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I pry one eye open and spot Carter sitting opposite me in the middle of an ambulance. He’s got blood on his collar, and his hands are cold and covered with dirt. I open my mouth to speak and end up sputtering instead. There’s a loud beeping sound somewhere to my left, and two pairs of hands start poking and prodding. Then there’s a loud ripping sound, and I hear Carter’s familiar growl.
His grip on my hands tightens. Then, Carter presses his mouth to my ear, but I can’t make out anything.
Am I dreaming? Have I somehow ended up in heaven rather than hell, where I belong?
Carter touches his lips to my forehead, and I inhale sharply. When I release my breath, he’s leaning back, but I can still feel his hands entangled with mine. I cling to them as the darkness beckons, promising oblivion in its sweet embrace. Something sharp pinches my skin, and I cry out, my body jerking in response. Carter says something else, but even though my lips are moving, I can’t hear anything.
Little by little, my body grows heavy.
My eyes fly open, and I focus on Carter’s handsome face, the last thing I see before I lose consciousness again.
***
Carter
“I don’t give a shit how you make the logistics work,” I growl into the phone. “As long as you do your fucking jobs.”
Without waiting for a response, I hang up and clench my hands into fists. My heart thuds painfully against my chest, and I’m all too aware of the smell of disinfectant and the sound of monitors beeping in the distance, but none of it matters.
Nothing matters when it’s been an hour since Isabella was wheeled in.
An hour of me pacing and taking my anger out on a wall in the middle of an empty floor in the midst of renovations. Although several of the hospital staff tried to deter me from coming up here, one look at my face told them everything they needed to know about me. And why getting in my way right now wasn’t a good idea.
I’m so wound up that I feel like I’m going to combust.
If I don’t do something, anything to release the anger, the unsuspecting hospital staff is going to feel the full brunt of my anger. Still, as I continue to stand in the middle of the empty floor, with a tarp covering one half and tools scattered all over, I take several deep breaths.
And I try to remind myself of what Isabella would want me to do.
Somehow, miraculously, she’s still here, and I know she wouldn’t want me giving into my baser and more irrational impulses. Not when it comes to people who have done nothing wrong. As far as logic goes, I know she’s right.
All the hospital staff has done wrong is being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
But it’s not their fault I was helping to load Tristan into the back of an SUV when I heard the ambulance, and it’s not their fault that I recognized Rich’s car as Ernesto raced past in the opposite direction. Having Ernesto pull to the side of the road while I stumbled out wasn’t the smartest choice, in retrospect, but I’d recognize the color anywhere.
I’d been filled with so much rage and white-hot vengeance that it took me a while to realize the car was wrapped around a tree and even longer to recognize Isabella’s petite frame being wheeled away on a gurney. After that, my heart stopped for a full minute as I scrambled over to where Isabella was, panic and fear clawing their way through me.
I don’t remember anything else after that. Everything is a blur of shapes and colors that I don’t want to analyze.
I don’t realize I’m pacing until I stop in front of a large window overlooking the crowded parking lot. Even from where I stand, I can make out Anita’s tall frame, wisps of hair billowing behind her. Ernesto, Sam, and Paul follow in her wake, wearing identical shell-shocked expressions. I wheel around, cross over to the door, and take the stairs two at a time.
On my way past, I shove past doctors and nurses in scrubs who give me angry looks.
On the third floor, I run right into Paul, whose hands dart out to steady me. When I blink, Anita pulls me into a hug and buries her face in the crook of my neck. I freeze, and for the longest moment, I have no idea how to react.
Or if anything is even real.
I snap back to reality when Anita draws back and looks at me with bloodshot eyes. “We came as soon as we could. How is Isabella?”
“She’s in surgery,” I say in a strange voice. I pause to clear my throat and look over at Paul. “Tristan is still in surgery, too. I haven’t been able to find out much about either of them.”
And it’s not for a lack of trying, either. No amount of threats or pleading have yielded any results.
At least not the ones I want. And I can’t help but feel like it’s my fault.
Two of the most important people in the world to me are lying on operating tables because I let my guard down. Because I told myself that I was smarter than Rich.
How could I have let myself believe he’d play fair?
