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She hangs up a few minutes later. “They said the doctors are running tests to make sure there’s no internal damage and to assess her head injury. That’s all they knew; I’m sorry it’s not much. If you sit over there, they’ll come out and get you when they have more news.”
The pitying look on her face makes me irrationally angry, so I bite out a thank you and walk into the waiting room. I don’t want to take my anger out on her when she was just doing her job.
I see Sam come into the ER, and I wave him over to where I’m sitting.
“Any news?”
“They’re running tests right now. I guess she has a head injury, and they’re making sure there’s nothing going on internally.”
“Do you want me to call Kathrine?”
Fuck, I didn’t even about that. Then there are our friends too. I’m going to have to call all of them tonight.
“No, I should do it,” I say, standing up from my chair and walking back into the hallway. Luckily there’s no one around as I call Natalie’s mom.
“Hello?” Kathrine’s sleepy voice comes through the phone.
“Kathrine, this is Tucker. It’s Natalie. There was a fire at her house, and they had to take her to the hospital.”
“What? Is she okay?” she asks, sounding a lot more awake than a moment ago.
“I don’t know. They’re running tests, and they’re going to update me when they know more.”
“I’m on my way,” she says and hangs up before I can reply.
I take a deep breath before I begin calling all of our friends. Each conversation goes similarly to the next as I update them on what I know.
I walk back into the waiting room when I’m done and sit down in the chair next to Sam. “How long do you think it takes to run tests?”
Sam shrugs. “No idea. Maybe a couple of hours?”
I stand back up to pace, my body physically unable to keep still. Kathrine comes in a little later, asking if there’s been an update. All I can do is shake my head.
I can see how scared she is, and I wish I could make it better for her, but I’m useless. All of my training and I can’t do anything to help the person I love the most.
Over the course of the next couple of hours, Natalie’s friends come into the waiting room. There are so many of us, we’ve taken over the space.
I’ve been bouncing back and forth from sitting to standing to pacing and trying not to think about the worst-case scenarios in my head. I just keep seeing her handcuffed to the headboard, and I hate not knowing what happened.
Did someone break into her house and attempt to hurt her? How did the fire start? Is there a connection to all of the other arsons? What about the threat I got? Could this be my fault?
Nothing is making sense, and I may end up losing my mind before I get any answers.
It’s been much longer than the couple of hours we expected. The unknowns are starting to wear me down entirely too much for my sanity. I go back up to the front desk and ask the nurse if she knows anything.
“They would’ve come out to tell you if there was, sir.” I just stare at her for a heartbeat and she nods her head. “Let me call back and see if the nurses know anything.”
I wait, hoping like hell they tell me Natalie is fine. I watch the nurse’s eyes flick to me and then back down to her desk. That can’t be good.
She hangs up the phone and looks back at me. “So, they said she had some internal damage and had to take her back to surgery. I’m not sure why no one came out to update you.”
“What kind of surgery? How did she have internal damage?”
The nurse just looks at me and shrugs her shoulders. “I’m sorry, sir. I don’t know. The ER nurses didn’t know anything else.”
I hang my head and somehow get my feet to carry me back into the waiting room.
“Anything?” Kathrine asks.
