CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

Naya's heart stopped.

For twenty-three seconds, my world nearly collapsed to nothing. The grating scream of machines as it flatlined would be my new nightmare. I knew it as I stood back helplessly as doctors rushed to bring her back. Her filthy sweater was torn down the front and shock paddles were prepped. Men and women yelled words I didn't understand.

Then the faint beep.

Then another.

The little jagged hills on the monitor had everyone glancing at the screen as she came back on her own.

There was more shouting, but she was back, and I nearly sank to the floor.

I did.

I sat wherever I was. The icy linoleum bit through the fabric of my trousers, but I couldn't give a shit. I let my head drop back against the wall and shut my eyes.

Oliver.

What the fuck?

What was he doing?

What the hell was that room?

How was there a whole space behind the walls I never knew about?

It didn't matter. None of that mattered. I needed to know what the fuck he injected into Naya. I needed to know what it was going to do to her. I needed to know what the fuck was taking the fucking doctor so fucking long.

I felt the space next to me get occupied. We didn't brush, but I knew it was Cyrus.

"She's going to be okay," he murmured softly.

"I should have left you with her," I replied. "I shouldn't have listened to her. You should have stayed."

"Oliver—"

"I don't ever want to hear that fucker's name again." I lowered my head and fixed my eyes on him.

Cyrus dipped his chin once. "He's still alive. I ... I got him in the shoulder, but..." His brows furrowed and he lowered his gaze. "It was my fault she was hurt."

"It was his fault," I corrected sharply. "You saw an opening and took it. It could have been a lot worse if you'd waited."

Like emptying the entire toxin into her vein. The fact that it wasn't enough could have been the thing that saved her.

Cyrus said nothing.

We sat in silence as people rushed up and down the corridor and voices echoed over the speakers. No one seemed to notice or care that two grown ass adults were crouched on the floor, nor would I have cared if they had.

I was about to shut my eyes again when I remembered the other figure who had scrambled into the SUV with us. My head turned to the man a few feet away, standing against the wall, arms folded, glowering at a poster about booster shots.

Malcolm hadn't said a word the entire time. Hadn't asked questions. He watched me haul his sister out of a dark, dank room and rush her to the hospital. He probably thought I was the one who put her there and I was too tired to explain anything else.

So, I rested my head back and closed my eyes again.

Hours passed.

Square patches of sunlight carved across gleaming white tiles and a strange, new energy filled the air that was absent during the wee hours of dawn. Neither Cyrus, Malcolm, nor I had moved in all that time. Not for coffee. Not to use the washroom. We sat in our silence and waited for a single person to give us news.

It came from a small, brunette with tired, green eyes and a million freckles. She tore off her mask as she hurried over to us.

Hours of unmoving limbs pressed into icy tiles did not make for an elegant first impression when I struggled to get to my feet.

"Who's next of kin?"

"I am," both Malcolm and I said simultaneously.

"I'm her brother," Malcolm challenged, blue eyes fixed on me as if daring me to top that.

"I'm her husband," I countered, in no mood. I couldn't even find the patience to be smug when he blinked in surprise.

The doctor glanced between us but opted to ignore the tension.

"She's okay. She's resting—"

"When can I see her?" I demanded, not needing to know anything else beyond she's okay.

The doctor put her hand up. "We're still monitoring her. Whatever she got into her system isn't in our database. We're running tests on the sample you brought us, but it's going to take some time."

"Is my sister going to be okay?" Malcolm demanded.

"We believe so?" But she didn't seem sure and that sent a prickle of panic coursing through me. "She didn't get enough in her system to cause any kind of long-term concerns, but we do want to keep her for a couple of nights to keep an eye on her. The doctors do have a few more questions regarding the substance and where it came from, but that can wait."

She offered us a kind smile before motioning us to follow her.

I got through the door before Malcolm could. It wasn't a damn race, but I saw him quickening his strides.

Naya lay on a narrow bed, hooked to a million wires and machines. An oxygen mask sat over her face, and she was so pale. So still.

I took the spot at her hip and took her slender hand and brought it to my lips. I never took my eyes off her, searching for even a flicker.

I was vaguely aware of the figure taking her other side. My body instinctively stiffened and shifted when he touched her brow and smoothed the hairs at her temple. He dragged over a chair and sat.

