I swallow.
“I know I’ve been a jerk, and I’m probably the last person you want to accept help from,” he says, “butpleaselet me drive you.”
I can stand here arguing with him, or I can accept that he’s not going to let me drive. What I won’t accept is the unexpected—and unwelcome—sensation of relief that swoops through my belly when I relent. “Okay.”
He nods and stays by my side as we hurry to his car. I slide into his passenger seat as he starts the engine with a low rumble of power.
“Where am I going?”
I pull up my GPS. “Go to the stop sign and then take a right. Andhurry!”
Hunter doesn’t exactly floor it—we’re in a neighborhood after all—but he gets up to twenty-fivereallyfast. His car is immaculately clean and smells like leather and a hint of something sultry and spicy that I think might be his cologne. No rogue, stale french fries or stinky gym bags halfway open to be found. I don’t know why I catalog these details. Something to focus on other than my fear.
“Do you know what happened?” Hunter asks.
“Farmor collapsed. She wasn’t breathing. That’s all I know.” I force the tremor out of my voice, even though I feel like glass about to crack.
We fall silent, except for when I have to give him directions as he deftly maneuvers through the heavy traffic. There’s nothing to say. Every red light we hit makes my hands shake harder. The ghosts of the past are banished once more, but I have no control over the terror of my present.
When my GPS says we’re only four minutes away, I can’t take it anymore. I dial my mom’s number. But it rings and rings before going to voice mail.
“Why isn’t sheanswering?” I toss my phone onto my lap and squeeze my head between the heels of my hands. I’m on the verge of hyperventilating.
“Your farmor is going to be okay,” Hunter says, but his hands flex around the steering wheel, and he pushes down on the gas. His powerful car surges forward, weaving between slower vehicles.
When we finally turn the corner, I can see the flashing red and blue lights of an ambulance in the ER bay.
“No matter what we find when we go in there, youwillmake it through this,” he says.
I clutch my silent phone harder.
Hunter pulls into one of the first empty spots by the ER. I’ve opened the door and am halfway out of the car before he’s even put it into park. I don’t wait to see if he’s coming as I sprint for the hospital, silently pleading that Farmor is still alive.
When I burst through the ambulance bay doors, it’s to total chaos, doctors, nurses, and techs darting and pushing and rushing every which way. Machines beep and whine, and alarms sound every few seconds. People are yelling and dragging crash carts in opposite directions down the hallway. There must have been a major trauma recently. This can’t all be for Farmor.
My heartbeat surges again, hammering violently beneath my scarred sternum, as I search the trauma bays—futilely—for any sign of my mom. I catch glimpses of people covered in blood as medical staff yank curtains open and closed; someone down the hallway is screaming.
“What are you doing? If you aren’t immediate family of one of these patients, you can’t be here.”
My lungs squeeze with another wave of rising panic as I turn to see a police officer appraising me with his arms folded over his uniform.
“Her mom and grandma were taken here by ambulance—we need to find them right away.” Suddenly, Hunter is here, taller and broader than the policeman, imposing in his tie and expensive slacks, his striated skin even more jarring in the florescent lights. For reasons I don’t have the emotional bandwidth to investigate, the sight of him brings me another surge of relief. “Can you help us locate them?”
The officer looks up at Hunter. His eyes flicker over the scars, but if he’s shocked by the uneven skin grafts, he manages to hide his reaction. There’s a long pause, and I fight the irrational terror that he’s about to arrest us until he says, “I can’t help you. I suggest you go to the front desk and ask there.”
“Thank you,” Hunter says, his hand lightly brushing the small of my back—a barely noticeable touch, merely enough to let me know he’s here, he’s with me. “We appreciate your help.”
“Code blue, bay 10! Code blue, bay 10!”
The overhead announcement is followed by another burst of activity. When a tall guy in scrubs with a crash cart yanks open the curtain around bay 10, my entire body goes cold.
My mom stands behind a team of doctors and nurses, her knuckles jammed against her mouth.
And on the table, her apron and clothes cut away so they can put the paddles on her exposed body, is Farmor.
9.
Farmor!” Her name rips through my throat.
