(a/n- I realize that I left people with a cliffhanger, and I wanted to update faster. This one is short, but I'm working on another which I'll post soon. Let me know what you think! Thanks!~ Ripley)

Part 10

Chapter 23

Justice watched his friend pace the cell, pounding his fists against the wall until they and then howling in pain and anger. Bestial had lost the thread of his awareness. He knew something was wrong, but he didn't know what. He knew he was angry, but he didn't know why. He knew he was in pain, but he didn't know just how deep that pain would thrust into his heart when the breeding drug was out of his system.

Justice rubbed his neck. "Fuck."
He looked at the elder Dr. Harris. "How long?"
Dr. Harris looked at his watch. "Not much longer. The way he's pacing, and how amped up he is? It won't take long for him to sweat it out."

"What's our plan?" He looked at Fury and Slade, who watched Bestial with pale, sick faces. They were silent, flinching when he howled again.

"Fury." Justice's voice was steely. "What's the plan?"
Fury turned to face him. Justice understood his feelings. Fury's mate, Elly, had been shot at, and attacked, he was undoubtedly putting himself in Bestial's shoes, and feeling both the guilt of his happiness and his worry that he could easily be Bestial.

"We have two options," Fury said, clearing his throat and looking over his shoulder at Bestial, whose voice had finally broken and was now making horribly, gasping whines.

Justice waited, his own heart hurting in sympathy. He wanted nothing more than to run to his mate, sweep Jessie into his arms and assure himself of her safety.

"The first is that we tell him, see how he reacts, and if it's negative, tranq him."

Justice didn't like it, but he nodded. It may be necessary. "And the second?"
"We tell him, open the door, and let him go to her."
"Dr. Harris?"

The older man's face was grey. "It doesn't look good. Her heart nearly exploded in her chest. Massive bleeding, her aorta was shredded. It's going to be hours. We flew another surgeon in, the damage is just…" He shook his head. "I notified the transplant team. It may be the only way she'll survive."
"The healing drugs?"

Dr. Harris shrugged again. "We went back and forth. But she's so injured, it seemed cruel not to try them."

A huge thump from the room made the doctor jump. As one, they looked over at the room and saw Bestial slowly pounding on the door. His head was resting against the metal, his shoulders slumped. His hand lifted above his head and rhythmically pounded at the door.

"He's back," Justice said, looking over at Fury.

"Let him out," Dr. Harris said suddenly. Justice looked at him, his eyebrows lifting. "He should see her. If she isn't going to survive. If we have to sew her up and let her go, he should be there. Don't tranq him. He should be with her when she goes."
"If," Slade suddenly interjected, angry. "If she goes."
Dr. Harris didn't answer, just swept his hand over his face and nodded. He didn't correct Slade, but everyone in that room heard his disagreement.

Justice loosened his tie and kicked off his shoes. "If he needs to fight me, I will fight him."

"I don't think he will," Fury said, going to the door. "I think he'll only want to go to her."

Justice nodded, and Fury released the lever, opening the door wide.

Chapter 24

Bestial thumped the door again. His body didn't want to obey him. He recognized the aftereffects of the breeding drugs. His body had flooded with adrenaline, but now he was shaky, barely able to hold himself up. He'd tried to call out, but his voice was gone. He knew why; he remembered.

Low.

He'd felt her heart stop, had held her in his arms while she'd struggled to breathe, and her eyes had closed.

Bestial didn't remember anything after that. He thumped the door again, stumbling forward when it opened. He met Fury's eyes and felt something inside him die. He swallowed thickly, trying to get the words out.

"She's alive," Fury said quickly. "But she's in surgery." He didn't need to say anything more. Bestial heard every unspoken word. But she might never come out of it. She might not live. She may never wake up.

The howl built, but he couldn't release it. If she was gone… there was nothing for him. Fury led him out. He followed without truly seeing where he was going. He'd never had such a deadened experience: sights, sounds, smells, none of it touched him. His mind was only looking forward, taking note of the passing scenery in relation to how close it was to Low. Fury didn't speak to him, and for that Bestial was grateful. He was holding onto his sanity by a thread, one move, one jostle, and he'd shatter into a thousand pieces.