"You married my sister?"

It was the first sound besides the machines in nearly two hours. The explosion of words nearly made me jump.

"Yes."

"Why?"

I looked away from my transfixed stare at Naya's face to frown at the asshole. "Why not?"

His audacity was unwavering as he met my gaze head on. "Because she's my sister and I swore to always protect her, even from assholes who think they can manipulate and use her."

I wasn't sure if he meant me or Brixton, but I didn't like the implication.

"I would never let anyone hurt her," I said with all the calm I could muster.

Malcolm raised an eyebrow and shifted his eyes to where Naya lay on the bed between us. "I'm having some trouble believing that."

What could I say? He wasn't wrong. She was in the hospital because of my uncle. She'd nearly been eaten by a wolf a few hours before that and nearly died in the lake before that. That wasn't including all the other smaller times she'd nearly died.

I faced Naya, unable to face the truth in her brother's eyes.

I was doing a shit job protecting her.

"Sir?" Cyrus stood in the doorway, expression tight. "Could I borrow you for a second?"

It was the fact that I knew he wouldn't ask unless it was beyond an emergency that had me forcing my body to rise and move to the door.

"The team went through the passageway," he murmured, voice low enough for only me to hear. "You're not going to like what they found."

I drew in a slow breath. "I'm not leaving. I don't care what they found. It can wait until I go back with Naya."

A tick worked in Cyrus's jaw. Not annoyance. Apprehension.

"It's really bad."

I shook my head. "I'm not going. I'm not leaving her side until she wakes up. Tell them not to touch anything until I return."

Cyrus grabbed my arm when I tried to return to Naya. His grip was bruising. "Thoran."

I faced my friend fully. "What?"

Navy blue eyes shifted to Malcolm who hadn't moved from his seat, but wasn't making it a secret he was listening in.

"You need to see this."

I was ready to tell him I didn't care if Jesus Christ himself had built a home in the walls of that house, I wasn't leaving, but he held up his phone and I could just make out a live feed. Cyrus pulled his earpiece off and handed it to me.

I took both and slipped the earpiece over my ears. A male voice filled my head matching the video.

"It seems to go through the entire house, sir,"the guard was saying as he maneuvered a narrow gap with only a single flashlight bobbing along dusty walls and swaying cobwebs that were batted aside.

The cameraman reached a latch and twisted. The door opened and I recognized Naya's old bed. Her clothes. The angle was across the room, near the windows. I had to bring the layout to mind, but the camera swung around to show the wall dividing the room from mine. The one I'd wanted to knock down.

Then I thought of the night Naya had thought someone was in her room. She'd said she'd heard someone. Someone had turned her light off. I had chalked it up to an old house and faulty lamps, but what if...?

The camera was moving back into the crawl spacing and diving deeper. He stopped at different doors and different spaces I had no idea held secret compartments.

I glanced away for a second to check on Naya before lowering my gaze back to the screen.

"We're back to the room," the voice said as he panned along walls containing liquid filled jars and grimy shadows.

There was a large patch of blood still wet across the floor from where I assumed Oliver had fallen after getting shot in the shoulder by Cyrus. He panned over a puddle of vomit across one of the tables. It was at an odd location unless Naya was on the table when she got sick.

"This is what we wanted to show you, sir,"the man in my ear said, voice tight even across the headset. "We don't know what we're supposed to do with these."

Rusted barrels lined a short alcove. One was open. The lid slightly ajar.

I'd thought I'd seen something move just over Oliver's shoulder. It had been a mere flicker, a quick movement, but then everything happened, and it had slipped my mind, but now, as I watched the camera tilt down, my stomach roiled. My chest heaved as I tried to make sense of the atrocity writhing at the bottom.

"What the fuck am I looking at?" I growled, mainly to myself, but the man on the other end must have heard me.

"An unholy abomination, sir,"he said quietly. "Nothing that should exist. There are eight other barrels. None of us want to open them, but we think it might be the same."

What the fuck was Oliver doing?

I pulled the headpiece off and stuffed it and the phone back into Cyrus's hand.

"Take care of it," I tell him through clenched teeth. "Humanely."

Cyrus inclined his head and stepped back out of the room.

I returned to Naya's side.

"Work problems?" Malcolm prodded.

I regained my seat next to Naya without sparing him a glance or a response.