All Chapters of Wild Enough To Heal: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

POV: Kai"I've got her! Somebody move!"A girl in a black server's uniform catches Haley under the shoulders before she hits the floor. A tray goes over behind them and glass skids across the marble floor. Nobody looks at it.I've been standing four steps away for what feels like a full minute, and I know exactly what that looked like. Two hundred people watched me stand there. Someone near the bar raises a phone, and soon others are doing the same. My father hasn't moved, his glass still in his hand.I push my way through the crowd towards her."Is she breathing?""I think so." The girl's hands are against Haley's ribs. "It's shallow. She was going for something in her bag, I saw her, she couldn't...""Give her to me.""Sir, maybe you shouldn't...""Give her to me."She does. Haley's lighter than I thought she'd be, her head rolling against my arm, a hairpin hanging loose behind her ear. The cameras start before I see them, a sound first. Click, click, click."She dropped this." The g

POV: KaiBy six in the morning I've given up on sleeping. The suit is still on me, the jacket stiff where Haley's weight sat against it. I reach into the inside pocket for my keys, and something catches against my fingers. Her hairpin.It was four steps. I stood there and counted them while she went down, too busy keeping up the act we'd agreed to put on for my father.Nobody in that house called me in the night, not even to ask whether she was alive. It tells me what my father thinks he's already won. I drive to the tower knowing exactly what I'm prepared to give him, and what he isn't getting in return.The elevator opens on the top floor and his assistant is on her feet before I reach her desk, saying my name, saying he's in a meeting. I walk past her and open his door.He's alone, signing something. The folder he'd given Haley lies on the corner of his desk, and he doesn't move it when he looks up."I'll take the position," I say.He caps his pen. I wait for the smile, the line abo

POV: HaleyKai's grip stays in my hair, saying everything his mouth isn't. My breath is still caught somewhere between us, our noses brushing against each other.My heart is beating so hard it hurts.Part of me is waiting for him to close the distance. The other part is terrified he will.Then he says it."Haley." His voice breaks the inch between us, and he pulls his hand out of my hair like it costs him something. He stands too fast, putting the whole room between his body and mine before either of us can close the distance again. "I shouldn't have—"His phone rings, loud and wrong in the silence he just made, cutting through whatever the rest of that sentence was going to be.He looks at the screen and something in his face changes before he even answers."This is Kai." A pause. His hand tightens around the phone. "Yes. I understand." Another pause, longer. "Tomorrow morning. Yes. We'll be there."He hangs up and stands there, phone still in his hand, staring at nothing."They foun

POV: KaiBy the third day, my father has an answer for everything, and it's the same answer every time."I'm fine. Truly." He says it to the reporters camped outside our gates, to the board members calling every hour, to my mother when she asks him something as simple as whether he slept. "My people handled it. The men responsible are in custody. We're closing this chapter as a family."He says it so smoothly it almost convinces me too.The press conference happens on the fourth day, cameras lined up along our driveway, my father in a suit like nothing happened, like there isn't still a healing cut above his eyebrow he's covered with concealer for the cameras."I want to thank the authorities and my own security team for their swift work in resolving this," he says, like he's practiced every word before saying it. "Several individuals have been apprehended and handed over to the proper authorities. My family and I are simply grateful to be whole again."Reporters shout questions he do

POV: HaleyDr. Reeves is already standing when I walk in, which isn't like her."Haley." She gestures to the man beside her, mid-forties, reading glasses pushed up into greying hair. "This is Dr. Okafor, the specialist I told you about. It's taken longer than I wanted to get him in front of you, and I'm sorry for that.""It's fine.""I'll let him take it from here." She squeezes my shoulder once on her way out, and that alone tells me something about what's coming.Dr. Okafor sits across from me and opens a folder without rushing."I want to start with your family history, since I'm coming into this without the years of context Dr. Reeves has." He glances up. "Your father passed from the same condition, is that right?""Yes.""And your mother, is she someone we should be reaching out to for additional history? Sometimes maternal lines carry relevant markers even in paternally-presenting cases.""She hasn't been part of my life in years." I keep my voice even. "There's nothing she coul