The scream from deeper inside St. Agnes kept going.
Not louder.
Worse.
A man somewhere above them had found a pitch between pain and panic and stayed there long enough that everybody in the bay heard when the sound changed from human to damaged.
The doctor didn't even turn her head.
"Not mine," she said, and snapped two fingers at the nurse beside her. "Room twelve. Plastic chair, no rail bed, no loose tray tables. And somebody tell psych intake to stop stacking oxygen stands in my hall."
The nurse blinked once, looked at Jadah's sleeves, then moved.
"Come on."
Ren stayed where she was.
"Fifteen minutes," the doctor repeated to her without looking back. "Then you and I talk."
Ren's face barely shifted.
She did not argue.
A volunteer in a blood-specked transport vest pushed through the swinging doors and nearly clipped Isaac with a rolling IV pole. Behind him, the trauma hall opened in flashes: cots in the corridor, people on blankets, medics kneeling in blood, one man strapped to a gurney with both wrists wrapped because somebody had tried to bite his own veins open.
Hospital.
Not a building now.
A throat trying to swallow too much.
The nurse led Isaac and Jadah down a side corridor away from the ambulance roar. Past pediatrics turned overflow. Past radiology turned morgue staging. Past a chapel with the pews gone and twenty cots lined up under a taped-up cross.
The farther they got from the bay, the quieter it became.
Not safe quiet.
Held-together quiet.
Generator hum. Shoes squeaking on tile. Someone crying behind a door and trying to do it without witnesses.
Room twelve used to be a consult room maybe. Now it had a plastic chair bolted to the floor, a narrow exam cot with the metal rail removed, one sink, one cabinet, one dead monitor mounted high in the corner, and a single square window painted over from the outside so the bruise-light came through gray and weak.
No loose trays.
No poles.
No pretty lies.
The nurse pointed at the cot. "Her."
Then at the chair. "You."
Jadah looked at the plastic chair like it had insulted her family. "That's evil."
"That's hospital furniture."
"Same thing."
The nurse almost smiled and didn't quite let herself.
She got gloves on and started cutting what was left of Jadah's hoodie away from the shoulder. Jadah hissed through her teeth.
"Hold still."
"I am still."
"You're vibrating."
"That's a personality trait."
The nurse gave her one flat look and cleaned the shoulder slash anyway. Saline hit the cut and Jadah's whole body locked up.
Isaac moved before he meant to.
Not close enough to get in the nurse's way. Close enough that Jadah could see him if she wanted.
She did not look at him.
That hurt more than it should have.
The nurse checked the depth, checked the line under Jadah's jaw, muttered something about stitches later if the hall unclogged, and wrapped the shoulder with a clean pressure dressing that turned Jadah's face a shade lighter by the second.
"Any dizziness?"
"Yes."
"More than before."
"Yes."
"Any trouble breathing."
Jadah looked exhausted. "Only emotionally."
The nurse kept writing.
Isaac almost heard Ty answer that one.
Almost.
The room got colder for half a second.
No.
Not colder.
Just emptier.
The nurse gave Jadah two tablets in a paper cup and a bottle of water with the cap already cracked.
"Painkiller. Mild. Don't ask for stronger unless somebody with a badge tells me you stop being funny."
Jadah swallowed them dry first out of spite, then took the water anyway.
The nurse turned to Isaac.
"Your arm."
"I'm fine."
"That wasn't a question."
She unwrapped the forearm just enough to check the cut, cleaned it again, rewrapped it tighter, then eyed the bruising at his ribs and the way he kept favoring one shoulder.
"Sit down before you pass out and embarrass me."
He sat because the room tilted slightly when she said it, which was rude.
The nurse wrote something on a strip of tape and stuck it to the door frame.
YELLOW / HOLD / WATCH HANDS
Isaac saw it.
So did Jadah.
Neither said anything.
The nurse did one last sweep of the room, collecting the metal pen she'd nearly left on the sink and swapping it for a golf pencil from her pocket like she'd remembered the rules halfway through.
Good.
People here were noticing things.
Bad.
People here were noticing things.
At the door she paused.
"If you hear screaming, don't leave the room unless you hear your door open and my face with it." She looked between them. "If you hear familiar voices telling you to come out, especially don't."
Then she was gone.
The door shut.
Not hard.
Just final.
For a while neither of them spoke.
The hospital breathed outside the room in muffled pieces. Wheels over tile. A distant shout. Someone praying too steadily to really mean it. A child coughing in wet bursts somewhere down the hall.
Isaac sat in the plastic chair with his elbows on his knees and stared at the floor.
Jadah sat on the cot, one leg up, good hand wrapped around the water bottle, cut hoodie hanging in ribbons around the new bandage.
