When she lifted her hand, the heart monitor protested, his heart rate dropping all over again. I bit my lip, ready to shout at Gabriella to keep touching him. But there was no need because she simply moved to his hand, entwining their fingers and lowering her head to kiss the back of it. “I love you,” she whispered again.

His heart rate jumped again and started to even out at a steady rate. I sighed in relief and backed up until I reached the door. The nurse at the station was already looking toward Liam’s room, having just watched the dramatic changes in his heart rate from the monitor at her desk. “I’ll get her a chair then call the doctor.”

I just nodded and returned to standing on the opposite side of Liam’s bed. I didn’t care how tired that little bitch got. She wasn’t going anywhere until I knew Liam was out of danger.

Dallas

Six days. I’d been at the hospital for six days straight. My contract had ended and I hadn’t even blinked as I’d signed the papers my boss had come up to the ICU waiting room to have me sign. I was exhausted, so, so exhausted. It was hard to sleep in a plastic chair, and even harder to lie across them. Especially when there were others in the room trying to sleep, too.

The ICU waiting room had been turned into the OtherWorld waiting room. Family members of other ICU patients were asked to wait in another, smaller room down the hall. It was for everyone’s protection, not just for privacy from the countless journalists trying to get up to sneak a peek at the haggard friends and family members of notorious rocker Liam Bryant as they waited for him to wake up. Fans had been trying to get in too, and that had made it dangerous for everyone who was in the waiting room. Crazy girls who wanted to get in to see Liam, or the other band members. A man that had wanted to finish Liam off for whatever reason. Seller and Associates security firm was out in full force and Emmie had more on standby in case things escalated.

The last six days felt like a blur now, but they had actually been a mixture of emotional overload, drama-filled tension, and the wearisomeness of waiting, waiting, and more waiting. Marissa had arrived with Wroth first. She had been an emotional mess before she got to see her brother, and afterwards had to be sedated because she was nearly hysterical. Wroth hadn’t left her side since. Emmie arrived with Nik and Mia. While Emmie got busy making statements to the press, Drake had taken Mia to his house to leave her with Lana and the baby so that the little girl didn’t have to be exposed to the stressful situation. Zander and Devlin arrived with Devlin’s son, Harris, who should have been taken to stay with Lana as well, but demanded to be allowed to stay.

Few of the newcomers rarely left the waiting room. Emmie mostly being the exception. She and Natalie were kept on their toes with answering phone calls. And wondering if she was going to have to find a bassist for the upcoming tour that would start in March. She’d tried to get OtherWorld out of the tour that was going to go up and down the East Coast, but contracts had been signed and if the band pulled out, then Emmie as well as OtherWorld would be sued by the band’s label for libel. They didn’t seem to care that Liam was fighting for his life, which had forced Emmie to question if OtherWorld or Demon’s Wings would be renewing their contract with the record company when it came time to do so at the end of the year. Thankfully, if things did come down to it, Shane Stevenson had offered to fill in until Liam was able to proceed.

Food was brought in, and blankets and pillows provided, which everyone turned into makeshift beds on the floor. It wasn’t that we couldn’t leave, we just didn’t want to. At least that was my reason for staying. The crowd of screaming paps outside was not holding me hostage, as might have been the case with the others.

Liam had been through so much over the last six days. More surgeries to fix his broken bones. Countless specialists came and went until they were all just a white coat or surgical scrubs instead of faces. The swelling had barely gone down around Liam’s spine, but it was enough to show that he didn’t have any breaks or major trauma. Of course it had taken Gabriella’s cousin coming in with her brother who was one of the top rated spinal injury specialists in the country to figure that out.

Through it all, Liam hadn’t opened his eyes once. He was in a coma and the doctors had suspected that it was his body’s way of trying to conserve energy as it healed from the majority of his injuries. It had taken three days for his heart rate and brain activity to stabilize without having Gabriella touching him continuously. I’d been impressed with the little Italian’s staying power during that time. When it looked like Liam was going to be okay without her having to stay by his side twenty-four seven, the ICU team had told her she would have to wait in the waiting room with everyone else.

That was when the drama-filled tension had really set in. Emmie spent more and more time outside of the waiting room, finding things that needed her attention so that she didn’t have to be in the same room with her archenemy for long periods of time. I was surprised that Emmie didn’t kick Gabriella out as soon as she could. I was certain it was because Marissa, who was finally coming out of her state of extreme shock, had asked Emmie not to. It hadn’t hurt that Gabriella had been useful in having an in with Dr. Vince Shepard, who had dropped everything at Gabriella’s request to fly to New York to consult on Liam’s case.

I’d been praying for so long, and so far those prayers had gone unanswered. I was starting to figure that, like most everyone else in Liam’s life, God—or any god, since Emmie swore by more than one—had counted him off as a lost cause and was putting all his heavenly powers elsewhere.

Needing to get up and stretch, I stood and lifted my arms above my head as I surveyed the rest of the room. Everyone was quiet, as they had mostly been over the last six days. Marissa was sitting with her head in Wroth’s lap as he ran his long, thick fingers through her hair. The look on his face was tortured and for the hundredth time since I’d met both of them I wondered if there was something going on. Marissa seemed so innocent, and Wroth never touched her like a lover, but the way they looked at each other when they assumed no one else was watching was full of secrets and longing.

Across from Wroth sat Devlin, Zander and Natalie. The rockers didn’t look all the worse for wear, and I assumed it was from all the years of touring and the unpredictable sleep schedule that went with it. Natalie, who had been going home at night with Linc to get a few hours of sleep in her own bed, looked more tired than they did. Still, Natalie had been working her ass off with Emmie.