Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 94140 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 471(@200wpm)___ 377(@250wpm)___ 314(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94140 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 471(@200wpm)___ 377(@250wpm)___ 314(@300wpm)
She’s my hero.
I need to find her and make sure she’s alright.
As I try to sit up in bed, the pain hits me, and before I can cry out in agony, an angelic voice fills the room. “Oh, hell no,” Sean grunts as movement across the room steals my attention.
Sean flies up off the chair and then races to my side, gently pressing me back to the bed and refusing to let me move. His fingers linger on my skin as my face twists with pain, trying to get comfortable again. “You’re not going anywhere,” he tells me.
Glancing up, I meet his exhausted stare, my hand finding his and clutching on with everything I have. “Georgie?” I question, fearing the worst.
A soft smile pulls across his lips as he reaches back and grips the dividing curtain, not daring to let go of my hand in the process. “She’s fine,” he tells me before pulling the curtain back to show me the bed beside me.
Warmth spreads through me, finding Georgie sitting happily in her bed, tucked under her uncle’s arm as she plays a game on his phone. Though to be honest, with the cocktail of painkillers and surgery, I really couldn’t tell which uncle it is. They all look the same.
Satisfied that he’s answered my question, Sean gently slides the curtain back in place to give us a little privacy. “How are you feeling?” he questions, hooking his foot around the chair leg and dragging it closer as his thumb brushes across my knuckles.
“Like shit,” I tell him honestly, not looking to sugarcoat it. I hate when my patients do that. It doesn’t allow me to get a proper read on them.
“I bet,” Sean smiles, reaching across my bed and pressing the call button for the nurse, probably wanting me to get checked over now that I’m awake.
“What happened? Did they get him?”
He cringes, and it’s almost as if I can read his mind. He’s hiding something. “You don’t need to hear about this right now. Let’s just focus on getting you better.”
“Sean,” I demand, not taking no for an answer, not today. “What happened? I need to know if he’s behind bars or . . . dead. I’d feel a lot safer.”
A sadness settles in his warm eyes, and he presses his lips into a hard line, considering his options, but he finally lets out a sigh before giving it to me straight. “The asshole is still in the hospital and will be for another few hours, but he has a police escort, and the second they can release him, he’ll be behind bars.”
An odd disappointment rumbles through my chest. As a nurse, my every instinct is to help people and make them better, but for the first time in my life, I find myself wishing this man was dead. “Huh?” I question. None of this makes sense to my groggy brain. “Why’s he still here?”
He gives me a tight smile. “Because someone hit him with a sedative strong enough to take out a fucking elephant.”
“Oh,” I say, wishing I could feel happier about that, but I don’t think happiness is something I’m going to be capable of for quite some time, especially considering how many innocent lives might have been lost here today.
Katrina, one of the night shift nurses, pops her head through the curtain and gives me a sad smile, and the heaviness in her eyes speaks volumes, but I can see how desperately she’s trying to keep herself together in the wake of this tragedy. “Can I come in?” she asks, gingerly walking in, not bothering to wait for a response, the same way all of us nurses do.
I give her a small smile as she goes about checking my chart and vitals before adjusting the flow rate on my morphine to make me comfortable. She pours me a glass of water, and I hit the button on the side of my bed, raising me into a sitting position before greedily accepting the water and taking a drink, my throat so dry and sore after being out.
Satisfied I’m doing alright, Katrina gives me a smile before telling me she’ll notify the doctor that I’m awake, and with that, she slips out before I get a chance to ask her about everyone else who was on the pediatric ward today.
“How’s Mel?” I ask Sean. She had gone through so much today and risked her life by running around the rooms and helping everyone she could. I hope she’s not alone tonight.
“She’s doing okay,” he tells me. “I think she’s in shock. She was here waiting, but I sent her home. She didn’t want to go, but she was exhausted. Tom had to drag her out of here.”
“I bet,” I say with a pained smile, one that doesn’t reach my eyes.