Eden Salvatore

Nothing was making fucking sense. Everything around me became so fucking blurry I could barely see. That phone call was going to haunt me for a thousand fucking lives. I hated the oxygen I was breathing in. I hated how I was here when she was somewhere between life and death.

Every heartbeats felt like a knife being twisted inside my chest while my sanity was slipping away.

I ran my hands down my face, glaring at the bright red and blue lights ahead of us. I cursed Elian to stop being a fucking pussy and started driving like a motherfucker. He ignored me and kept his cool manner while muttering orders into his phone because I had lost my mind and didn't remember to call for fucking backups.

Adalina Salvatore, she fucked over my sanity and I fucking love her for that.

I was about a second away from completely going batshit crazy and physically slammed my body into the door and broke out when the pussy finally pulled up in front of the tall gate of our home.

I watched the scenes before my eyes unfolded with a sick feeling inside my stomach. I didn't remember the last I threw up but I sure as hell wanted to right fucking now.

Red lights blinded my sight and the loud siren rang across my eardrum like the world most fucking horrifying sound. I gripped the handle and practically ripped the door open. A billion possibilities ran across my head. Our home was burning and crumbling into a huge pile of craps. My breath hitched inside my throat as I tried to swallow a sickening bile.

Cameras flashed and suddenly the entire fucking population was in my fucking face. I couldn't hear what they were saying because I was focused on running into the smoke show ahead of me. I ran because I could and I didn't give a shit about the dangers. I didn't care if I might die, running straight into burning hell.

I ran because my whole world was in there and nothing could stop me from finding her. Not the paparazzi asking for their queen or about my fucking feeling. Not the policemen shouting in my face, telling me to back off for safety purposes. Not Elian trying to hold me back.

" Stop me from going to my wife again and see how fast I can snap your fucking neck in half. " I growled, physically pushing my way through the crowd.

The castle crumbled all the way to the ground, filling the sky with grey smoke. I didn't realize how I felt about this place until I stood here in the middle of nothing, watching everything that was her and I broke apart into a thousand pieces of stone. This had been our home.

I searched the place among the firefighters and the police department with my nose hidden between my elbow to stop the smoke from collapsing my lungs. I needed to find her not die in th process.

I ran past the piano, stopping a moment to look at the broken piece as memory came flashing back. I should have listened a little more closer the last time she had played.

Shaking my head, I frantically turned my body and headed the other direction. A few walls stood strong on the ground and some were still falling down despite the explosion that shook the whole country an hour ago. I raked my brain trying to outline where the hell I was going without the others losing tracks of me.

But, I couldn't escape the backups Elian had called even if I tried to. Everywhere I turned there were at least a couple of men hanging by, searching and trying to calm the last burning fire. I coughed aggressively behind my knuckles, almost running head first into someone's back. I tried to be annoyed at him to feel something because it was a fucking terrible feeling, that empty emotion when you didn't even know what the fuck were you feeling.

It was like I was stuck in a blank canvas universe where time had stopped forever.

My heart pounded so hard I heard it drumming inside my head between all the noises and screams. I frantically searched through the place without clear eyesights, feeling my way and stumbling over stones, hard objects and the holes in the ground. My frustration and restlessness tasted bitter on my tongue. I felt an agonizing choke threatened to tear out of my mouth and the urge to throw up was stronger every passing second that I saw everything except her.

I kept screaming her name, chanting it like it was my prayers, until my throat scorched and my voice hoarse. I leaned my forehead beside a half ass wall, tilting my gaze up at the ugly sky. I hated the way the sun looked and how those stupid clouds was flying happily in the damn smoke.

My fist collided with the hard stone, breaking my knuckles in a welcoming crack. Then again and again and still I felt nothing. I didn't remember the last time I prayed or wished for a fucking thing but right now if God was there, I told him how I would give up anything to have her in my arms again, safe and alive. Please let her be fucking okay. Goddamn it.

I could lose everything but not her. Fuck, not her.

" We got a survivor over here. " a scream tore across the air and I felt my heart thumping louder against my ribcage.

I turned around, about ready to ran like a motherfucker out of here. I hoped with every fucking bones inside my body that it was her. Please it fucking be her.

A soft groan came from under what looked like a pile of fallen stones. The sound echoed inside my head so loud I shivered all the way down to my spine. My whole body stiffened at her voice as I towered over the huge stone, running my bloodied hands over it.

" Adalina, are you in there? " I shouted and started banging my fists against it.

