I was an inconsolable sobbing mess for the first two hours at the hospital. I'd made a spectacular scene, blasting through the sliding doors at the emergency entrance, startling the hell out of waiting patients, and screaming and demanding that doctors tend to Joey right that second.

Medical personnel had rushed into the waiting room with a gurney as Brad was carrying Joey's unconscious body into the E.R. I heard sounds of shock and horror from people in the waiting area when they saw what the emergency was.

As the staff hurried toward the operating room, I tried to follow, begging to stay by Joey's side, but nurses had to restrain me and explain to me why I wasn't allowed to go with him. It felt like even more of a kick in the gut that they did let Brad tag along, though. I understood why. He was in uniform and cops were allowed to stick with the emergency staff to a certain point. They wanted to hear from him what had happened. But after the hell that Brad had put us through, it was hard for me to look passed his betrayal, and I hated that he was allowed to be with Joey for the few extra minutes that I wasn't. Even once the nurses let go of me, I waited for them to walk away and made a beeline in the direction they'd taken Joey. I knew I wouldn't get very far before they'd restrain me again, but I was beyond listening to reason at that point. The man I loved was potentially going to die and I couldn't be by his side.

I'd raced down the hall with nurses and assistants chasing after me. I didn't have the slightest clue where the O.R. was, but I was damn well determined to find it! Even if they'd let me wait on the other side of the operating room where I could look through the glass, I'd settle for that. Why couldn't I have that? That didn't sound like asking too much.

Before anyone else could catch me, I'd skidded around the corner and plowed right into Brad's chest. He was on his way back to the waiting area.

"Shh. Shh. It's alright," he'd tried to console me, holding me against him. "It's okay, Jess. He's with the doctors. They're taking care of him."

"I need to see him!" I'd wailed, fighting to get out of his grasp. "Let me see him!"

The nurses standing by exchanged sympathetic looks with Brad, who was trying his best to calm me down. I wriggled out of his embrace and slid to the floor in a bawling heap, hugging my legs to my chest and burying my face where no one could see my bloodshot, puffy eyes and my nearly purple complexion.

I continued to scream and cry, the noise somewhat muffled by keeping my head down. Brad took a seat on the cold tile beside me and slung an arm over my shoulders, tugging me against his side. But there was nothing he could do to help me relax. My blood pressure was through the roof and my logic was orbiting another planet. I wasn't going to listen to anyone.

Several hospital employees attempted to get me back to the waiting room, but I wouldn't get up. I couldn't. Every muscle in my body felt like jelly and the room spun every time I looked up at someone.

"Is he going to die?" I kept asking anyone who tried to speak to me, but no one could give me an answer.

Everyone's sad faces and compassionate looks started to wear on my nerves after a while, and I'd started lashing out at anyone who dared to look at me like I was a helpless little girl. I'd begun dishing out insults, gasping in between words, unable to control my breathing.

Brad tried to help me to my feet, but I wasn't ready to let him be there for me. He was the last person who should be caring for me. But I was too weak to run anymore. I could only lean into him and sob into his shirt. I beat my fist against his chest, but it didn't even faze him. He was as solid as a brick wall.

Eventually, I acquired my own gurney, being wheeled into my own hospital room. A doctor had tried to talk to me about what was wrong with me, but all I did was demand answers from him about Joey's condition, which he couldn't tell me anything about. He finally gave up and had a nurse give me an I.V. with something to calm my nerves. When that didn't work, they resorted to sedation.

The last thing I saw before I fell asleep was the same thing I saw when I woke up two hours later: Brad sitting in the chair beside my hospital bed; a gloomy look on his face.

"How long was I out?" I mumbled, surprised at the hoarseness of my voice.

Brad handed me a plastic cup of water and I eagerly gulped it down, repeatedly clearing my throat and swallowing until it didn't feel scratchy anymore.

"A couple hours," he said softly. "How do you feel?"

How do I feel? I feel like fucking hell, you idiot!

I rubbed my temples, squeezing my eyes shut. "Like I got hit on the head with a sledgehammer."

He slowly nodded, staring at the floor. "I feel your pain."

