I was going to lose him if I didn’t get him some help fast.
“Help me get him in your truck,” I called to Abey. “He needs to get to the doctor now. He’s running out of time.”
My brother nodded once and hurried over to us. I watched him carefully slide his hands underneath Wyatt’s still body and lift him from the ground. I stood too, following them and doing my best to keep pressure on his wound. Abraham laid him gently in the bed of his truck.
Ellie came running out of the house moments later and tossed me a large shirt that I tugged on before climbing into the truck bed and crawling over to Wyatt. I pressed the rag harder against his stomach, wishing I could do more for him. Wishing I even knew what to do. Because for all my researching and knowledge and years of schooling, I was completely useless right now. Helpless and useless as I watched my mate slowly dying in front of me.
Thankfully, Abraham didn’t need my encouragement to gun the engine of his truck and race back toward pack lands. It was still the longest ride of my life, even if it was only a few minutes.
As we pulled up to the doc’s house, him and his mate, Doreen, came running out. Abraham jumped from the cab and yelled to them that Wyatt had been shot before racing to the back and lifting Wyatt again. I scrambled out of the truck bed and hurried behind them, my hands still gripping the bloody cloth I’d had pressed against his abdomen.
I followed Abraham back to an exam room where he set him on the table and left the room. Doc Monroe started his examination right away as Doreen came up to me and placed a gentle hand on my shoulder. “You can wait out in the living room if you want.”
I shook my head, my spine stiff. “No. I’m not leaving him.”
“Callie, we’ll take good care of him.”
“I know you will, but I’m not going anywhere.”
Doc sighed from across the room. “Callie, I might have to operate.”
“Then I’ll scrub up too, but I’m not leaving.”
He sighed again and jerked his head to the side. “Fine. But stand over there and stay out of the way.”
I would have bristled at his curt words, but I couldn’t have cared less in that moment. He could have spit in my eye and I would have thanked him because he was the only person that could help my mate right then.
I stuffed myself into a corner and watched, the tears streaming unchecked down my face and the bloody rag still in my hands. I gripped it so tight I lost feeling in my fingers as I watched the doctor work on Wyatt.
“He’s bleeding internally from his spleen,” he muttered to his mate, who doubled as his nurse. “We’re going to have to open him up and take it out.”
My heart fell to the soles of my feet as I watched the two of them pull on protective gear and clean around Wyatt’s wound. Doreen walked over to me with a mask and a lab coat that I hurriedly pulled on.
The surgery might have taken minutes, or it might have been days. There was no way for me to tell time in that room, and so it became this abstract thing to me. All I knew was my mate was fighting for his life and I was pleading with every deity I’d ever heard of to save him. To let him live. To give me just one more day with him.
When Doc Monroe finished the last stich in Wyatt’s abdomen, he set down his needle and thread and sighed. “That’s about all I can do.”
My heart climbed up my throat, coming to a complete stop. “No,” I whispered. I staggered forward a step before my legs gave out completely and I fell to my knees. “No,” I said again, louder this time.
Doreen walked over and pulled me to my feet, her arm wrapping around my shoulders. “It’s in his hands now, Callie. He lost a lot of blood and his body’s working hard to replace it. What he needs now is time to rest and recuperate.”
I realized I’d been shaking my head the whole time she’d been talking and did my best to hold still. To stop breathing all together as I watched the slight rise and fall of Wyatt’s chest.
Doc Monroe sighed and pulled off his gloves. “You can stay with him while he sleeps off the anesthesia if you’d like.”
As if I had anywhere else to be.
As if there was anywhere else I could be.
As if my heart and soul wasn’t lying on the table right in front of me, struggling for each breath.
“I’m staying,” I said, my voice stronger than I’d anticipated.
The two of them finished up in the room as I pulled a chair next to Wyatt’s bed and picked up one of his clammy hands. I squeezed it between mine as the tears began to flow again and I closed my eyes.
The minutes dragged by as I steadily watched Wyatt’s chest rise and fall. Watched his nostrils flair with each breath and watched the pulse in his neck beat steadily. Doc and Doreen came in every once in a while to check on him, but not much changed. He was still fighting though and that’s all I could ask for. He was still breathing, and that was all I needed to continue taking breaths of my own.
I didn’t remember falling asleep, but when something squeezed my fingers, I opened my eyes and realized I was face down on
