Page 77 of Deacon

Rivet folded his arms beside him. “Didn’t say we did.”

Evan leaned toward me while the officer started threatening local police. “I know this is deeply inappropriate timing, but I’m kind of obsessed with them.” My look made him press a hand to his chest. “Fear does weird things to me.”

Bender and Rivet stayed exactly where they were, apparently content to let security exhaust itself. I turned away from the argument and moved closer to Deacon’s bed, needing something steadier to focus on. Pain showed in the care he took shifting against the pillows, but his attention remained fixed on everything happening around us.

“Does Priest know?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

“And?”

Deacon held my gaze. “And if Blue’s breathin’, he’ll find her. He would tear this world apart to find that woman. He has already tried to once.”

The certainty in his voice struck harder than reassurance. He offered me no empty promise, only absolute belief in the man searching for her. “You really believe that.”

“Yeah.” His eyes stayed on mine. “I do.”

And somehow I believed him.

Evan managed nearly half a minute of silence before dragging a hand through his hair. “I would just like it formally noted that this is the worst shift I have ever worked, and I once had a man projectile vomit into my shoes.” A weak sound escaped me, close enough to laughter that he nodded. “Thank you. I live to serve.”

Waiting became its own kind of torture. Security kept circling while Bender and Rivet held their positions, the lockdown announcements repeating overhead with the same calm voice while none of us knew where Blue was. I finally sat beside Deacon’s bed because my legs were starting to betray me, and Evan paced until an ICU nurse threatened to sedate him through force of personality alone.

Deacon stayed mostly quiet, conserving strength even if he would never admit it. The measured way he moved told me exactly how much pain he was hiding. “You need more pain meds,” I told him, but he glanced over with stubbornness already settling into his face. “I need out of this bed.” When I answered, “That wasn’t one of the options,” his mouth tilted faintly. “Didn’t ask for your options.” From the windowsill, Evan pointed at him. “This is why women are so tired.” I closed my eyes for a second, and somehow the ridiculousness helped.

Time crawled. A nurse checked Deacon’s vitals, gave Bender and Rivet an uneasy look through the doorway, then left after receiving clipped answers from a man thoroughly finished with being treated like a patient. Eventually I moved to the window because sitting still left too much room for my imagination.

Four floors below us, the parking lot looked bright and harmless. Evan came to stand beside me and said quietly, “She’s okay.”

I turned toward him. “You don’t know that.”

“No.” His throat moved as he swallowed. “But if I say the other thing out loud, I’m going to scream and cry like the drama queen we all know I can be.” The humor barely covered the fear this time, and I reached for his hand and squeezed it once.

Deacon’s phone rang behind us, stopping every conversation in the room. He reached for it immediately and glanced at the screen. “Priest.” His voice sharpened as he answered. “Yeah.” I could hear only the faint murmur through the phone, but some of the tension dropped from his shoulders as he listened. “You got her?”

Beside me, Evan made a small sound and swallowed it. Deacon listened, then asked, “She okay?” His eyes closed briefly before his voice dropped quieter. “In labor?” Relief hit me hard enough to make my knees weak.

“They’re bringing her here?” Deacon asked, looking toward me. For one suspended second, I thought that was the end of it. Blue was alive. Priest had her. She was coming home.

Then Deacon sat straighter, pain forgotten as his expression hardened. “What?” The silence on his end stretched long enough for my relief to twist back into fear. “Ace is alive?”

Evan looked at me, but the name meant nothing to either of us. It clearly meant everything to Deacon. Shock crossed his face as he listened, tangled with something older I had no context for, before he closed his eyes briefly. “Yeah,” he said quietly. “Okay. I’ve got Lila and Evan with me, they’ll be there for Blue.”

He ended the call and lowered the phone. Evan gave him barely a second. “Tell me we’re not about to have six new disasters.”

“Blue’s alive,” Deacon said, looking between us. “Priest got to her. She’s in labor, and they’re bringing her here now. She wanted Wicker Falls Memorial.”

Relief rushed through me, but his expression kept me from sinking into it. “Priest’s brother is alive.” Even Evan went still. “He was supposed to be dead,” Deacon added. “He was there. He’s the one who got Blue out.”

I struggled to make the pieces fit while Deacon absorbed years of history in the space of a phone call. His jaw tightened before he continued. “Another brother’s wife was there. Ledger,” he added when I frowned. “You met him. He was here with Nomad.”

I remembered the quiet man who seemed to miss very little. Deacon looked down at the phone before saying, “She was working with Dead Man’s Hand. They killed her.” The relief inside me collided with horror.

Blue was alive and in labor while another family had just been ripped apart. Deacon looked toward the door and said, “Ledger’s gonna need the club. He’s gonna need his family.”

That I understood.

The fear had changed shape. Blue was alive and coming back to us, but Ace had somehow returned from the dead, Lena was gone, and Ledger’s grief waited on the other side of all that relief. Evan dragged both hands over his face. “Of course she’s in labor. Of course she is. Because apparently this day looked around and decided it had not done enough.”