Eyes Turned Skyward

“Twenty-eight, twenty-nine,” I counted out loud. Her dad took over breathing so I didn’t have to stop compressions.

“Come on, Paisley. Don’t you dare do this,” Carter begged in a strangled voice I barely recognized. “You’re the fierce one, remember? Fight.”

I concentrated on each thrust of my hand, catching the small sucking sounds she made as air dragged into her lungs when I pushed just right.

Her chest cracked beneath my hands, a sickening pop sound. “Shit!” My hands flew off her. “I broke something!”

“Probably a rib. Keep going!” General Donovan ordered.

Bile rose in my throat, but I kept it down and returned to compressions, trying to ignore that I’d just broken Paisley’s tiny body. “Let’s go, Little Bird. We know how to do this, right? CPR is nothing new to us. We’re old pros.” Don’t puncture her lung. Don’t puncture her lung.

Wails came from behind us. Her mother? I didn’t check, just kept pushing down on her chest, forcing blood to circulate through her body. Where the fuck were they? How long could it possibly take to get an ambulance here?

“Two minutes,” General Donovan answered, my phone up to his ear. I must have spoken out loud.

We went through another few sets of breathing before we heard the sirens. “They’re here!” her mother cried.

The ambulance stopped, the paramedics rushing us. Her dad filled them in while they took vitals, but I didn’t stop compressions. I couldn’t. They slid a board underneath her. “Sir,” said one of the paramedics, braced on one knee next to me. “Sir, we’ve got it from here.”

He covered my hands with his own, and mine fell away.

They lifted her into the ambulance, the paramedic continuing compressions. “We’re coming with her,” General Donovan announced, helping his wife into the rear of the ambulance while he took the front seat. “Bateman, we’re headed to South East.”

I nodded, because speaking wasn’t going to happen. I didn’t even have the strength to get off my knees. What the hell just happened? She had been okay, right? We’d just been bungee jumping today. We’d had mind-blowing sex an hour ago, and now she was strapped to a gurney?

Fuck. Did I cause this?

My heart jumped as the doors to the ambulance slammed home. I couldn’t keep up with them, but I could get to the hospital soon after. I palmed my cell phone and gripped Paisley’s abandoned purse when a shadow fell over me.

“Prescott?” My father hovered, blocking out the last of the sunset.

I stood, fishing my keys from my pocket. “Go away.”

“I came here for you, son. Given what’s just happened, I think you could probably use me around right now.”

His eyes softened, but I was too schooled in his bullshit to give in. “In the scheme of what’s just happened, you are absolutely nothing to me. Anna and I aren’t going public, and it’s not because you don’t deserve to lose but because you’re not worth the effort or the press in our lives. Go back to Washington and forget I exist, or that Anna does. You’re really good at that. I have to get to the hospital.” I turned and headed for the truck. He followed me.

Carter honked his horn next to where Lucy was parked and stuck his head out the window. “Let’s go!”

“I’m not leaving until we talk, Prescott.”

Damn, he was actually following me. I slipped my key into the door and turned. “Maybe Prescott would have bowed down to you, given you anything for five fucking minutes of your time, but that’s not who I am anymore. I changed more than just my name, Dad. Now get the hell out of my way before I run you over.”

“Sign this, and I’m gone.”

“What?” I threw open Lucy’s door.

“Your nondisclosure. Sign it in your new name, and I’ll leave. But be warned, I’m not coming back. If you want to see me, you’ll be the one making an effort. I don’t beg, Prescott. I’m the last of your family.”

“Paisley and Anna are my family.” I ripped the paper from his hand, took a pen from my glove compartment, and signed my name. “Get the hell out of my life.” I shoved the paper at his chest.

He stepped to the side, and I pulled out, speeding before I left the parking lot.

“Here.” General Donovan held out a cup of coffee, and I took it but didn’t drink. Three hours and fifty-one—no, fifty-two minutes had gone by in this waiting room with no word since they’d taken her. I’d worn a path from one end of the room to the other, and gone through every possible scenario—none of them pleasant—in my head before he settled into the seat next to me for the first time. “You didn’t know.”

I shook my head, tapping my feet in a rhythm only my racing pulse understood. Yeah, I needed caffeine like a fucking hole in my head.

“You really should drink that,” he suggested and took his own advice.

The thought of swallowing anything made me want to hurl, but the smell masked the sterilized scent of apprehension all around me. I hated hospitals. Three hours, fifty-three minutes. No word. We should have heard something by now. Anything besides, “We’re still trying to stabilize her.”

“You saved her life. Starting compressions that fast. If…when she’s stabilized, it will only be because you were with her.”

“She didn’t tell me,” I muttered, dropping my head. “Could you please explain before I lose it?”