“She’s still in her car with a steady pulse. I didn’t touch her either because I’m afraid she’s got a spinal injury this time. She wasn’t buckled and he hit her at full speed. At the very least, a serious case of whiplash. I’m no doctor, but it can’t be good forher brain to get jarred so soon after her other accident,” I say as panic starts to choke me.
He puts a steadying hand on my shoulder. “I’ll get this guy stabilized and then I’ll be there. When I heard the call to come out here, I just had to come. I knew it was her,” he says as his gaze catches on something behind me and it softens.
I turn to find a team of paramedics lifting her out of her car, trying to keep her as stable as possible. She’s wearing a neck brace.
It feels like an hour has passed when, in reality, it can’t be more than ten minutes since the crash happened. But I stand there, numb, as I watch them load her onto a stretcher, and then into a waiting ambulance. And as the doors close, I watch them carry away my heart.
And from the look in Hendrix’s eyes, what’s left of his heart too.
Jackson made sure no one’s would be left intact.
34
DASH
“How is she?” I ask Lincoln as he steps outside her hospital room.
“Why don’t you go in and see for yourself,” he says as he squeezes my shoulder.
When I don’t answer, he says, “Thank you for saving her.”
I let out a humorless laugh. “I didn’t do anything. She’s the one who saved me.”
He crosses his arms. “What do you mean?”
I cross my arms in a defensive stance as well. “I showed up and caught her off guard as she was having some sort of showdown with him. When she saw me, she changed direction and sacrificed herself to protect me. Which is why she’s lying in that hospital bed again. You were right. Me loving her nearly gets her killed.”
I don’t know exactly what transpired between her and Jackson, but I’m not stupid. He framed me for the first accident for a reason. And now, I literally made her choose between saving herself or saving me.
It’s too much to handle, so I’m about to turn and leave when I see Hendrix exit her room too.
I nod toward him. “Hendrix is the better man for her. He’s who should be with her. Not me. I’m not what’s good for her.”
Lincoln Tyler stares me down. A lesser man would squirm, but I’ve accepted defeat. My only stipulation in that acceptance is knowing she’s all right. So, as Hendrix spots me, he comes over to where Lincoln and I stand.
“Sienna is with her. All the initial scans are clear, but they’ll want to keep her for forty-eight hours just for observation since her TBI was so recent. She does have a moderate case of whiplash, but she’s suffered a major setback with her left shoulder. The X-rays make it look like her shoulder was wrenched up behind her so hard it severely dislocated it,” he says.
“What does that mean?” I ask.
Hendrix swallows. “She’ll need surgery. There appear to be muscles and ligaments that are torn. And…” He pauses as if pained and runs a hand down his face.
“And what?” Lincoln beats me in asking.
“There may be nerve damage this time,” he says.
“But after surgery and more physical therapy, it’ll get better, right?” I ask.
“Actually, we won’t know for a while. As short as three to four weeks or even as long as six or seven months. The initial symptoms will show up after she wakes back up before surgery.”
He shakes his head before continuing. “Any of three nerves could be involved. The axillary, which is most common, but more so for an anterior dislocation, the brachial plexus which is a complex bundle of nerves which can affect an array of things neurologically in the shoulder, arm, and hand. Then, there’s the radial nerve which can affect sensory function in the wrist andhand. The longer we have to push surgery, the higher the risk of permanent damage.”
“How long until you can do surgery?” Lincoln asks.
“Well, the neurosurgeons, neurologists, orthopedic surgeons, and anesthesiologists will likely want to wait until the forty-eight-hour window of observation is up. They won’t want to put her at risk by using general anesthesia, all things considered especially because shoulder surgery isn’t an emergency.”
Lincoln nods his understanding and then turns his attention back on me. “Don’t you want to see her, Dash?” he asks.
I stare toward her room with laser focus as if I can see through the wall to her form lying on the bed.
