The question carried more than it should have.
I looked at Dr. Imani, then back at him. “She listened before she moved. That matters.”
Vincent closed his eyes for one second.
Then he said, “Fine.”
Dr. Imani nodded once. “Let’s work.”
The next hour blurred into light, blood, instructions, and breath.
Vincent never stopped fighting the memories, but he stopped fighting us.
That difference saved his life.
Every time another instrument touched him, I warned him first. Every time his pulse spiked, I brought him back.
“You are in Lakeshore Crown.”
“Caleb is outside the door.”
“The pain is from the wound, not fire.”
“My hand is still here.”
“You are not alone.”
Again and again, I watched him drag himself out of the past with nothing but my voice and the pressure of my palm.
At one point, Dr. Imani glanced up at me and said, “Nora, keep talking.”
No one at that hospital had ever asked me to keep talking before.
Usually, people wanted the opposite. Less of me. Less voice. Less presence. Less body taking up space in narrow halls and break rooms where laughter stopped when I walked in.
But here, under the harsh surgical lights, my voice had become a line thrown across dark water.
So I talked.
I told Vincent when we inserted another line. I told him when anesthesia would begin to pull at him. I told him the bleeding was slowing. I told him Dr. Imani was still with him. I told him he was doing something difficult and surviving it.
When the medication finally began to take him under, his fingers loosened around my wrist.
His eyes fought to stay open.
“Nora,” he whispered.
“I’m here.”
“If I wake up—”
“You’ll wake up in recovery.”
His voice was faint. “Don’t let them crowd me.”
“I won’t.”
His lashes lowered.
“Don’t let go.”
“I won’t until you’re under.”
His hand slipped away from my wrist only after unconsciousness took him fully.
I kept my palm against his chest three seconds longer than necessary.
Then I stepped back and realized my knees were shaking.
Dr. Imani looked over the surgical field. “Nurse Bennett.”
I straightened instinctively, waiting for correction.
Instead, she said, “You stay close. If he wakes disoriented, I want your voice in the room.”
Something deep in my chest loosened.
“Yes, Doctor.”
Outside the trauma bay, Caleb looked like he had aged ten years.
He approached as soon as I emerged, but stopped just short of entering my space. I noticed that. A man built like him did not stop unless he chose to.
“Is he alive?”
“Yes.”
“Will he stay alive?”
“Dr. Imani is controlling the bleeding. He’s not out of danger yet, but he made it through the first part.”
Caleb’s eyes dropped to my wrist. Vincent’s grip had left red marks there.
His expression changed in a way I could not name.
“He held on to you,” he said.
“Yes.”
“He hasn’t done that in eleven years.”
The hallway seemed quieter around us.
I looked back through the glass. Vincent lay beneath lights, surrounded by people who had finally learned to move carefully around him.
“What happened in that fire?” I asked.
Caleb’s jaw tightened. “You know the story.”
“I know the version people repeat when they’re scared.”
His eyes met mine. For the first time, I saw exhaustion behind the anger.
“Then you know almost nothing.”
Before he could say more, Melissa appeared at my shoulder.
“Nora,” she said. “Supply room. Now.”
The old reflex rose automatically: apologize, obey, make myself smaller before someone else did it for me.
But I was still standing with Vincent’s blood on my gloves and his plea echoing in my ears.
Don’t let go.
I turned to Melissa. “Dr. Imani asked me to stay near recovery.”
Her lips thinned. “You are not assigned to private recovery.”
“I am now.”
“That decision isn’t yours.”
“No,” I said. “It’s Dr. Imani’s.”
A faint color rose in her cheeks.