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“Alessandra,” Tanner whispered. “Tell her…Tell her…”
He was moving. Flying down long corridors. Lights blazed overhead. Doors swung open. He was in a room with white tile walls.
“Easy,” a voice said, and something icy-cold rushed through his veins, through his body. It was taking him down, down, down…
And then he fell into darkness.
* * *
Mayo Clinic, Jacksonville, Florida:
Alessandra shot to consciousness, gasping for air.
She had been dreaming.
A house. A helicopter. Men swarming across a field. The sound of small-arms fire…
And Tanner. Abandoned. Alone. Tanner…
“Tanner?” she said. “Tanner, where are you?”
The people gathered around her hospital bed looked at each other.
“What’d she say?” whispered her sister, Bianca.
The Wildes and Bellinis shook their heads.
“Something about a banner,” Travis Wilde said.
“It sounded like hammer,” Luca Bellini said.
“She said ‘camera,’” Matteo Bellini said. “She probably took pictures down there. In wherever the hell she was. San Salvador.”
“Santo Domingo,” Emily Wilde said.
“San Escobal,” Jacob Wilde said, “and what does it matter? She’s full of ether. Nothing she’s gonna say will make sense.”
“They haven’t used ether in a million years,” Caleb Wilde growled. “But Jake’s right. She’s babbling nonsense. People do, after anesthesia. What counts is that she’s okay.”
“More than okay. The neurosurgeon says she’s doing extremely well.”
The Wildes and Bellinis turned towards the doorway as their father, the general, entered the room. He looked haggard, but so did they all. They’d been gathered in this hospital room for a week, ever since Alessandra had been transferred here from a trauma center in Miami.
“That’s wonderful,” Jaimie Wilde said. “Then, she’s going to—to—”
John Hamilton Wilde joined his children at his daughter’s bedside.
“There’s still some danger, but he assured me that he relieved the pressure on Alessandra’s brain and that the chances of a full recovery are excellent.”
Luca stabbed his fingers through his hair.
“Of all the things to happen,” he growled. “That Alessandra should have suffered a concussion in that damned helicopter…”
“The helicopter was under fire. It was close to a miracle they were able to pull her aboard. There was no time to belt her in.”
“Si. We know that.” Matteo swallowed hard. He looked down at his sister, so small and still in the hospital bed. “She’ll be fine,
” he said. “She’ll be just fine.”
