Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 77335 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 387(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77335 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 387(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
“Thank you,” I said and dropped to my knees. I felt exhausted as the adrenaline suddenly left my body.
The kind of exhaustion you only feel after a long, stressful mission.
I found an empty chair and stayed where I was in that hall, covered in Charlotte’s blood as I watched her disappear behind the next set of double doors.
There was nowhere to go, nothing I could do until I knew she would live.
This was the worst part: not knowing and not being able to control what happened.
It felt like if I was in that room, if I was in control, I could make sure she lived.
The hard truth was she needed someone who wasn’t me. Someone else had to save her. Her life was in someone else’s hands, and I didn’t have the skills to be the one to save her.
I wasn’t there to protect her.
After a moment, a nurse came by to make sure none of the blood on me was mine and tried to point me to a waiting room when I heard my name.
“Reid, where is she?” Hunter’s voice came echoing down the hall. He was on a stretcher but trying to get off while two large male nurses tried to restrain him.
“Lie down and let the medics take care of you,” I ordered.
“No, I failed you. Where is she?” His eyes trailed over my body, and I knew he saw how bad she was by how much of her blood I was wearing.
“She is being taken care of. Let them take care of you.” I tried to get Hunter to lie back.
“No, she has to be okay first. I was supposed to keep her safe. I failed.” Hunter was damn near delirious as the nurses tried to force him to stay in the bed.
“Sir, please calm down.”
“Hunter,” I yelled, making him stop and look at me. “She will be fine. Charlotte may look like a tiny little thing, but she is strong. You did right by her. You called me and I got back up there in time to save her life.”
“But I should have…”
“Rest, Marine. You did your job. Now let the medical team do theirs before they tie you down.”
“They did tie him down. Asshole pulled a knife and cut himself free,” one of the nurses said under his breath.
Sure enough, the frayed ends of the woven nylon straps were hanging from the sides of the stretcher.
“I’m fine. I don’t need medical treatment. It’s just a scratch.”
“Sit down, shut up, and let the nice doctors look at you,” I barked.
“I’m fine. It’s going to take more than one little —”
I cut off his words with one swift jab just below where he was shot, and he made a wheezing sound before falling back on the bed.
“There you go, boys. The patient should comply now.”
“Thanks,” the bigger one said, nodding. The other looked at me with a scowl, then twisted his lips before shrugging it off and moving his patient back behind the same double doors Charlotte had disappeared behind.
“Tell him to come find me once you have him patched up,” I called after them. I saw one nod before the doors swung shut.
I sat back in the same uncomfortable plastic and metal chair beside those double doors.
Until I knew if Charlotte was going to be okay, or until they moved her, this was my post.
Leaning my head against the wall, I took a few deep breaths, ignoring the sterile smell of the hospital, the coldness of the blood that still soaked my shirt, and the itchiness of the few places where it had dried.
I ignored the chatter of the nurses and the beeping of heart rate monitors from various rooms.
I blocked out everything for a moment and tried to focus on Charlotte.
There wasn’t any type of God I could pray to anymore. All I could do was plead in my head over and over, telling Charlotte to be my strong girl. To be my brave girl, to be my good girl.
Call it prayer, call it manifestation. I didn’t care.
All I knew was that if there was any energy left in my body, I would give it to her to help her fight. All while making promises that this would be the last fight she would ever face on her own.
If anything like this ever happened again, I would be by her side the entire time. I wanted to face every obstacle and every challenge with her. She deserved at least that much.
“We demand your best surgeon and there must be a plastic surgeon in the room. There must be no scars.”
“Mummy, it hurts!” whined Charlotte’s former fiancé as they wheeled him into the emergency room.
“Oh, darling. You were so brave.” The women then turned to address the mysteriously present paparazzi. “My son is a hero. He saved a thousand people tonight from a gang of gun-wielding thugs.”