Another whimper hit my ears and that was enough. I snapped my head side to side, looking for help. And, of course nobody was fucking around when I actually needed them. I grunted as I gripped my fingers around the edges of the stone and started pulling. I knew then I would give up half of my life to get her out of there unharmed.

" You better fucking be fine, Adalina darling. Hang in there. I will get you out. " I grunted and I pulled with all my strength.

A sear of sweat glistened my forehead and dripped down the side of my face. I gritted my teeth together as I tried to lift thousand pound of pure stone. I felt as if my fingers were about to snap into four the same time my knuckles turned white and the veins on my arms a second away from bursting right out. My chest heaved at the weight I was holding as I dug my heels harder into the ground for fucking support but it was the memory of her broken sweet voice telling me she loves me that kept me going.

I ripped the damn thing with my bare hand and shoved it out of my way. Hell fire ran through my bloodstream although my vein turned ice cold when my eyes landed her paled face. I ducked my head under the other piece of stone and rushed toward her. I pushed a broken piece of furniture away and carefully pulled her out.

" Stay with me. " I hugged her tightly to my chest. " Please. "

" You're here. " she groaned, trying to smile. Silence hang in the air as I took a moment to look at her.

" We were doomed from the start, weren't we? "

I shook my head unconsciously, breathing with a bit of relief that at least she was conscious. My heart tore in half when she started choking out blood.

Her face was as cold as the Atlantic itself. I brushed her sticky hair out of her face and wiped the blood with my thumb. I laid her flat on the ground and pressed my fingers to her neck, feeling her weak pause. I turned her face from side to side before running my hands down her body, checking for injuries. Six broken fucking ribs. I feared she was bleeding internally and the oxygen in her blood. It felt as if I was dying right with her.

" I love you, you know that? " she smiled again, tearing apart my soul. " I love you so much. "

A pause. I cupped her cheek and my mouth was halfway open when she suddenly beamed like everything was perfect.

" I know. I love you more though. " she said as her eyes slowly fluttered close.

I shouted for help and despite my anger and frustration, the medics were here before I lost my fucking mind and started a bloody massacre. I watched with a glare as they gently picked her up and placed her on a stretcher.

My brothers were by my side the moment we came out of hell with their phones against their ears, looking read to turn the ground upside down with me.

" Find Thane. " I muttered an order to them, making sure they understood before heading inside the car with my wife.

At five years old I decided I was going to be a doctor because the hospital reeked of gloom and deaths. I had always like the fact that I was truly home with a scalpel in my hand while the dark blue scrub wrapped around me like a protection spell. I was at my best in my surgeries surrounded by surgical facts.

Except now. The room was suffocating, slowly swallowing me whole. I hated this place. I hated everything that was happening.

I stared down at my wife, laying across the table. Pale and lifeless. IVs hooked over her body with an oxygen mask helping her to stay alive. I focused on my last string of hope in the form of her weak heartbeat beeping on the machine while I restrained myself from flinching in the middle of the most important surgery of my life as I looked over her chart.

The explosion had been worse than I had thought. She was already bleeding internally when brought in like I had feared. Her skull and some of the bones were fractured from the high explosive blast. Six broken ribs and partially collapsed lung. Structural collapse and entrapment that could cause crashed injuries and compartment syndrome.

The words jumbled together as my hands started to shake so violently I had to grip harder on the damn file. My brain knew the shitty facts, but my heart was not ready.

The longer it took to start the surgery the higher the mortality. I chanted that in my head.

" Get doctor Delilah from wherever the fuck she is and all of the head surgeons from each departments. " I grumbled, dropping the scalpel back on the tray.

" She will lead the surgery. Make sure my wife is breathing and well or the next fifteen generations of your family will feel my wrath. " with one last look at my wife, I left the room.

I slammed my body on the bench outside the OR, rubbing my face with both of my hands and felt the hot tears on my cheeks. I was still shaking and it felt as if I was about to break every fucking seconds. It hurt to even stare at her. I might as well be dying instead of her.

I was in no place to perform a surgery not when my heart was beating alongside my patient and nothing made sense to me anymore, not the medical textbooks I had studied my whole life and definitely not the little amount of trust I had in myself right now.

A lifetime could have passed and I wouldn't even know. I sat there for hours on end, unmoving as I stared blankly at the white wall in front of me. Footsteps stumbled upon from the end of the hallway and I barely took my eyes off of the wall when my brothers took the seats beside me. Elliot placed his hand on my shoulder and gave me an assuring part except nothing was stable in my life right now.

" I'm sorry. " he said.

