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My nails dig into Grant’s hand as I pray, I pray, Ipraythat they pass my mother’s room—
No.
Room 110.
The door jerks open, people go funneling in, voices rising and calling out commands, demands for—the words aren’t even clear.
Everything narrows down to a tiny distant pinprick in my vision.
I think Grant’s calling my name, but I’ve dropped his hand and I’m running—running—racing through a wavering nightmare of runny colors.
But I can’t stop.
Just like I can’t stop the churning thud of my heart or the slap of my feet against the cold tiles or the way the icy sterile air pours down my throat and hurts my lungs.
I have to save her.
Ihaveto save my mom!
They don’t love her enough.
Yes, they’re professionals and they’ll do their jobs, but they won’tfightthe way someone who loves her will. I have to—
“Ophelia!” Grant calls roughly.
Then there’s nothing at all.
I don’t know what I’m thinking when I hurl myself into my mother’s room.
When I see those doctors and nurses perched over her bed like vultures, like soul reapers coming to take her away.
She’s so pale, alabaster white.
And I let out a soft scream, flinging myself at her bed.
“Mom!” I can’t even see her anymore, not when it’s just bodies and limbs in my way, my eyes overflowing. I’m grabbing at the emergency cart, digging through wrapped syringes of emergency injections. “Her kidneys are failing—you have to—she needs, sheneeds—”
“Ma’am—ma’am!” A nurse blocks my path, barricading my mother’s bed with her body. “What she needs is for you to get out of this room and let us do our jobs.”
“Damn!” Another voice erupts from behind her—followed by a long, sustained beep. That eerie sound I’ve heard more times than I can count, but this time it’s my mother, it’s mymom— “Flatline, we need the crash cart right—”
I throw myself at the nurse, but she shoves me back, then barks, “Captain Faircross!”
I’m fighting her, trying to claw my way through her, but now I have arms around me.
Huge, hugging arms I can’t fight.
Strong oak tree-trunk arms that bind me up and pull me against him, filling me with hate and wonder and another anguished scream.
Grant takes me hostage as he sweeps me away from the room.
He drags me along as gently as he can while I lose my shit, twisting and thrashing and shrieking through the hot, drowning tears skating down my face.
“Mom, no—Mom!”
She can’t die like this.
She can’t be alone.