My brows shot up to my hairline and I sat straight up, glaring at him like I could make him drop dead if I focused hard enough.

"You feel my pain?" My voice was a dark, dangerous tone that even surprised Brad.

"I mean... I underst-"

"Don't finish that sentence," I snapped. "You have no fucking idea how I feel. You can't begin to imagine all the bullshit that I have gone through these last couple weeks. All the pain and suffering and humiliation. All the heartache and having to live like I could be killed any fucking minute. You have no idea what that's like! You have no idea how it feels to be hunted by people you don't know for something that you have no control over and never wanted in the first place!"

"Jess, let me-"

"Explain?" I scoffed and crossed my arms in expectation. "By all means, Brad, please explain to me how the fuck you could stab your own partner in the back like that! He's never been anything but loyal to you! He didn't deserve any of the shit he's had to go through! How can you ever expect him to forgive you for this?"

Brad stood up and leisurely wandered back and forth around the room with his head down. He looked ashamed. He looked guilty. He looked heartbroken, even. I knew he felt terrible for the role he'd played in Mike's game, but it was going to take a long time and a lot of effort for him to regain anyone's trust, much less earn forgiveness.

"You could've prevented this, ya know?" I continued to lecture him as he sulked. "If you'd just done the right thing when we were at the courthouse, you could've kept all this from happening."

"I know," he said in almost a whisper. "I know, Jess. And I'm-"

"Sorry? Yeah. I heard. You're going to have to do a lot better than that."

Brad suddenly spun around and threw a punch at the wall that knocked off a hanging painting and seemingly vibrated the entire room. He leaned against the wall, pressing his forehead against it, and closed his eyes like he was trying to suppress tears.

"If you hadn't handed me over to Mike's men, we wouldn't have gone to Cape Cod," I muttered, studying his stance. "If you'd just-"

"If I'd just grown a goddamn pair of balls and resisted temptation and threats, Joey wouldn't have gotten shot!" Brad's voice boomed and echoed through the air. "I know, damnit! I know!"

A nurse in blue scrubs bolted through the door in a panic. "Is everything alright in here?"

She looked around the room and stared at both of us like she was searching for a bomb or something.

"Peachy," I fumed. "Just peachy."

"I'm sorry, ma'am," Brad said to her, raking his fingers through his disheveled hair. "We're just going through a lot right now and tempers are flared. We'll try to keep it down."

The woman shook her finger at us like she was a lecturing teacher and we were kindergarteners. "See that you do. I have patients who do not need to be subjected to this. I don't need anyone causing a stir."

"We're sorry," he said, and she scurried out of the room.

Brad and I stared each other down for a solid minute until he finally broke eye contact and asked if I wanted more water. I didn't, but I was tired of being around him, so I sent him to fetch me water and a sandwich from the cafeteria just so I wouldn't have to look at him for a little while.

While Brad was gone, I punched the call button and the same strict nurse returned to see what I needed. She was crabby at first, but after I explained to her what the fuss had been about, her attitude changed. I told her about Joey and the state he'd been in the last time I'd seen him. She understood how much he meant to me and I could even see her eyes get watery at some of the things I said. She knew I needed answers or I was going to lose my mind.

Despite the fact that I was clearly not family, the nurse was kind enough to agree to update me on Joey's condition. I realized she'd been one of the people I'd spat insults at when I'd been out of my mind earlier, and I started to give her a lengthy apology. To my surprise, she pulled me into a comforting hug – the kind of hug my grandma would give me – and told me everything was going to be alright. She'd just left when Brad sauntered back into the room.

"They had turkey and cheddar or ham and Swiss. I guessed," he said, handing me the turkey sandwich and sitting back down.

"You guessed right." I would've picked turkey.

Brad had grabbed a late lunch for himself, too, and we sat in silence, eating and occasionally making awkward eye contact.

I started to get lost in thought. I was thinking about Joey. The time I'd spent with him, all the times he'd saved my life, the way he kissed me... I remembered the horrible things I'd said to him the night before when I'd walked out. I felt so guilty now. I never should've accused him of not caring about me. I knew I was more than just work to him. I knew it. But I'd been too pissed off to accept it in the heat of the moment. I owed Joey a massive apology, but now I wondered if I'd ever get the chance to say it. What if he was dead already? What if he hadn't made it through surgery? What if I never got to see his sparkling blue eyes or hear his knee-weakening laugh again? What if I never got to kiss him again?

