Page 32 of Crash Over Us
That experience had swung her back in my life like a giant pendulum, altering the course of history. It had drawn us together. We were irrevocably changed after Lucas’s accident. This morning, when I was able to sit with her in the cottage and tell her what happened yesterday with the dive gear pirates, I knew that I couldn’t imagine my life without her. I couldn’t imagine sharing the ambush with anyone else but her. Seven years ago, neither of us could have handled what fate had thrown at us this summer, but now we could.
The antiseptic hit my nose and brought me back to my mission. I had to find Gabe. I walked toward the nurses’ station.
“Hi, I’m looking for Gabe Axton’s room,” I explained.
The nurse seemed surprised when she looked up from the computer screen and saw me towering over the desk. Her cheeks flushed.
“Oh… you’re…oh, you’re the one?—”
Fuck. It was happening here too.
“I’m Gabe’s friend. We work together. Can you tell me where he is?” I didn’t want to draw more attention to myself.
She nodded. “He’s just down the hall.” She handed me a sticky note with his room number scribbled on it.
“Thank you.” I decided not to ask her any update questions. I had to hope Gabe was awake and could tell me himself.
When I walked in the room, my stomach dropped. He wasn’t awake.
“Are you family?”
I was startled by the voice in the corner. I didn’t realize someone else was here. Then I recognized her.
“Dr. Mason?”
“Yes.” She stepped forward. “Wait, you’re…”
I winced. I didn’t want to hear it.
“You were here this summer with the little boy, weren’t you?”
I exhaled. “Yeah. That was me. And you’re on my friend’s case too? You’re his doctor?”
She smiled. “I am. He doesn’t seem to want to wake up.” She walked closer to the bed. I got a better look at Gabe. His eye was swollen shut and was a nasty shade of purple.
“Maybe you could talk to him a bit. I’m going to check in with the nurse.” She motioned to me to sit in the chair next to the bed.
I thought back to how Margot made me do the same thing with Lucas. I had thought it was silly, but Lucas told us when he woke up, he had heard us. He knew exactly who Margot was. If that was what Gabe needed, I’d give it a try, no matter how stupid I felt talking to him while he slept.
I pivoted in the seat. “Hey, doc, he’s going to wake up, isn’t he?”
She stopped in the doorway. “All his vitals are good. He’s strong. Young. His brain needs time to rest to let the swelling go down. I’m hoping he’ll wake up any time now. Really.” She smiled at me. “Let me know if you need anything.”
I nodded, and Dr. Mason left me alone with Gabe. The door closed quietly behind her.
The machines beeped over his head. There were wires and tubes attached to him. He would hate all this shit if he were awake.
I cleared my throat, preparing myself to get over the awkward conversation I was about to have.
“Hey, man. I was hoping you’d be awake by now.” I exhaled and watched the heart monitor move up and down in a steady rhythm.
“Everybody at base wanted me to tell you they’re waiting for you to wake up too. I saw Guthrie this morning. He made me fill out a shit-ton of paperwork.” I chuckled. “You got out of all the paperwork, man. I finished it. You know hate the reports. They were non-stop. There was one for my medical eval, which don’t get me wrong, is nothing like what you’ve got going on. I just have a cut across my face. And one cracked rib, but they didn’t find that until this morning.” I sighed. I knew I was rambling. But what else was I supposed to do in a one-way conversation?
“I do have good news. You want the good news? They got the guys on the fishing boat. Not just the ones you and I took down—that shitty captain and Buddy. Those fuckers were hauled into ambulances last night.” The thought hit me they were probably both in the hospital now. They were here in the building. “The sheriff’s coastal patrol and our guys cornered the ones on the decoy boat that took off. They were headed north to Virginia. All the dive equipment was recovered. They’ve been booked. They’re in jail. Good news, right? Guthrie told me and let me read the report when I was in his office. And get this—he’s making me take three days off. I can’t patrol. No rescue dives. Nothing for three days.”
The IV tube dripped fluid one drop at a time. Time passed in immeasurable seconds in a hospital room. I could have been talking to him for five minutes or five hours. It felt the same.
I sat back in the chair. As I unraveled everything toward Gabe, I knew it was a hell of a chain of events to process. The levels of sinister activity. The audacity of the criminals. The danger we had been in. It was one thing for us to sign up to save people’s lives. It was something entirely different to be lured into an attack. It had been a violation of our oaths to serve and protect the ocean and boaters. Those bastards thought they could get away with it.
