Losing Control : His Madness, His Cure Chapter 254

There was no way they were going to let me see Xander at that hour....but there was no way in hell I could wait until eight, or whatever time they decided human connection was acceptable again. I stood outside the hospital, staring up at the building as if it were some towering thing with teeth. This hulking, fluorescent-lit beast that was hiding the only person I had left and daring me to go inside. Every window looked like an eye. Every shadow felt like something waiting to drag me back into the worst parts of myself.

Eventually, I took out my phone, hands shaking, and dialed Layla.

She answered confused, sleepy, and instantly pissed on Xander’s behalf. Then her voice snapped awake, worried, asking if he was okay. I told her he was, then I told her I needed a favor.

I asked her to check if Rowan was around, if he could help me get in to see Xander. I expected her to chew me out, to tell me to wait until morning, to ask if I even knew what time it was. But she didn’t. She just said okay, she’d check. And I thanked her....not just for this, but for the other time she’d asked Rowan to help me without me even asking.

Luckily, Rowan was around. Hesitant as hell, but Layla somehow convinced him. She told me to go to Xander’s floor, that he'd find me there. Then she slipped into that serious tone, and told me if I was planning on breaking Xander’s heart, if I was going there to hurt him....then I should turn around and go home.

I told her I wasn’t.

And then I went inside. I made it through the lobby. Made it into the elevator. Made it down the hall that felt a mile long, heart pounding like I’d run through every nightmare I’d ever had just to get to him.

I waited about fifteen minutes before Rowan showed up with a giant cup of coffee, but it felt like an hour trapped inside a body that didn’t want to be here. Hospitals had always been the worst kind of battlefield for me, soaked with memories I never healed right from. The last two times I walked halls like these years ago, I walked out empty. People I loved never made it past the doors. Parts of me didn’t either.

But I kept forcing myself forward, kept my mind chained to one thing, one person. Him.

Rowan stopped in front of me, gave me a slow, dissecting look. He asked what happened, told me I needed to get checked out. I muttered that I was fine, even though “fine” was a total lie. He shook his head and started down the hall, and I followed because I didn’t have any other choice anymore.

He said it would be harder this time, and it was. But apparently everyone here knew exactly how badly Xander wanted to see me, because eventually they caved. Rowan wrangled twenty minutes for me. Twenty minutes that depended entirely on whether Xander actually wanted to look at me.

And now I’m here.

Standing outside his room with Rowan while the nurse checks on him. She says he’s sleeping when she walks in. I can’t make myself breathe right. Rowan nods at the hand pressed against my ribs and tells me that if I decide I want to get looked at, I should tell the nurse to page him. I don’t answer.

The nurse steps out a minute later and gives me a soft nod. “Go ahead. Twenty minutes. Don’t stress the patient.” Then she turns to Rowan and tells him he owes her big. He says something charming in return, I barely hear it. Everything inside me is shaking too hard.

My hand stops moving. Just stalls there on the door.

“You’re down three minutes,” Rowan murmurs before walking away.

I swallow, heart pounding, then I push the door open.

Xander’s already awake. Sitting up. Watching the doorway like he’d been waiting, aching, for this moment the same way I have. His eyes catch mine the second I step inside. His gaze is raw, unguarded, and I swear it punches through everything I’ve been holding onto. There’s something in the way he sits, slightly forward, as if the air between us is pulling him closer, that makes my chest constrict. His hands rest on the edge of the bed, fingers gripping like he’s trying to ground himself, but they tremble just enough to betray how much he wants me here.

His mouth parts slightly, but no words come. It’s all in the tilt of his head, the quiver of his jaw, the silent, desperate urgency radiating from his body.

I can’t speak either. I just watch. Time stretches, and every scar and promise and fragile hope is suspended in the trembling, shattering silence.

I’d had the hood on when I first got here, pulled low like it could hide the truth of me. But I took it off outside, figured there was no point pretending. He was going to see, one way or another. And now, his eyes move over the bruises, the cuts, the swelling along my cheekbone. He doesn’t look away, he never does. But something in his face tightens. Softens. Sharpens. It’s everything at once, like he’s starving for me and terrified of what he’s seeing.

And for the first time, I feel something like regret twist low in my gut. Shame, too. Because maybe I didn’t slam my head intentionally against anything. Maybe I didn’t throw myself at the ground on purpose. But the truth is ugly....the wounds are still self‑inflicted. I’m the one who went searching for them. I’m the one who didn’t care what happened to me until it was too late to stop it.

I force myself to stand still, to let him look, even though every second of it feels like it’s tearing me apart. Then his eyes lift to mine again, and he quietly asks, “Are you okay?”

Of course he does. Xander always puts me first, even when he has every right not to. I look at him, and everything in me pulls in two different directions. One part of me aching to cross the room, to get close enough to breathe him in, to feel anchored again, and the other part desperate to turn around and get the hell out. Both urges slam against each other so hard it feels like my ribs are going to crack from the pressure.

He watches me, just waiting for an answer I can barely form. I shake my head a little, because he deserves something. Because he asked. Because he always asks.

“No,” I manage, the word scraping out of me. “I don’t think I am.”