I wasn’t sure what to expect when I walked into the hospital room but Emrys’s face sporting more tiny black sutures than I could count, and her chest being wrapped up in what appeared to be miles of white gauze and bandages, was enough to make me take a step back. I hadn’t been able to fully see the damage done to her when I was trying to get her out of that tree, but now that the carnage to my beautiful best friend was laid out in front of me, it made my stomach turn and my hands curl into fists.

Her eyes wouldn’t focus on me and I couldn’t tell if that was from the trauma or the painkillers she was on. According to the nurse who was delicately handling her, Emrys was actually ready to be discharged from the ICU. They were simply keeping an eye on her because of her erratic behavior and her unwillingness to leave Sutton alone for more than a few minutes. The nurse said the doctors all agreed that Em and Sutton were good for one another. There was something to be said about how a smaller hospital handled their patients. If Em had been acting this way back home, they would have drugged her up and put her on the street, regardless if she was ready to be unsupervised or not.

After the nurse left, Em curled up on her side on the bed away from me. She wouldn’t talk to me and refused to look in my direction. I asked her how she was feeling and told her I would be happy to go and get her anything she needed, but all I got in return was stony silence. She was shutting me out, surrounding herself in her pain and her suffering. There was no way in hell I was going to let that slide, so after a few minutes of talking to her back I took off my shoes, pushed my hair out of my face, and climbed up onto the narrow bed behind her. She flinched when I wrapped my arms around her in a hug that wouldn’t be broken, but she didn’t push me away.

Apply pressure.

Webb’s words rang clear and true in my ears as I held her tighter as she began to shake in my hold.

“Eventually, you are going to walk me through everything you’ve been through, Em. We are going to battle the nightmare together.”

I whispered the words into her inky hair and was stunned when she responded back with, “You can see my face, Leo, and there are places under these bandages that are even worse. The nightmare is carved into my skin, there are a few places that feel like the cuts go all the way to my bones. I’m going to look at it every single day, so it won’t ever go away. No matter who is there to try and help me through it.”

“I’m not going anywhere, Em.” It was the same thing I told Cyrus, only the time frame with Emrys was infinite. I hated that. I wanted to be the one he leaned on forever as well, but we didn’t get that, at least we didn’t get that just yet.

She lapsed back into silence but some of the tension in her long, lean body started to uncoil as I ran my fingers through her hair and gave her every gentle word I could think of. It felt like calming a wild horse down that had broken free of its tethers. She was obviously skittish and afraid, but she needed the contact and the reassurance to know she wasn’t alone and that someone else was there to keep her safe. I rolled my eyes because Cy now had me comparing women to horses and I was silently amused that he was right about the two creatures having more similarities than not.

I lost track of time lying there with her. The light in the room faded from bright afternoon glow to a dim nighttime shadow. I don’t think she ever fell asleep, but she never responded to anything else I said to her as we lay there in the encroaching dark. The nurse came back in and asked Em if she wanted dinner, but all she got was a negative head shake in return. At the mention of food my stomach growled, and finally a normal response escaped Emrys’s pursed lips. She let out a strangled little giggle and told me she would be fine while I went and got something to eat. I took it for the dismissal it was and climbed out her bed to my feet. I wasn’t surprised at all when she followed suit and told me she was headed back to Sutton’s room. She insisted that he shouldn’t have to spend the night alone since she was the reason he was laid up in the ICU with a hole in his chest.

I didn’t bother trying to tell her it wasn’t her fault. I knew she wasn’t in a place to listen . . . just like I hadn’t been when she dove in to save me from drowning in my own ocean of guilt and regret. Eventually, she would be ready to grab onto something to keep her from going all the way under, but today wasn’t that day and I seriously doubted tomorrow would be that day either.

I followed my friend down the hallway, watching her step gingerly and hold onto her side. Em was always the type of person who moved with poise and grace, but now she was barely shuffling along. The damage done to her was more than the marks that were etched into her skin and pieced back together. This experience had altered the way the woman carried herself. That broke my heart and had my brain scrambling for any kind of solution to get her back to her normal, bossy, and ballsy self. While I was contemplating that, suddenly all the medical personnel around us leapt into a flurry of activity. It was like someone had sounded an alarm only the doctors and nurses could hear. They all scrambled out of doorways and from behind desks in a mad rush toward one room on the ICU floor.

Emrys tripped a little bit in front of me, so I reached out a hand to steady her. She brushed me off and gave me a panicked look over her shoulder. “That’s Sutton’s room they all went into.”

Her gait was still awkward and not as fluid as it normally was, but there was definite purpose in her steps as she picked up the pace and moved to the room that was now crawling with what seemed like half of the emergency medical staff. Just as we reached the doorway, only to be told not to come any closer unless we were in the proper gear, Lane came stumbling out of the room, pulling down his paper facemask with obvious tears in his eyes.