Chapter 349 Hours go by
Kyle’s POV
Blood continued to pour from my mouth, more than seemed possible. It tasted like metal and mortality. It had failed and all the time I’d wasted believing I could outrun this ending.
The machines around me began screaming. Monitors that had been beeping steadily burst into alarms as my vital signs crashed. Heart rate erratic. Blood pressure plummeting. Oxygen saturation dropping like a stone.
Through the chaos, I could see Thomas standing against the wall, his face white with horror, his hands pressed against his mouth as he watched me bleed. His eyes were wide with the particular terror that came from witnessing someone die in real time.
I had so lost to him.
The door burst open. Nurses flooded the room with the efficient panic of people who’d dealt with medical emergencies countless times. Someone pushed Thomas toward the door, someone else tilted my head forward to prevent me from choking on my own blood, someone applied suction to clear my airway.
“Get him on oxygen,” someone said. “Start a new IV. Call Dr. Patel.”
“Page respiratory therapy.”
“Check his hematocrit.”
I felt myself being lifted, transferred from the chair to the hospital bed, my limbs arranged in positions that would give the medical team better access to the damage.
The oxygen mask sealed over my face, forcing my lungs to work harder than they wanted to. The plastic was cold against my skin, and I could taste the artificial flavor of the medical air they were pumping into me. My vision blurred as they inserted a new IV line, the needle finding a vein with professional precision.
I could still see Thomas pressed against the wall near the door, his face a mask of shock and something that looked like guilt. He was saying something to one of the nurses, his mouth moving rapidly, but I couldn’t hear the words over the sound of machines and medical instructions and my own labored breathing.
The bleeding slowed gradually as they worked, but I could feel the weakness that followed-the particular exhaustion that came from losing too much blood too quickly. My body felt hollow, like a building after a fire, the structure still standing but everything vital burned away.
Dr. Patel appeared beside my bed, his hands moving efficiently as he checked my pulse, examined my pupils, reviewed the readings on the monitors that surrounded me like electronic confessors.
“Internal bleeding,” he said to the nurses, his voice calm despite the urgency of the situation. “Probable esophageal rupture. Get me a scope and prep for emergency intervention.”
“Kyle.” His voice cut through the medical noise. “Can you hear me?”
I nodded weakly, the movement causing fresh pain to radiate through my chest.
“We’re going to take care of this,” he said. “But you need to stay still and let us work.”
Chapter 349 Hours go by
+15 Bonus
I tried to speak, but the oxygen mask muffled my words.
“‘Mr. Wallace’s in the hallway. But Kyle, you need to focus on breathing right now. Don’t try to talk.
The next hour passed in a blur of procedures and medications and the steady rhythm of machines working to keep me alive. They stopped the bleeding, repaired what could be repaired, stabilized what could be stabilized. But I could feel the difference in my body-weaker now, more fragile, closer to the edge of whatever waited beyond.
When the immediate crisis had passed and the medical team had reduced to just one nurse monitoring my vitals, Thomas was allowed back into the room. He looked like he’d aged years in the time he’d been banished to the hallway, his face drawn and his hands still shaking slightly.
He approached my bed cautiously, as if sudden movements might trigger another medical emergency.
“How do you feel?” he asked.
I tried to answer, but my voice came out as barely a whisper. The oxygen mask made everything sound muffled and distant.
“Don’t try to talk,” Thomas said quickly. “The doctor said you need to rest your throat.”
He pulled the visitor chair closer to my bed and sat down heavily, his hands clasped between his knees. We sat in silence for several minutes, the only sounds the steady beeping of my monitors and the soft hiss of oxygen flowing through the mask.
“Kyle,” Thomas said finally, his voice very quiet. “I had no idea it was this bad.”
I managed a small shrug, the movement sending fresh spikes of pain through my chest.
“The children,” Thomas continued. “Do they know? About how sick you are?”
I shook my head.
“Mia?”
Another shake.
Thomas leaned back in his chair, his face cycling through emotions I couldn’t quite identify. When he spoke again, his voice carried a weight that hadn’t been there before.
Thomas ran his hands through his hair, the gesture revealing his exhaustion. “Christ, Kyle. You’re dying.”
He trailed off, staring at the machines that surrounded my bed.
“I made my choices,” I managed to whisper through the oxygen mask.
“Thomas,” I said, my voice barely audible even to myself.
He leaned closer. “What?”
“Victoria. I could cut her some slack. For Madsion. But ”
“I know. I would’t let that happen again.”
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Chapter 349 Hours go by
+15 Bonus
“Not just working on it. You need to make sure she never gets out.
“Kyle-”
“Promise me.” The effort of speaking made me dizzy, but I forced the words out anyway. “Promise me that whatever happens to me, you’ll protect them. All of them.”
Thomas was quiet for a long moment, his eyes moving from my face to the monitors that displayed the real- time evidence of my body’s failure.
“I promise,” he said finally.
I closed my eyes, feeling something ease in my chest that had nothing to do with the oxygen flowing through
the mask.
“Kyle.” Thomas’s voice drew my attention back to the room.
I opened my eyes, meeting his gaze.
“Mia. What am I supposed to tell her about tonight? About what I witnessed here?”
The question I’d been dreading. Mia had seen me sick, had seen me weak, but she hadn’t seen me like this- bleeding and broken and barely holding onto consciousness. She didn’t know that I was operating on borrowed time measured in days rather than weeks.
“Nothing,” I said.
“Kyle=”
“She can’t know. Not yet.” I struggled to sit up straighter, the movement causing my vision to blur momentarily.
“She has the right to know.”
“She has the right to a lot of things.But knowing this won’t change anything except make her suffer more.”
Thomas was quiet, his face troubled.
“I need you to promise me something else,” I said.
“What?”
“When the time comes-when it’s really the end-I need you to make sure she doesn’t blame herself. For any of it. For the choices I made, for the time we lost, for not saving me. None of this is her fault.”
“Kyle…”
“Promise me.”
Thomas nodded slowly. “I promise.”
The conversation was interrupted by another knock on the door. Dr. Patel returned with the evening nursing staff, ready to begin the next round of treatments and assessments. The temporary quiet of our conversation dissolved into the bustle of medical care.
5
Chapter 249 Hours go by
+15 Bonus
“Mr. Wallace,” Dr. Patel said, checking the time on his watch. “Mr. Branson needs to rest.”
Thomas stood, gathering his coat from the back of the chair. “I’ll go. But Kyle, I’ll call you tomorrow after the hearing.”
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