The hospital loomed ahead, and then Bestial was running. He felt his feet slapping against the tile floors, pushed past doors and nurses, running to the emergency department. No one tried to stop him until he came to the surgical theatre, and then Fury grasped his shoulder hard, spinning him with a strength he didn't expect until he had all of Bestial's attention.

"You can't go in yet," Fury said. Bestial's snarl was broken, ripping from his throat.

"You need to clean up. Germs."

Bestial looked down at his hands. The dirt was ground in, his clothes were ripped. He nodded once, following Fury to a bathroom, showering quickly, scrubbing at his skin, ignoring the pinch of pain as he washed away the dirt from the cuts on his fists. He watched with detachment as his hands shook. He dropped first the towel and then the scrubs that Fury had shoved into the room while he showered.

"Ready?" Fury asked when he emerged.

Bestial didn't answer, striding toward the surgery. He opened the door and stopped. He took in the room piece by piece; the green sheets stained with blood, the machines beeping, breathing, sucking, the hushed but confident voices.

And Low.

Her dark skin paler than he'd ever seen it, streaked with yellow and blue from the iodine and markers the surgeons had used to guide their cuts. He heard a sound that reminded him of a nail gun, but was surgeon stapling Low's poor body together. The nursery rhyme he'd heard Blue read to her preschool class popped into his head: all the king's horses and all the king's men, couldn't put Humpty together again.

The surgeon looked up at him, his face blanching when he saw Bestial's hulking form, but Bestial wasn't concerned about him. He took one step, then another, and another before he was at her side. Her eyelids were taped shut, and a tube ran into her mouth. Her chest lifted rhythmically in time with the machine that was breathing for her.

"Will she live?" His voice was barely above a whisper. Even if he'd wanted to be louder, he physically couldn't.

The surgeon looked wide-eyed at the nurses and medical assistants before standing up straighter. "Probably," he answered. "If the healing drugs continue to work the way they are now, and she breathes on her own. But I don't know what she'll be like when she wakes up. She was oxygen deprived."
Bestial didn't understand what that meant.

The surgeon stepped away from Low, pulling off his gloves and lowering his mask.

"I don't know if she'll have brain damage," he told Bestial kindly. "I don't know if she'll wake up the same girl she was before all this."
Bestial nodded, his body shivering in the cold surgery.

"We're bringing her to the ICU now," said a nurse Bestial recognized as Destiny.

He watched them carefully wash the blood away from Low's skin and cover her incisions with gauze. He put out a trembling hand, resting it on her forehead. Even her skin was cold, like all the fire and heat that was Low had been snuffed out. He looked down at the huge incision on her chest. It went from her naval almost to the dip in her throat. He assumed that meant they'd had to open her wide, and he swallowed a sob. She looked even smaller than she usually did, lying lifeless on this table.

His knees gave out and he slammed into the tile floor, bending over her head and reaching for the hand that laid on the gurney.

"Don't leave me," he whispered. "God, Low. Please."
"We're ready now," Destiny told him.

Bestial gripped the bed with white knuckles and pulled himself to his feet, following the line of people holding equipment as they transferred her to ICU. The nurses plugged the equipment in around her. He heard a scuffle in the hall and then Terrance fell through the door. His eyes bloodshot, his face pale and drawn. He looked once at Bestial, not saying a word, and went to Low's side, taking her other hand in his massive one and lifting it to his cheek. Bestial watched him, but Terrance seemed to have forgotten about him. Here was the other person who felt an iota of what Bestial felt.

"Bestial? Mr. Jacobs?"

Bestial turned dry eyes to the door. It was a human nurse, a youngish woman who looked confident and spoke with a slightly hoarse voice.

"My name is Maggie. I'm Low's nurse. I'm going to take her vitals and I'll be checking in frequently. We have visiting hours, but I understand you won't want to leave. There's not room for a cot in here. I'm sorry, but I'll try to find you a comfy chair that will recline."

Bestial looked around, not letting go of Low's hand. "I'm fine," he got out.

Terrance made a grunt of agreement.

"I'll bring you some water and a numbing spray for your throat. You'll want to talk to her as much as you can, and you'll need your voice for that."
Bestial nodded his thanks, turning back to the woman on the bed who was his everything. If she lived, so did he. He had no future without Low. There was only her, or there was nothing.