Not the man whose hands I still felt on my skin when I closed my eyes. Not the man I loved and pushed away because I thought I had time. Time for him to get clean. Time for me to get brave.
Now all I had was seconds.
I couldn’t afford to fall apart. Not now.
Not when the sirens were screaming outside.
Not when the man I loved was bleeding in the back of an ambulance.
Not when I had no idea if he was still breathing.
I swallowed it down. Stuffed the panic into a box and slammed the lid shut.
This was my job. My patient.
I followed the team toward the ambulance bay, heart pounding in my throat. The double doors slid open just as red lights flooded the entrance, sirens warbling into silence.
A stretcher flew through the doors.
Blood.
Leather.
Chase.
I didn’t let myself blink. Didn’t let myself break.
But as the second stretcher rolled in, smaller, motionless, with a familiar curtain of dark hair matted with blood, my knees almost gave out.
Charlie.
Her face was barely recognizable under the blood, the swelling. Her body looked broken, limp beneath the straps. Her pupils were blown. She wasn’t moving. Not even a twitch.
Machines hissed. The bag valve mask pumped air into her lungs. The medic’s voice came sharp and fast.
“Female, early twenties. Found unconscious. No helmet. BP dropping, GCS three, pupils sluggish and unequal. Suspected TBI. Prepped for intubation in transit. Bagging en route. We’ve got a pressure spike—possible herniation.”
My heart stopped.
I stepped forward, nodding at the lead medic. “Take her to Trauma 1. I’ve got her.”
Chase’s gurney rolled by, and he caught sight of me, his head lolling to the side. “Elena?” he slurred, trying to lift his arm. “Is she?—?”
I couldn’t answer.
Couldn’t look.
Because Charlie’s life was hanging by a thread.
“Let’s move,” I snapped, following her stretcher through the double doors.
Whatever I felt for Chase—love, grief, fury—it would have to wait.
Right now, Charlie needed me more.
The trauma bay was already prepped. Monitors flicked tolife, a vent waited, the crash cart loomed in the corner like a priest at a deathbed. We transferred Charlie from the gurney to the bed, and I moved on autopilot, barking orders as the team closed around her.
“Get neuro on the line. Page Dr. Bhandari. Let’s get a stat head CT as soon as she’s stable. Let’s go, people!”