It was the first time all night they were alone.
That should have felt like relief.
It didn't.
Too much room in it.
Too much Ty-shaped absence.
Too much mother-shaped absence.
Too much everything.
Jadah broke first.
Not with a sob. Not with one of her sharp little lines either.
Just a tired voice aimed at the floor.
"He really didn't get to finish it."
Isaac swallowed once.
"No."
She nodded like he'd confirmed a math problem she already knew the answer to.
"He always did that," she said. "Said some dumb half-joke and then looked proud of himself before anybody could even answer."
Isaac almost smiled.
Almost got sick from the almost.
"He thought timing was a skill."
"He was bad at it."
"He thought that was part of the skill."
That one did make her mouth move a little.
Not a smile.
Closer than anything else in the room.
Then she put the water bottle down too hard and pressed her hand to her eyes.
Not crying.
Trying not to.
Isaac watched her do it and didn't know whether crossing the room would help or wreck the whole structure holding her up.
She solved it for him by saying, voice muffled against her hand, "Don't sit over there like a probation officer."
He looked at the chair.
Then at her.
Then got up and crossed the room.
Slow, so she could hate it if she wanted.
He sat on the edge of the cot, leaving space.
Enough that it wasn't pressure.
Enough that she could close it if she chose.
For a second she didn't move.
Then she leaned sideways until her temple hit his shoulder.
Very lightly.
Like she was asking permission after the fact and daring him to complain.
He didn't.
Neither of them said anything.
The room held.
Outside, a cart rattled past and somebody shouted for fresh dressings.
Inside, Jadah's breath evened out by fractions.
Then she said, still leaning against him, "You know what's crazy."
He waited.
"I came to your building to warn you."
"Mm."
"That was me trying to do the right thing."
"You threatened the whole address first."
"I was under pressure."
"That's one word."
She snorted once.
Then quieter: "I still came."
That landed where she meant it to.
He nodded once. "You did."
"I could've left after the car."
"You could've."
"I didn't."
"No."
Another stretch of silence.
Then she lifted her head just enough to look at him.
"You should say thank you more poetically than that."
"You should lower your standards."
She stared at him a second.
Then looked away before whatever was in her face got too obvious.
"Still annoying," she muttered.
He should have said something dry back.
Didn't.
What came out instead was, "I'm sorry."
That got her full attention.
For once there was no joke ready to catch it.
He kept looking at the opposite wall because if he looked right at her the words might harden and stop.
"For all of it," he said. "For tonight. For before. For letting it get ugly and then pretending if I went quiet enough it would die on its own."
Jadah watched him in silence long enough that he almost wished she'd interrupt.
She didn't.
Finally she said, "That wasn't pretending."
He frowned.
She looked down at her own wrapped shoulder.
"That's how you survive things. You go cold. You disappear inside yourself until the thing gets tired first." Her mouth bent. "It just doesn't work great in relationships."
There it was.
The old fracture line.
He let out one breath through his nose. "No."
"No."
She picked at a loose thread in the ruined hoodie cuff, then stopped when her fingers started to tremble.
"I hated that you could leave a whole room without moving," she said. "You'd be right there. Looking at me. And gone."
That one hit.
Because it was true.
He rubbed a thumb once against his own palm. "I hated that you could drag a whole room into us."
She laughed once, without humor. "Also true."
"You posted things that were ours."
"You shut me out of things that were yours."
"I needed privacy."
"You used privacy like a locked door."
He looked at her then.
Really looked.
Blood drying under the jaw cut. Hair coming loose around her face. Eyes tired enough to finally tell the truth.
She looked back.
"You made everything too loud," he said.
"You made everything too quiet."
Both of them sat in that.
No defense left in it.
Just damage with names now.
After a second, Jadah said, "You know what the worst part is."
"What."
"I still always knew when you were actually scared."
He looked away first.
She saw that too. Of course she did.
"That face you make," she said. "Like you're already halfway gone and trying to leave the rest clean." Her voice softened in a way he wasn't ready for. "You made it tonight. A lot."
He leaned his forearms on his knees and stared at the tile.
"Everything's dead," he said.
Not dramatic.
Just inventory.
"My mother." He swallowed once. "Ty. Evelyn. Half the world maybe. I don't even know what count means anymore. And I can't do anything with any of it except carry people from room to room and keep failing to get there first."
The room stayed very quiet after that.
Then Jadah's good hand found the back of his neck.
Not smooth.
Not seductive.
Not fixing anything.
Just there.
Warm.
Real.
"You got me out," she said.
He laughed once under his breath. "That's not exactly a win."
"It is if I'm me."
He turned his head a little toward her hand.
