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Georgie’s recap has my head falling into my hands, my elbows braced on my knees, every fucking detail like a knife to the chest. “What happened when you were in the closet?”
“I was wreally quiet and dere was a big bang,” she says, clapping her hands together to emphasize how loud the bang was.
I cringe hearing it coming from her perspective, but at the same time, I’m relieved she didn’t see Gigi getting shot. Hell, I don’t know how I would have ever helped her through that.
“That’s really good, Georgie. What came after the big bang?”
“Gigi took me to da bathwoom. She had lots of bwood and I had to take her shirt off.”
“Why did you do that?” Tom prompts.
Georgie’s brows furrow, clearly thinking this is a ridiculous question. “Cause she was bweeding, silly. She had big ouchy on her.”
“Right, okay. Did anything else happen?”
“Da girl came in and Gigi squished me in da wall.”
My heart aches as I realize what Gigi went through to protect my little girl. She jammed her in a closet, got shot in her place, and shielded her with her fucking body when she thought Georgie was at risk.
This woman is phenomenal.
Tom wraps up his interview with Georgie and looks up at me as she climbs back into my lap, regret heavy in his eyes. “Gigi is amazing,” he tells me. “I owe her an apology.”
“Yeah, man. You do.”
His eyes find something behind me, and I turn to see Mel, which is when Tom flies out of his chair and bolts toward her. She falls into his arms and instantly bursts into tears, the emotions too hard to keep bottled inside. I’m not even going to pretend I know what’s going on here, but at this moment, I’m happy she has him.
I get up and start to make my way out of the ward when a nurse stops me near the door. “Excuse me, Mr. Waters?” she says. I turn with a groan and give her a questioning look, hating that I’m appearing so rude right now. “I apologize, but Georgia is still an admitted patient here for observations. I completely understand if you’d like to discharge her. However, I cannot recommend it, especially with the stress today has brought. It would be easy for her to slip into another asthma attack.”
“Shit,” I groan under my breath. “Of course, but she needs to be on a different floor. I can’t have her here.”
“Indeed,” she says with a compassionate nod. “I’ll get her sorted out right away.”
I thank her and she gets on her way, and with Georgie still in my arms, I head back over to Tom and grab his phone to call Logan. It’s the second hardest phone call of my life—the first being the night I called Sara’s parents to tell them their daughter was gone.
Logan agrees to come down and look after Georgie, making sure she gets settled in a new ward, leaving me to be there for Gigi when she finally wakes from surgery.
Chapter 17
GIGI
Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.
My head spins as I peel my eyes open to the bright hospital room, my day slowly coming back to me in bits and pieces, haunting my every thought. I mean, what a shitty day. Did I seriously get shot? As in a bullet pierced straight through my body and I’m still fucking alive? Holy shit. Who else goes to work and comes home at the end of the day with a gaping hole through their shoulder?
My body is groggy and heavy from being under, and I’m terrified to move in case I jostle myself and have to face the fact of how much trauma my body is currently suffering through.
My eyelids flutter open and closed as the memories continue to assault my mind like a horrendous nightmare.
The man. The gun. The terror. The pain.
It was awful. Today was easily the worst day of my life. I come to work to help people, to care for them, and watch as they heal. To me, the hospital has always been somewhere to call home, somewhere safe—a place of healing, not a place for mass shootings.
I mean, the look on little Geor—
Shit. Georgie.
My eyes fly back open. Where is she? Did Sean find her? Is she okay? So many questions fill my mind that I can barely register them all. She witnessed things that no three-year-old should ever have to see, and yet, if it weren’t for her, I would have surely died today. She held me together; she was my motivation. Hell, what child would be brave enough to survive what she did today? She saw the blood pouring from my body, and instead of breaking down in fear, she rose to the occasion and helped where she could. Most adults would struggle with that, but not little Georgie Waters.
