into the cold tile floor.

My teeth found flesh and bit down. Copper filled my mouth. A fist slammed into my ribs. Pain exploded through my chest.

All I could think about was Hunter alone in the van, thinking I'd abandoned him.

The thought was worse than the fist.

My chest heaved against the floor, tears tracking sideways across my face.

Reality fractured around me. I floated above the scene, watching my body being manhandled. The store lights blurred into Roche's photography equipment. The officers' voices merged with their soft commands. Past and present collided until I couldn't tell where I was or who held me down.

"Please," I heard myself say, voice small and distant. "I need to tell someone where I am. He's waiting for me."

"You can make calls after processing," an officer said, already marching me toward the exit.

"You don't understand!" I sobbed as they dragged me through the automatic doors. "He's in withdrawal! If I don't get back, he'll think I left him! Please!"

But they didn't care. Just another junkie's boyfriend making excuses.

"Hunter!" I screamed toward the parking lot, even though he couldn't hear. "I'm coming back! I promise! Don't—"

A hand shoved my head down as they pushed me into the patrol car.

The rest of the words died in my throat.

When I came back to myself, I was already in the patrol car. Through the window, I caught a glimpse of my van across the parking lot. Inside, Hunter was waiting for someone who wouldn't return.

He'd think I'd left him. Just like everyone else. Just like he'd always expected.

And when the pain got bad enough—when he couldn't take it anymore—he'd use the phone I'd taken to go get high. All that suffering, all that progress, all that trust we'd built would be destroyed because I got arrested buying water.

Hold on, Hunter, I thought, staring out the window. Please hold on.