She didn't pull it away.
"You got Marlon out," she said. "You kept him moving when he was gonna lie down in the street next to Ty and die stupid." Her fingers tightened once, very slightly. "And you came downstairs when I texted you."
That almost made him smile in the wrong way.
"I came downstairs because you threatened my neighbors."
"Still counts."
He shook his head.
She moved closer instead of farther.
Their shoulders touched again.
Then their knees.
Then nothing in the room felt theoretical anymore.
The hospital noise outside faded into something distant and ugly and survivable for a minute.
Jadah looked at him.
Not flirting. Not performing. Too tired for both.
"I'm still mad at you," she said.
"Okay."
"I might still be mad at you in the morning."
"If there is one."
"There better be," she said. "I'm not dying while irritated."
That one got a real smile out of him.
Small.
Crooked.
Painful.
She saw it and something in her face opened a fraction.
There.
The old warmth.
The dangerous one.
The one that made everything harder.
He should have moved.
He didn't.
Neither did she.
The hand at the back of his neck stayed there.
His good hand came up slow enough that she could stop it and rested against the side of her face, thumb just under the cut on her jaw so he didn't touch where it hurt.
Her eyes flicked to his mouth.
Then back up.
"Still a bad idea," she murmured.
"Probably."
"You always say things like that right before doing them."
"You started this."
"I warned you tonight. That counts as growth."
He laughed once.
Then kissed her.
Not hard.
Not desperate yet.
Just the first honest thing either of them had done in hours that wasn't about bleeding or carrying or surviving.
She made a sound against his mouth that was almost anger and almost relief and then kissed him back like both had been sitting in her chest too long.
It went deeper fast because there was nowhere else for any of it to go.
Grief.
Fear.
The old pull between them.
Everything unsaid from before.
Everything broken now.
Her good hand slid from the back of his neck into his curls and tightened there. His hand stayed careful at her face, then her shoulder, then lower only when she guided it there and not before.
When the injured shoulder caught, she hissed.
He pulled back immediately.
"You okay?"
"No," she said, breathing hard. "Don't stop."
That should have been funny in another life.
Here it made his chest hurt.
He rested his forehead against hers for one second.
Just one.
"Tell me if it's too much."
Jadah let out a shaky breath that almost became a laugh. "You really picked now to become considerate."
"Bad timing is the theme."
That got her.
A broken little smile.
Wet at the edges now.
No tears falling yet.
She touched his cheek where the earlier cut had dried tight.
"You look wrecked."
"You too."
"Rude."
"True."
Then she kissed him again and this time there was less caution in it.
Not because the night had gotten gentler.
Because it hadn't.
Because the world outside the room had become too big and too wrong and this was one small human thing they could still choose before anything else reached in and took that too.
He shifted with care and she moved with him, slow around the shoulder, and when they sank back onto the cot together the frame gave one little protest under their combined weight.
He nearly pulled away at the sound.
She caught his shirt and kept him there.
"Isaac."
He looked at her.
For once, nothing in her face was trying to win.
"Don't go cold on me in the middle of this."
That landed deeper than the kiss had.
He nodded once.
"I won't."
And he meant it enough that it scared him.
So they stayed close.
Mouths.
Hands.
Breath.
Foreheads touching when the room tilted.
Her fingers gripping his shirt when pain pulled through the shoulder.
His hand flattening at her waist like he could hold one piece of the world still if he tried hard enough.
The hospital kept moving outside the walls.
People kept screaming.
Something metal clattered in the hall.
The bruise in the sky pulsed through painted-over glass.
Inside room twelve, for a little while, they let themselves be only human.
When the knock finally came, it was soft.
Professional.
Enough warning to get apart without pretending there hadn't been a reason for the closeness.
Jadah sat up first, breathing uneven, hoodie half off one shoulder, hair worse than before.
Isaac stood and immediately wished the room would stop spinning for one second out of respect.
The door opened two inches.
The same nurse from before looked in, took exactly one second to understand the temperature of the room, and chose mercy.
"Doctor's ready," she said.
Then, after a beat: "And your friend in trauma is still alive."
That landed bigger than everything else.
Marlon.
Alive.
For now.
Isaac looked at Jadah.
She looked back.
Everything between them had not become simple.
That would've been insulting.
But it had become real again in a way neither of them could pretend around now.
Jadah dragged her sleeve back over her hand and said, voice rough, "Don't make this weird."
He almost laughed.
Almost.
"No promises."
She gave him a look that, somehow, in the middle of all this, felt like home and a problem at the same time.
Then the stainless steel sink in the corner gave one tiny answering rattle.
And both of them remembered at once that the night was not done with either of them yet.