Mockingbird (A Stepbrother Romance #2)(55)

Please. Please. Please.

It takes fourteen hours before the doctor comes out. He's not covered in blood but he does have a doctor's mask hanging around his neck like a weird bleached necktie. His hands are very clean.

"Diana?"

"Yeah," I croak.

"Your mother is going to make it."

I nod. My chin trembles and Charity's grip tightens.

"The bullet went through her side, but it broke one of her ribs and collapsed her left lung. She's going to be out for a few days. It will be a long recovery, but she should be back to a hundred percent eventually."

I nod again.

"We'll page you when she's been moved to her room, okay? There's no need to sit out here for hours. It's going to be a while before we move her. She's stable. She's safe."

He stands there for a minute like he's trying to figure out something to add, something comforting to say. You'd think after enough practice it would come naturally. It probably doesn't.

Time to go.

The last time I saw Apollo he was unconscious. His surgery was simpler, he was moved to the intensive care ward faster. A puncture wound to his right side and a stab wound through his leg. It was a miracle that the blade didn't hit any major arteries, or he'd have bled out before the ambulance arrived no matter what I did. I can still feel myself freezing as he laid there and I thought Mom was dying in my arms. When people say they freeze up it's like the mean they go still. I felt frozen, like all the blood drained out of me, too, and ice replaced it and I just couldn't move.

It takes work to steel myself to see him again. The last I was up here was lying in the hospital bed with all the machines beeping around him and blood in plastic bags leaking back into his body to replace what he'd lost. He looked so small. When we met one of the first things I noticed was how he towered over me. I stop in the corridor and take a deep breath, and slowly remove Charity's hand from my arm. No words are exchanged. She leans on the wall and looks down at the floor, her expression dark.

I walk into the room, over to the bed, and my blood freezes again. Then I start screaming.

A nurse comes running in and grabs me and before the first word is out of her mouth I grab her back and shake her.

"Where is he?"

She looks at the bed, at me, at the bed.

"I…"

She shakes loose and runs out of the room. I follow right on her heels as she runs behind the nurse's station to the computer.

"He… we didn't move him, I…"

All the color is draining from her face. I run back into the room. I touch the bed, feeling the impression where his body lay before I went down to wait for Mom to come out. The sheets are still warm. The IV lines are dangling unhooked from the pole. The muted TV is tuned to Maury. He was just here. Back out into the hallway, running so fast I skid on the slick tiles. She runs to me, her face a mask of shock.

"What-"

"It doesn't matter, he's still here somewhere. Find him."

"What? How-"

"Look," I scream, and run away from her. Over my shoulder I see her mouth snap closed and she runs off. Down the hall, she grabs a security guard, yelling at him.

I run. I run through wards, I run through doors that read EMPLOYEES ONLY, I run past security guards that turn on their heels to follow me. I smash through the doors into a stairwell and run down two at a time, so fast that later I'll wonder how I didn't break my neck. Think, Diana. Find him.

On the first floor I stop, look around.

Doctors. Doctors everywhere and…

…one of them is limping, leaning on the wall. Favoring his right leg.

I run up. Grab his arm.

Apollo turns.

"What the f*ck are you doing?" I hiss. "Get back in bed. Now."

"I can't, Diana."

I start to say something but it dies in my throat, just rattles away to nothing.

He grabs my arms. His hands are cold. Oh my God, he's still bleeding. Apollo you idiot, what are you doing?

"Listen to me," he rasps, his voice breathy and weak. "I have to go."

"What? Why?"

"If I stay they'll start asking questions. Then they'll arrest me. I can't let that happen."

I wriggle loose from his grip and he leans on the wall. He's so pale. When I get him back in the bed and safe I'm going to kill him.

"So this is about you?"

"No, it's about you. Your safety," he gasps. "Had to think it was real. Weren't supposed to find me. Needed you to think… I was dead…"

He winces when he sees the look on my face as my expression crumples, my lips tremble, and hot tears cut lines down my cheeks. "You're just going to leave me? After all this? You bastard."

"No," he shakes his head. "Never. Danger. You, your mom. Have to think I'm dead. Wait a while. Have things to fix. Things to put right. Have to. Trust me. I'll be back."

"Apollo-"

"Diana," he says, a renewed strength filling his voice even as his body shakes. "I have to do this. I will come back. Please. I love you."

I grab the collar of his scrubs and kiss him, hard. He kisses me back, slipping his arms around me, leaning on me, breathing against me. He's so weak. I could just drag him back upstairs.