No.

I couldn’t handle this.

I was already crying, looking at him expectantly, hoping for the best news possible.

He stopped in front of me, all his features tight.

“Is he going to be okay?” I could barely get the words out through my labored breathing. “What happened? Did he kill the motherfucker who did this to him?” I listed off questions in my hysteria, but they didn’t matter. There was only one question that needed an answer.

The same pained expression continued.

No.

“Melanie, I’m sorry… He’s probably not going to make it.”

It was an out-of-body experience. I could actually see myself from a different point of view, see the horror on my face, see the mess of tears that had washed off my makeup hours ago. The panic confused all the internal systems of my body. I was hot. Cold. Deaf. Weak. Full of adrenaline.

Paralyzed.

Once I grappled with the news, the sobs hit.

Hysteria.

Mania.

Misery. Fucking misery.

Raven came to me, and I didn’t push her away.

I didn’t care about anything right now.

All I could do was drown.

Sometimes, I paced in the waiting room. Sometimes, I took a walk through the hospital. Sometimes, I sat alone in a chair. It was a constant cycle, a constant rhythm of discomfort that I couldn’t fix, no matter what I did.

Every hour that I wished would pass was an hour that he fought for his life.

A fight he would lose.

I stood at the window in a hallway, my head pressed to the glass, needing something cool against my forehead. My headache pounded in my temples because of all the crying, and I bought some painkillers from the gift shop. The cashier couldn’t take her eyes off me because I was an emotional mess, but she didn’t ask any questions. Now I stood there and looked at the sunshine outside the window, the buildings of Paris as the backdrop.

“Melanie?” Raven’s gentle voice came from beside me.

With my hand pressed to the glass, I looked at her, feeling nothing for her right now. My ring was on my hand, and whether he lived or died, I couldn’t imagine ever taking it off.

Her eyes showed her pain, how much my despair affected her. “I said that out of anger. I would never wish for this…wish for you to go through this.”

I looked out the window again.

She stood there with me for a while.

“I just want to be by myself, Raven.” My voice was lifeless, like it rose from a corpse.

“I understand. I just wanted you to know—” She cleared her throat.

I turned back to her.

“Magnus told me that the reason Fender is here is because…he saved Magnus’s life.”

My eyes watered for the millionth time.

“If Fender hadn’t gotten there, Magnus wouldn’t be here right now.”