I prayed that that nurse would come back like she promised, but I wasn't sure I was ready to hear what she had to say.

"Brad?" I sighed, slouching back in the bed. "I have some questions I need answers to."

There were still so many things I needed to know. I would've preferred to hear them from Joey, but right now my options were limited.

"Okay."

"While we were on the run, I called one of my coworkers, Heather," I began. "She knew a little bit about what was going on, but she's never given me a reason to doubt trusting her. Not long after, my other coworker, Samantha, called my burner phone. I want to know how she got the number. I don't think Heather would've given it to her. And something about the way Sam talked to me just didn't seem right."

"What do you mean?" Brad leaned forward in the chair with an inquisitive frown.

"I just think it's too much of a coincidence," I told him. "I didn't tell Joey, though. Now I wish I had."

He nodded. "Okay. I can look into it."

"That's not all," I continued. "The morning we were headed to Boston, we were ambushed at a car lot by Mike's men. There were two black SUVs when they were looking for us at the motel, but when they spotted us at Marty's Car Mart, only one pursued us. I want to know who was in the other SUV and what happened to them."

Brad's frown had deepened and he looked like he was drowning in confusion, himself. "I'll see what I can find out, but I can't guarantee anything, Jess. I'm sure there's security footage that picked them up somewhere, but I can't tell you if it'll for sure lead to anything."

I nodded, picking at my fingernails. "I know. But I still want you to try."

"Sure. Anything else?"

I went on to quiz Brad about the file I'd found in Joey's nightstand drawer. Brad claimed to know nothing about it, but he said the authorities had likely found it already. He'd called in the shooting on his radio during our race to the hospital. No doubt, the beach house was crawling with investigators. He also told me that the detectives would want to talk to me.

My next question was regarding the strange call to my burner phone the day Joey and I were leaving Westfield. Joey had answered it and never told me what the caller had said.

"When I looked up the number, it was Fairytale Weddings, my aunt's business," I explained. "But Joey didn't want me seeing it, for some reason. I wrote it down before he deleted it from my call log, but somewhere in the commotion, I lost the paper I wrote it on. Regardless, I know where the call came from. Now I want to know who the caller was and what they wanted."

"I think you'd have to ask Joey about that since he's the one who answered it."

I shook my head. "That's not an option right now since I don't know his condition."

Brad had taken out his notepad and made a list of all the questions I wanted answers to. By the time I finished my inquisition, it was nearly evening and I was starting to realize just how exhausted my body was. I'd been through so many back-to-back days of constantly looking over my shoulder for a murderer, and now that I was finally able to breathe a sigh of relief, it was like my body didn't know what to do with itself.

"I'll see what I can do," Brad told me, getting ready to leave for the night. "Just so you know, now that my superiors know what I did, I'm probably going to jail for a while. If I can't get you some answers before they arrest me, I'll have someone take over for me in looking into everything."

"Is this your way of trying to make up for what you did wrong?" I asked quietly, looking up at his solemn expression.

He tapped the notepad against his thigh, leaning against the doorframe. "Nothing I can do can make up for that."

With that, he was gone.

I stared at the blank, sterile room. There was a small TV in the corner, but the remote was too far to reach. The silence was becoming deafening. I looked down at the tiny needle in my arm that was feeding hydration into my body. I felt hydrated. I didn't need it anymore. It would probably piss off the nurses, but I didn't care. I ripped off the tape and pulled the needle out, leaving it hanging from the drip bag. Now I could try to get comfortable, if that was possible. I rolled onto my side and hugged the pillow, trying to get situated. I didn't know how long I was expected to stay there or when I might see the doctor again. I decided I may as well get some extra rest while I had the opportunity.

A knock sounded at the door and the nurse, Melissa, had returned. She had an empathic look in her eyes. I sat up straight as a board, both anxious and terrified to hear what she had to say.

"Did you find out anything? Is he okay? Is he-"

"He wants to see you."