LOGINShare
Chapter Twenty-Six: Whoever Gets To Stay
publish date:
2026-07-31 01:41:26
Latest chapter
Wild Enough To Heal Chapter Twenty-Seven: Her Mother's Name
POV: KaiMy father doesn't raise his voice. That's how I know it's bad."You skipped the follow-up. Fourteen hours after closing the biggest deal of the quarter, and you skipped it.""I had a reason.""I don't care about your reason." He straightens a stack of papers on his desk that doesn't need straightening. "Your cousin Damian would've been on that call. He'd have handled the fallout, smoothed it over, made it look intentional. You made me look like I can't control my own son.""Haley collapsed. She was in the hospital.""And that's your problem how, exactly?" He looks at me for the first time since I walked in. "She has a boyfriend. She has a family. What she doesn't have is any claim on your time when I need you somewhere else."I don't answer that, because there's no version of the answer that won't make this worse."I need something from you," I say instead. "There's a woman, Renata Hughes. Used to work Haley's medical practice, handled her family's records for years, disappea
Wild Enough To Heal Chapter Twenty-Six: Whoever Gets To Stay
POV: Haley"Let go of her hand."Nathan says it again, quieter this time, like the volume was the only thing wrong with it the first time.Kai still doesn't move his hand from mine, his eyes fixed on me the whole time."Haley." The word comes out rough. "What exactly did he say?""The DNA doesn't match."I hear myself answer it the same way I have three times already, like repeating it might eventually make it sound less impossible."They ran it twice and it came back the same both times."Kai's grip tightens slightly around my hand before he catches himself and loosens it again."No."It's quiet. Automatic.The kind of answer people give before they've actually processed what they've heard."They're checking again, right?"I shake my head.For a second it looks like he's zoning out until he drags a hand over his face."Jesus, Haley."I don't think I've ever heard him sound helpless before.Nathan shifts beside the bed."Kai."I pull my hand back before either of them can turn this in
Wild Enough To Heal Chapter Twenty-Five: Run It Again
POV: HaleyNathan reads it over my shoulder before I can stop him. I feel him go still, and then the phone's out of my hand, the stream cut without a word."Nathan—""Later." He sets it face down on the tray table like it might start talking on its own. "Right now I just need you to breathe."I don't answer him, because I'm still turning the sentence over, the way you press a bruise just to check it's still there.A summer she went missing.I don't have a summer like that. I've had every summer of my life accounted for, and now some stranger with no face is telling me there's a hole in it I never noticed."It's probably nothing," Nathan says. "People online say things for attention.""Then why does it feel like something?"He doesn't have an answer, and before either of us can find one, there's a knock, and Dr. Okafor comes in with a folder tucked against his side, closing the door behind him.---He pulls the chair closer to the bed and sets the folder on his knee without opening it.
Wild Enough To Heal Chapter Twenty-Four: I Don't Remember
POV: NathanI get both arms under her before she hits the floor, and I'm already saying her name before I've even processed what's happening."Haley. Hey. Look at me."Nothing.My fingers find her pulse the same place they did last time, and I hold onto counting it because it gives my hands something to do besides shake.Avriel's already talking to the dispatcher, address repeated twice, voice pitched higher than I've ever heard it. Someone's cleared the folding tables out of the way. Someone else has turned the music off, and the silence that's left behind makes everything feel louder than it should.The paramedics come through the double doors nine minutes later. It feels longer."She has a heart condition." I say, before they even ask. "Her doctor is Reeves at Whitmore General. There's a specialist too—Okafor. I can get you numbers if you need them.""Good. That's good, keep going." One of them's already got a cuff around her arm, the other lifting her eyelids one at a time with a s
Wild Enough To Heal Chapter Twenty-Three: What the Body Remembers
POV: Haley"I'm not actually.""Huh?" Nathan's brow pulls together. "Not what?"I stop walking and look at him, and something in me scrambles for a way out of the sentence I just let slip."Nothing," I say too fast, forcing a smile. "I was talking about the birthday."Kai's voice is still coming through the phone, small and tinny. "Haley? What's wrong?""Alright, Kai. Sure, I will.""Haley? Haley." Hearing my name from him does something awful to me."Bye." I hang up and hand the phone back to Nathan before Kai can say anything else, my smile still fixed in place.Nathan takes it, gives me a look I can't quite read, but doesn't push.We keep walking, and somewhere around the corner his mood shifts into something lighter, talking about an apartment he wants us to look at someday, a balcony big enough for actual furniture, how he pictures us five years from now, still arguing over whose turn it is to do dishes.I nod along. I don't hear most of it.---My phone is dry the next morning.
Wild Enough To Heal Chapter Twenty-Two: The Whole Day Trying
POV: HaleyI wake up before Nathan does, sunlight already cutting through the blinds, and for a few seconds none of it exists. Not the proposal. Not the way I answered it.Then I remember exactly how fast I changed the subject.Nathan stirs beside me, one arm still slung over my waist, and I lie there watching the ceiling until he wakes up properly."Good morning." His voice is thick with sleep."Morning."He doesn't bring it up. Neither do I.We get through breakfast, get through him checking his phone twice for something architecture-related, and it's easy enough to let the morning carry us somewhere else, until he says it anyway."About last night." He sets his mug down. "You don't have to answer right now if you're not ready.""I think we should focus on school first." I say it faster than I mean to. "You've got real shine right now in the program. Everyone's talking about your last project. This can wait.""Architecture can wait. The opportunities will always be there." He looks a
You may also like
Her Accidental Billionaire Husband
Lexusstar writes690.7K viewsOne night stand with a Billionaire
Pixiepiu785.4K viewsHIRED AS A BILLIONAIRE'S WIFE
Rossy692.1K viewsShe Accepted Divorce, He Panicked
Nyx Rai734.2K viewsFilthy Forbidden Obedience
SugarBabe 38 viewsHATE OR LOVE: Devils In Obsession
Ama26 viewsThe Second Chance He Didn't Deserve
Matsiwe2934 viewsThe billionaire I wasn't supposed to love
Nessy writes44 views
