Athena\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cYou won\u2019t lose me. I promise.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
He didn\u2019t look convinced, but he nodded. \u201cAlright. Derek, make it happen.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Derek was already on his phone, making more calls, his voice taking on that authoritative tone he used when getting things done.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Within minutes, he had it arranged. The transfer. The ambulance. Dr. Ben meeting us at the facility.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The hard part was convincing the hospital to let us take Tristan.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It took another hour of paperwork and arguing and Derek\u2019s family hospital name being dropped multiple times.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The doctors were against it, naturally. Kept insisting Tristan needed their ICU, their specialists, their equipment. Kept saying that moving him w\u00a0<\/p>\n
dangerous, that we were risking his life.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I wanted to scream at them that leaving him here was risking his life, that they couldn\u2019t help him the way I could. But obviously I couldn\u2019t say th\u00a0<\/p>\n
just stood there and let Derek and Orion handle it while I tried not to fall apart.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sarah stayed close, her presence a comfort even when she didn\u2019t say anything. She understood what was happening, what we were planning. And s\u00a0<\/p>\n
didn\u2019t judge, didn\u2019t try to talk me out of it. Just supported me the way she always did.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Finally, after what felt like forever, we had the signatures. The legal waivers. The agreement that we were taking full responsibility and the hospita no liability for anything that happened after Tristan left their care.\u00a0<\/p>\n
odds.\u00a0<\/p>\n
They loaded him into the ambulance with the same efficiency as before, hooking him up to portable monitors that beeped steadily.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He looked so pale, so still, so unlike the fierce, confident man I knew. The man who\u2019d raced like a demon just hours ago, who\u2019d won against impossi\u00a0<\/p>\n
Now he couldn\u2019t even open his eyes.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I climbed in the back this time, refusing to be separated from him. Derek drove in his truck, following the ambulance. Sarah rode with him. Onun sta with me, sitting across from where Tristan lay, his eyes never leaving his best friend\u2019s face.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The ride to the private facility felt longer than it was.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Every bump in the road made me wince, worried it was hurting Tristan, making his injuries worse. The paramedie monitoring him, kept dust thing checking vitals, his face professionally neutral but I could see the concern the\u00a0<\/p>\n
Tristan\u2019s condition was deteriorating.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ne deamatically, not in a way that set off alarms, but little tlungs. His blood pressure dropping slightly, his breathing becasting more labyred, ilis nost struggling to heal itself fast enough.\u00a0<\/p>\n
How rough longer? Lasked the paramedic.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Chapter 334\u00a0<\/p>\n
*Fifteen minutes,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Fifteen minutes felt like an eternity.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I reached out and took Tristan\u2019s hand, careful not to disturb the IV line. His skin was cold, clammy. So different from his usual warmth, the heat tl always radiated from him.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cJust hold on a little longer,\u201d I whispered, not caring that the paramedic could hear me. \u201cWe\u2019re almost there. Almost somewhere I can help you. Jus on, baby. Please.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
His fingers didn\u2019t squeeze back. Didn\u2019t move at all. He was too far gone, too deep in whatever unconscious place his mind had retreated to.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Orion\u2019s hand landed on my shoulder, squeezing gently. I looked up and saw my own fear reflected in his eyes, he was scared too.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Trying to be strong for me, trying to be the protective older brother, but he was terrified.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019ll make it,\u201d Orion said, but it sounded like he was trying to convince himself as much as me.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHe has to.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The ambulance pulled up to a modern building that looked more like an upscale hotel than a medical facility.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Discrete, expensive, designed not to look like a place where people came when they were dying.\u00a0<\/p>\n
So this was Derek worlds, this was were he belonged to.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Not anymore, but he came back for Tristan. And I\u2019ll forever be grateful.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Dr. Ben was waiting at the entrance with two nurses and a gurney. He was an older man, late sixties maybe, with kind eyes and steady hands. The kin of person who\u2019d seen everything and wasn\u2019t easily surprised.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Memories Drifted Into Soft Silence by Kyx Frost 334 Athena\u00a0 \u201cYou won\u2019t lose me. I promise.\u201d\u00a0 He didn\u2019t look convinced, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[77],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26491","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-second-gear-of-love-novel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26491"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26491\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}