I didn't know which parts made him felt sorry for me and I didn't try to find out so I just nodded my head slowly.

" Thane was a great soldier. You were lucky to have him. " Nicholas added. I could feel his concerned gaze burning the side of my face.

My bodyguard threw himself over the bomb to reduce the high of the explosion. His body was
blown into pieces as he died a heroic death. He sacrificed himself like a loyal soldier he was so Adalina would have a chance to survive, even a little.

Thane didn't know this but he was my favorite friend and now I owed him the life he couldn't have.

I grounded my jaw, thinking about my half alive wife and the friend who died for her. I fisted my hands and rose from the hard bench I had been sitting on like a fucking useless bastard feeling sorry for myself.

" Where is he? " I asked after they finished telling the backstory they had found out from yours truly before he was sent to the hospital.

" Emergency room. He's alive. " my twin brother said.

Zachary Hasting was breathing and I was about to make him fucking regret surviving. Nicholas and Elliot, motioned the doctors that were tending to him to get out of the room as we walked inside. I slipped on a pair of surgical gloves and looked at the bastard as I cut the anesthesia off.

I was annoyed how I had nothing to hold over his head before and how I didn't kill him the moment my brain told me to not trust him.

" I need a moment with him. In the meantime, guard my wife for me. " I sighed, grabbing the nearest scalpel. " With your life. " I added and they were out of the door.

I hummed the melody of her soft piano as I sliced through the first layer of his skin, patiently waiting for the little drugs in his system to wear off. I thought about how fucked up he was for attempting such thing and dared to survive to face my wrath. He had to be in love with her to have that guts. I suspected nothing less before, I saw the way he looked at her and felt how much he wanted to murder my ass for being married to her.

The blade was two inches deep into him when his eyes slowly fluttered open. A small groan escaped from the back of his throat, hissing at the possible stinging pain before he broke into a fit of cough which was probably the amount of smoke he had inhaled. The side of my mouth curled up into a grin.

" Your lung partially collapsed. I wondered how Thane felt when his was blown off. " I told him when I felt his gaze on my face.

I took my scalpel out of his torso and switched blade. I cut higher up this time, right over his ribcage. Zach screamed bloody murder, sending a satisfactory chills across my skin. I started thoracoscopy without nurses for the times. There was a first for everything. Fortunately, I didn't care if he died so all was well.

" You love her, don't you? And, she doesn't love you back. Not like that. It has to hurt. " I asked because I wanted to fuck him up physically and mentally.

I pulled out a tube and put it into his lung to drain the fluid from the pleural place so it can re-expand. " I love her too, you know? I would have died a million times over for that girl just for her to be happy. That's the different between me and you. "

But, I never got to tell her.

" How is she? " he asked and I accidentally crashed his ribcage in half.

Zach screamed again and the pain was clear in his eyes as he started cursing and crying. I sighed, taking the tube out. " None of your fucking business. "

I picked up my good old scalpel again and took care of the glass pieces stuck inside his stomach. Every screams in pain were music to fucking ears and every drops of blood he bled was an apology to my wife and friend. I took in the satisfaction of seeing him in pain.

" She's mine. " he slurred in hallucination because I knew the raw pain of having a knife sticking everywhere inside him was too much for him but not enough for me.

" Yours? " I chuckled humorlessly, cutting through an unimportant blood vessel because I didn't want him dead yet.

" She's my wife and she's barely fucking mine. Adalina is no one's property so you fucking dare think for a second that you own her. " I grunted, dropping my scalpel and slipping off the gloves.

" I will never be done with you so prepare for the life you're about to face. This is the beginning of it. You should have never messed with her or killed my friend. " I shoved my hands into my pockets and left the room.

My family filled the bench the next time I looked at it. I glanced at the OR and it was still occupied. No news from the doctors inside. I clenched my jaw and fisted my hands until I felt fresh blood seeping from my bruised knuckles.

My mother rose from her seat the moment she saw me, sulking my way through the hall. It wasn't Adalina's hug but it felt like home all the same. She wrapped her arms tightly around me and I slumped down into her chest as we both fell to the floor. I let myself shattered before my mother. I gripped onto her for dear life as if I was holding onto my last lifeline. She soothed me, running her hand up and down my back and the other brushing my hair back.

" She will be okay. You have to be strong for her. " she whispered, kissing the top of my head like she always did when I was a little boy.

I pulled her closer and pressed my forehead on her shoulder. " She's pregnant, mom. I can't lose her. Can't lose both of them. "

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