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“You need to go,” I reminded him as he reached down to grab my phone, tucking it into his own pocket.
“I ain’t going anywhere, ma,” he said, tone brooking no argument. “‘Cept to take your busted ass to the hospital,” he told me, a slight twitch playing with his lips, taking a little of the heaviness out of that moment.
“No. I’m fine. Ice. Sleep,” I said, closing my eyes as he started pulling me along with him, the movement making me feel queasy again.
“Hospital. Scans,” he corrected, leading me toward his SUV, left running on the side of the street. “Come on, mama, up,” he said when I just stood at the open door to the passenger seat.
For some reason, it was right that moment that the tears stung my eyes again.
I don’t know where the urge came from, but I didn’t bother to fight it as I pressed my forehead into his chest.
“You came.”
His hand gently cupped the back of my neck then, and I could have sworn I felt his lips press into my hair.
“Always. Now get your ass in the car. We’re targets out here,” he added when I didn’t immediately move.
At that, though, I carefully hauled my busted ass into the SUV, leaning my head against the cool glass after he’d slammed the door.
He pulled away from the curb at a normal pace, but it made my head swim and my stomach roll, causing a little groan to escape me.
A’s hand shot out, grabbing my thigh, giving it a reassuring squeeze as I kept my eyes shut, trying to just focus on breathing, on staying alert even as the headache demanded I rest.
I couldn’t tell you how far we traveled, but it seemed further than the closest hospital.
At some point, I was vaguely aware of A speaking, but I couldn’t tell you what he said, or if he was even speaking to me.
It wasn’t until the car cut off that I forced my eyes to open, slow-blinking at the Emergency sign in front of me, belonging to a hospital I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen before.
“Come on, mama,” he murmured, yanking open my door, and reaching in to help me down, so I didn’t jostle my ribs too much.
“Where are we?” I asked, looking up at the hospital.
“Gonna get you fixed up,” he said as an answer, leading me in through the doors.
Where someone was already waiting.
No, not just someone.
Three someones.
Two nurses and a doctor.
Just… waiting there.
With a gurney.
Like they were expecting me.
“Come on. You gotta get up on it,” A said, patting the gurney mattress.
“I don’t understand,” I admitted, slow blinking at him.
“What’s to understand? Hospital. Gurney. Get on it.”
“Triage,” I said, glancing over toward the sectioned-off room where the triage nurse was busy taking someone’s blood pressure.
“Lucky for you, you’re a VIP patient,” he said, pushing my hip until I gave in and dropped my ass onto the gurney.
“I don’t even know where we are,” I admitted, looking over at the doctor—a short, slight woman with kind blue eyes and dark brown hair—for some kind of confirmation.
But she said nothing, just offered me a small smile as she lifted the back of the gurney slightly.
At each side, the nurses clicked the rails into place.
Then I was moving.
Through the waiting room, toward the emergency room doors.
Away from Andres.
“We are going to get you all fixed up, Hope,” the doctor assured me, actually reaching out to give my shoulder a slight squeeze.
“I’m fine,” I insisted when I was rolled into a room. “I just want to go home and sleep,” I told her, trying to sit up.
“Sure. Of course,” she agreed. “But we just need to check out your spleen. As I’m sure you know, it doesn’t take much to bruise or rupture a spleen. And it can be deadly if it is not treated in an appropriate amount of time.”
Having just had my first—and hopefully only—brush with death, I had to admit that one scan to check that particular organ wouldn’t exactly hurt.
I couldn’t be so stubborn and die while working on a case for A. My father would hunt him down and murder him for something that wasn’t even his fault.
I’d let my guard down.
I’d been distracted.
I knew better.
I’d been trained better than that.
As soon as I was able to breathe without it hurting, I was going to go back to the self-defense gym and make one of the instructors go full force on me until they couldn’t get the better of me anymore.
This could not happen again.
“Okay,” I said, nodding. “The spleen.”
“And a CT scan of your head, to check for a concussion.”
I wasn’t exactly opposed to that, either.
“Okay.”
“And if you don’t have one, I can give you something for your migraine.”
I was never praying as hard not to have a concussion as I was after she’d said that. Because the damned fluorescent lights above me felt like they were slicing into my skull through my eyeballs.
