Not even ten minutes later, she’s still out, and I feel like I’m going to explode as I pull up to Memorial Hospital’s emergency room. I don’t even take the keys out of the ignition before circling around to open her door.
“We’re here,” I whisper as I unbuckle her seat belt. “We’re here, Kira. You’re gonna be fine now.” And then louder, “I need a doctor!”
But people in blue are already surrounding me. One of them calls for a gurney, but they’re too slow, and I scoop Kira into my arms. “She passed out,” I say to no one and everyone. “And she won’t wake up. She had a heart attack—” I correct myself, “a tear. She had a tear in her heart less than a week ago.”
I carry her straight through the automatic doors, my feet sure and fast, even though I don’t know where the fuck I’m going. I don’t pause at a scared-looking girl with a clipboard who probably wants me to fill something out and instead scan the busy ER for anyone in a white coat. But everyone is a blur and busy, and I freeze in the middle, desperation clawing at me.
“Sir, you—” A nurse slips in front of me, and I hone in on her.
“I want the best you’ve got,” I demand, cutting her off, hating that I sound like James. But if any time calls for throwing weight around, it’s now. “I want the fucking best. She needs a cardiologist and a… a…fuck.” I scan again, not knowing what she needs and suddenly wishing I had a degree in medicine instead of law. “Just get someone. Now.”
“They’re coming,” the nurse tries to assure me. “But you have to let her go.” She pries at my arm with a gloved hand.
My brows come together as I look down at her hand, despair making my heart race. But not because the nurse would ever be able to break my hold on her—it would take a crowbar to get me to let go—but because I don’twantto let go, and I know that I have to. What if I let her go and she dies? I fucking hate that I can’t fix this myself.
“Sir, please.”
“Damn it.” I nod, accepting that cradling her against me isn’t going to do anything for her. “Okay.” I loosen my hold, and they quickly take her, but it feels like cutting off my own arm to let hergo. She’s still limp and sweaty as they set her on a gurney and start to wheel her into a room. I scrub a hand down my face as I follow, my chest feeling cold in her absence.
“What—what’s her name?” The girl with the clipboard appears.
“Kira Nol—” I stop, my eyes trailing to the poised pen. I’ll be damned if they try to half-ass her because she’s on state aid. She’s going to get Landon treatment. Because if she doesn’t, and she dies, I’m going to burn this whole hospital to the ground.
“Landon,” I say. “Kira Landon.” I give her my last name.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Kira
Ipinch the sheet that covers me between two fingers, sure that I’m in a hotel and not a hospital. It’s too nice and not at all scratchy, and when I shift my legs beneath it, it doesn’t rasp at my skin. Looking up, I squint suspiciously. Real flowers sit in a crystal vase on the windowsill, and beyond them, the whole of Cloverwick spreads out many floors below. The air smells clean, and not the bleach kind, but the filtered kind, reminiscent of money.
My gaze drops to my arm and follows the line of the IV into the pump, the steady beep of the monitor hooked to my chest the only thing keeping me grounded.
And Celeste.
Well, Celeste’s scrubs. Because she herself does not seem like any nurse I’ve ever known. She floated out of the room a few minutes ago and told me she wouldfetchmy sister. Who talks like that?
There has to have been some mistake. Because if this really is a hospital, I’m in the wrong wing. I mean, the bed is a queen. I didn’t even know they had queen beds in hospitals.
“Kira!”
The door swings open, and I wince at the sight of Nix. God, her eyes are swollen. Red and full of fear, there’s also a tinge offury. She looks like she’s been crying for hours and holding in the earful I’m about to get.
“I’m fine,” I try before she unleashes on me.
“No, you aren’t!” she screeches, throwing herself into me so abruptly it knocks the breath from my lungs. “I told you that you weren’t!”
She squeezes me so tight that I feel one of the wires hooked to my chest tear at my skin, and I’m momentarily shocked. I expected yelling. Anger. Not this desperate, achinghug. She stopped hugging me when she turned sixteen and became too cool for me. And this… this is the second time this week.
“Itoldyou,” she repeats, somehow gripping me tighter as her voice breaks into a sob. “Itoldyou that you needed to rest.”
Her small frame against mine brings the truth crashing down: eighteen or not, she’s still just a kid—my kid, in a way. All I wanted was to keep her safe, but I’ve let her down. I’m supposed to make sure she isn’t scared, and yet here she is, shaking in my arms.
“I know,” I manage. My arm slips weakly around her shoulders, my fingertips brushing soothing circles against her back, desperate to comfort us both. “I know, I didn’t mean—”
“You don’t,” she snaps, pulling back just enough to look at me, her face wet and furious and too young to be carrying this much. “You don’t know, because here you are. You keep doing stupid shit. You keep going towork. But I don’t care if we have food. I just want you.”
My stomach knots so tightly it makes me nauseous, and I wince, looking away, unable to stand the tremble in her lip. We typically don’t dofeelings.
