You should not be breathing
548 Words
RaySky Winters didn’t consider herself nosy.
Curious? Sure.
Observant? Always.
But snooping around after half-dead strangers who barked cryptic orders like “No police” and “Don’t say my name”? That was not on her “nurse duties” checklist. And yet, here she was—on the far end of the trauma ward, peeking around the corner like some dollar-store detective.
Maddox Red. She didn’t know his name yet. But she remembered his eyes. Sharp. Calculating. The kind of stare you don’t forget, even when you try.
Especially when you try.
“Why are you hovering?” Nurse Olivia’s voice snapped her out of it.
RaySky jumped, holding a clipboard she absolutely had not been writing fake notes on. “I’m doing… vitals.”
“On a guy who’s unconscious, sedated, and currently being guarded like a national treasure?”
“Exactly.”
Olivia raised a brow. “You’re so weird.”
Ray didn’t disagree. But she couldn’t shake the feeling. There was something wrong about him—aside from the gunshot. Like he wasn’t just some rich guy in the wrong place at the wrong time.
She’d changed his IV, triple-checked his vitals, and even talked to him once when no one was watching. He didn’t answer, but the corner of his mouth had twitched. Like he could hear her. Like he was listening.
Or worse—waiting.
**
By 4 a.m., the ward had calmed down. Most of the emergency cases had either been transferred or stabilized. RaySky’s brain was swimming somewhere between caffeine withdrawal and hallucination when a light on the board flashed.
Room 17.
She blinked. Room 17 was his.
She sprinted.
When she opened the door, he was sitting up—IV line yanked out, bandage already soaked in fresh blood. The monitors screamed, but he looked calm. Like he’d just gotten out of a yoga session, not surgery.
“What the hell are you doing?” she hissed, rushing to him. “You lost half your blood last night, and you think now’s the time to play superhero?”
He didn’t answer. Just looked at her with those same eyes.
He was pale, but not weak. Bleeding, but not trembling.
“How are you even standing?”
His lips parted. “Because I have things to do.”
RaySky glared. “Okay, Batman. You’ve got two options: lie down and let me keep you alive, or pass out and hit your head on this very unsanitary floor.”
For a second, she thought he’d argue. Instead, he collapsed.
Right into her.
Not dramatically. Not romantically.
Just full-body, dead weight, unconscious man in bloodied designer clothes.
She screamed.
A few nurses came running. They helped lay him back down while RaySky’s heart slammed against her ribs like it wanted to file a complaint.
“Get a stretcher,” she snapped. “Recheck vitals, start another bag of saline, and page Dr. Flora now.”
Her hands shook as she pressed them against his chest, searching for the pulse she shouldn’t be able to find.
But it was there.
Strong. Steady. Impossible.
“You shouldn’t be breathing,” she whispered.
And for a moment—just a second—his lips moved.
Only one word.
“Don’t tell them.”
- Writer
