Nothing.
Shitshitshit. Fuckityfuck!
I start compressions. Hard. Fast. Just like the CPR course taught me. Give her the kiss of life. Keep going. Keep going.
My arms burn. My lungs ache. Still, I breathe for her.
Come back, come back, please.
Finally, a gasp. A cough. Water sprays from her mouth and she chokes, but she breathes.
Her eyes stay closed, but her pulse flutters beneath my fingers. Faint. So faint. But there.
The ambulance screams in less than a minute later. They rush in, take over. They also wrap Kitten in a thermal blanket. Check him out, too. He’s okay, which is good. Tempe would’ve lost her shit if something happened to him.
In the end, we follow the ambulance.
Whether this woman lives or dies, she won’t be alone.
16. Heart
Ghost
Her heart stopped. Her fucking heart stopped. For less than a minute, but that’s a minute too long.
The second the doctor said those words, the world tilted. I almost blacked out. Everything inside me twisted so hard I thought my ribs snapped through my flesh.
She jumped. Off the Green Road bridge. Not even fifteen fucking minutes after I sent her away. I was throwing punches at Bones while she was out there dying.
Dying.
Fuck.
They’re transferring her to the ICU now. Said they’ll let me see her after.
After.
I almost lost it right then and there. Told the doctor if he didn’t take me to her immediately, I’d burn the hospital to the fucking ground. Bones stepped in, got between us. Saved that man’s life. Maybe mine too.
Fuck, Bones. When I told the staff I was her husband, he looked at me like I’d just torn his goddamn heart out and stomped on it. Like he was about to have a stroke right then andthere. I’m not explaining it to him. Not now, when I can barely fucking breathe.
So I sit here. Slumped in a chair. Elbows on my knees. Head hanging. Heart clawing at my throat with bloody nails.
The brothers who followed me here? Silent. Spread around the waiting room, eyes locked on nothing, probably trying to make sense of this madness.
“What the hell are you doing here, biker boy? One of your minions kiss the road?” A woman’s voice invades the space of the room, smug and a little amused.
Ria. Temperance’s friend.
I glance up just as she walks in with that guy — Griffin, I think. The one Temperance had a thing with. Or still does. Who the fuck knows.
Bones goes rigid. His stare snaps to Griffin like he’s ready to peel the skin from his flesh. Griffin just grins, which makes it worse. I brace for the explosion, but somehow Bones reins it in. Slowly —too slowly— he turns his attention to Ria.
“No,” he grinds out, every syllable like glass in his throat. “We’re here for…” His eyes cut to me, sharp and furious. Then he bites the bullet. “Ghost’swife.”
The word is a damn curse in his mouth. He says it as if it’s being pulled from between his teeth with a set of pliers.
Ria blinks, stunned. “You have a wife?” It comes out like a punchline. Like the concept is so absurd she needs a second to absorb it. Like she can’t believe anyone would ever marry me. At least not willingly. She wouldn’t be far from the truth.
