When she opened them again, her father was at the bedside looking as though somebody had hollowed him out and left only love and exhaustion behind.
“Hey, kid,” Frank said, and that broke her more than the bullets had.
She cried without meaning to. He took her hand carefully, avoiding the IV lines.
“You scared the hell out of me,” he whispered.
“Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize for surviving.”
Leah looked around the room. “How long?”
“Four days.”
Her throat burned. “I feel like I got hit by a truck.”
Frank barked a laugh that turned suspiciously wet around the edges. “You got hit by worse than that.”
Later, after the nurses adjusted her pain medication and Owen came in crying harder than Frank had, Dr. Reeves explained the damage, the surgeries, the recovery ahead. Weeks in the hospital. Months of physical therapy. Scars. Limitations, maybe temporary, maybe not. There was hope, but not the easy kind.
Leah listened. Asked practical questions. Did not complain.
That evening, Sophie came.
Nico stayed outside the room.
