Losing Control : His Madness, His Cure Chapter 240

My legs feel like they don’t belong to me.

Like they’re moving through water, or mud, or something thick and heavy that’s trying to pull me back under. I push off the wall, using it for balance, my palm dragging along the cold paint as I take one step, then another. My vision keeps dipping in and out, and for a second, I think I might pass out. But I keep moving. I don’t even know where the hell I’m going. I just know I need to get away. Away from the sound of machines. Away from the smell. Away from the thought of Xander lying behind those doors, still and fragile.

Someone calls my name, it's muffled and distant.

“Jax!”

It's Adam, but I don’t look back. If I do, I’ll stop. And if I stop, I’ll fall apart. My shoulder brushes against another wall as I round the corner, barely seeing where I’m going. The lights are too bright. My chest hurts. My body’s shaking. Then suddenly he’s there, standing right in front of me.

He grabs my arm, steadying me. His voice is firm but not harsh. “You need to be here, Jax.”

I shake my head, trying to pull free, but my knees buckle and I have to catch myself on the wall again.

“I can’t,” I whisper. “I can’t....”

“Yes, you can,” he cuts in, his grip tightening on my shoulder. “You need to keep it together, you hear me? For Xander.”

I can’t answer. My throat burns too much for words. My body feels empty and full all at once.

Adam’s gaze shifts, his expression changes, something flickering behind his eyes. Then he looks past me, toward the hallway. He squeezes my shoulder once, hard enough to pull me back into my body.

“The doctor’s out,” he says quietly.

And just like that, every sound seems to vanish. The air turns thin and my pulse stops.

I swallow hard, eyes squeezing shut like that’ll steady me. It doesn’t. I step around the corner anyway, one hand finding the wall for balance as I take in the man in scrubs. His face is calm in that practiced way....too calm. Adam moves first, his voice tight.

“How is he?”

The doctor exhales slowly before answering. “He’s stable for now,” he says, and that phrase alone makes something in my chest loosen, just barely. Then he adds, “But he’s not out of the woods yet.”

He looks up, meeting Adam’s eyes first, then, as if he can sense my despair, turns to me. “He sustained a punctured lung from one of the ribs. The trauma caused a small amount of internal bleeding, which we’ve managed, and we’ve placed a chest tube to allow the lung to re-expand and drain any air or fluid.”

My fingers dig into the wall. The words sound clinical and detached, but they paint an image that makes my stomach twist. Adam nods, listening intently.The doctor continues “He’s stable for now, meaning his vital signs are within safe limits, and the bleeding has been controlled. But we’ll need to monitor him closely over the next twenty-four hours. He’s sedated and resting, which is best for him right now.”

“Can we see him?” Adam asks, voice strained.

The doctor shakes his head. “Not yet. He needs uninterrupted recovery, and it’s too soon for visitors. I know it’s hard, but we’ll let you know the moment it’s safe. For now, he’s in the best hands, and he needs you to stay calm.”

All those words mean he’s still alive, but that he could still be taken away.

I shift my gaze down to the bracelet on my wrist, to the faint indentations it’s left in my skin. It feels heavier somehow, like it’s pulling at the raw ache in my chest. Maybe this is one of those nightmares that have been tormenting me lately, one of the ones where reality warps. Maybe I'll jolt awake and find Xander next to me, like none of this ever happened. It can’t be real, this can’t be happening.

Adam walks over to me again, his presence slightly grounding. His voice carries a hint of hope through the clinical edges. “He’s stable. That’s the best news we can have right now. The doctors are monitoring him closely, but he’s holding on.”

I don’t respond, don’t even move.

He gently guides me over to one of the chairs by the wall to sit before settling next to me. He calls Layla over and, once she’s near, pulls her down beside him, wrapping an arm around her shoulders.

“You’ll get to see him as soon as he’s stable enough,” he adds, voice even but infused with an unspoken promise.

I nod slightly, barely breathing, still staring at the bracelet, still imagining the worst.

At some point, my gaze flicks up, and I notice a middle-aged woman sliding into the chair across from me. Her hands are clasped tightly around a worn rosary, fingers moving over the beads almost mechanically, whispering prayers I can’t quite make out. The sound is soft, but it feels like a knife twisting in my chest.

I can’t look away. I focus on her hands, the little cross swinging lightly as she mutters again. And the fury rises...sharp, bitter and impossible to hold down. My teeth grind together almost without realizing it, and I can feel my jaw ache from it.

I want to scream, to shake the world itself. And in that heat, that unbearable knot of fear and anger, I wonder.... If God is real, what the fuck did I do to deserve this? What did I do to make him drag me through this kind of hell?

And then I realize I’m speaking to him, even though my lips don't move. Even though I don’t know if he exists, even though I’ve long stopped believing in the fairness of any higher power. “Please.... just give him back to me,” I plead, focusing on the cross.

The hours after that pass in a haze. I don’t even know how long I sit there. Minutes, hours, some distorted amalgamation of both. I’m trapped somewhere between time and nothing at all.

A nurse finally approaches, clipboard in hand, her voice polite but firm. “You should head home, come back tomorrow. You won’t be able to see him today.”

I blink at her, incredulous. The words barely register at first. Then they do. And everything inside me snaps. How dare they keep him from me? How dare she tell me to leave, when the only reason my heart even bothers to beat anymore is in this building, in that room, in that goddamn bed with him lying on it, broken and bleeding and alive?

I lean back against the wall, the cold press of it digging into my spine. My phone buzzes, sharp against my thigh. I glance down, trembling fingers swiping the screen. Xander’s mum. My chest tightens before I even read the words.

*‘We're boarding a flight’* she texts. My stomach drops. Then the next line, *‘Hang in there, it's going to be okay. He's strong and you've got him, so just hold on.’*

I let out a sharp, strangled breath, lips parting like I can’t hold it inside. The sound echoes against the walls. My eyes fall on the wallpaper, the photo of us plastered across it, and somehow it’s like it’s mocking me. The frozen memory presses the ache even deeper, carving the emptiness into my ribs.

I curl my fingers into fists, the nails biting into my palms, trying to contain the torrent. But it doesn’t work. And still, I wait. Because even here, even in this place that makes me feel small and powerless, my heart is tethered to him.

Always him.

Always Xander....