MasukRavenThere are voices before there’s anything else.Distant at first, blurred at the edges, like sound underwater, and I can’t make sense of any of it, just tone, just urgency, just the shape of a voice I know without being able to place why I know it.“…I think she’s waking up. Doctor, I think she’s waking up—”Light next, harsh and unwelcome, and I feel my eyelids fighting against it, heavy, resistant, my whole body feeling like it belongs to someone else entirely.“Raven.” The voice again, closer now, clearer. “Raven, can you hear me?”I force my eyes open.The room swims into focus slowly, shapes resolving into a ceiling, a light fixture, and then a face leaning over me, familiar in a way that cuts through the fog faster than anything else has.Roman.His face is drawn, exhausted, dark circles carved deep beneath his eyes, but the moment my gaze finds his, something in his expression breaks open entirely.“There you are.” His voice cracks on the words. “Thank God. Thank God.”I t
Roman “Marcus. Where is she.” He doesn’t need to ask who. “St. Augustine’s. Someone called it in, ambulance picked her up off the road and brought her there. I don’t have a room number yet.” “Get in the car.” The drive there is short, too short for the fury building in my chest to burn off even slightly, and by the time I walk through the front doors of St. Augustine’s I’ve already decided exactly what I’m going to do. The woman at the front desk looks up as I approach. “Can I help you?” “Vivienne Cole. What room.” “I’m sorry, sir, I can’t release patient information without knowing your relationship to her.” “A friend.” The lie comes out flat, cold. “I’ll need to verify that before I can—” I slam my palm down on the counter, hard enough that she flinches back in her chair. “I don’t have time for your protocol. Give me the ward. Now.” Her hands are shaking as she pulls up the file. “Fourth floor. Room 412.” I’m already walking before she finishes the sentence.
RomanMy phone rings from the passenger seat, and I glance at the screen, only half paying attention to the road.Anaya.She came the moment I called, staying behind to watch Raven while I dealt with Vivienne. I only got off the phone with one of the nurses a few minutes ago. Seeing Anaya’s name now makes something cold settle in my stomach.I answer immediately.“How bad is it?”“Roman, you need to come back.” Her voice is trembling, words spilling over each other. “Something’s wrong. They said Raven’s numbers are dropping, and she needs a blood transfusion right now. They tested me to see if I was a match, but… I’m not. They said my blood is incompatible.”For a second, everything inside me goes still.“I’m on my way.”I end the call and drive straight back to the hospital, every red light, every speed limit, every car in my way becoming meaningless. My hands grip the wheel so hard my knuckles ache, one thought pounding through my head over and over.Please don’t let me be too late.
RomanThe hospital feels different walking back into it, quieter somehow, though nothing has actually changed except me.They’ve moved Raven to a private ward, and the doctor meets me outside the door with an expression I’ve learned to read as bad news trying to sound careful.“She’s stable,” he says. “But she’s in a coma.”The word lands somewhere I don’t have room for it. “For how long?”“We can’t say for certain. It could be days. Weeks. In some cases it stretches into months, occasionally longer.” He pauses. “All we can do right now is monitor her and wait.”I don’t remember him leaving.I’m sitting beside her bed a moment later, her hand small and still in mine, machines marking out the rhythm of her heart in slow, patient beeps. I press her knuckles to my lips.“Nothing will ever touch you again,” I tell her quietly. “I swear it on my life. Whatever it takes to bring you back to me, I’ll do it. However long it takes, I’ll be right here.”I stay like that for what feels
RomanMy phone is already against my ear before I’ve fully pulled onto the road, Raven laid across the back seat, blood soaking dark into the leather beneath her.“I need a trauma team ready.” My voice comes out steadier than I feel. “Female, twenty-eight weeks pregnant, hit by a vehicle. Five minutes out.”“Sir, can you confirm her condition, is she conscious, is she breathing—”“Just have them ready.” I hang up before the voice on the other end can ask anything else, eyes flicking constantly to the mirror, checking the rise and fall of her chest.“Stay with me,” I say, to no one, to her, to whatever’s still listening. “You hear me? Stay with me.”Every light between the cemetery and the hospital gets run. My foot stays flat against the pedal, one hand braced back against the seat on every turn, trying to keep her from sliding.The staff are already outside when I stop the car, pulling the door open, lifting her onto a stretcher with careful, practiced hands. An oxygen mask goes over
ROMANRaven is still a little red around the eyes when she reaches me, holding herself with that particular dignity she’s always worn like armor, the kind that doesn’t ask to be acknowledged.“You okay?” I ask.“More than okay.” And she means it. I can always tell.I open the door for her, watch her settle inside, and close it gently. Then I turn back toward the graves and walk the last stretch alone, back to Mario.“Hey, buddy.” My voice comes out rougher than I intend. “It’s been a while.”The quiet here has always felt less like absence and more like attention, the way Mario used to listen even when he wasn’t saying anything. Nothing about that has changed.“I stopped coming,” I tell him. “Told myself it was timing, then kept finding reasons to put it off. Truth is I couldn’t face you. Not after what happened between me and your daughter.”I say it plainly, because there’s no version of this conversation where I get to soften it.“I know exactly what that looks like from w
RAVENI sit at the kitchen island, eating cornflakes straight from the box because I know it will annoy someone eventually, and right now that feels like the only power I have left.The house is quiet. Too quiet. Roman left for the office hours ago without saying a word to me. Vivienne is out there
RomanI find Marcus in my study, standing by the window with his back to the door, trying very hard to look like a man who has been patiently waiting and not at all like a man who walked in on something he wishes he could unsee.“Marcus, I—”“I didn’t see anything.” He says it quickly, still facing
RavenI can’t hide my joy about the postponement.Even though I should, even though Jack is barely cold and his family is planning his funeral, I should be drowning in grief.But all I feel is satisfaction.The wedding is postponed, Vivienne is furious, and for the first time, Roman chose to protec
Raven I was having a wet dream. Again. This time I was grinding my soaked pussy on something very solid. It felt good. So good. Better than anything I managed on my own. Not until I woke up. The realization hit me slow, the way sleep peels away in layers; first the warmth, then the frict







