He pulled with a long tug, keeping the line smooth and gentle. Quinn looked dead with how her body was bent right now. Arms to the side, back bent, and blood trickling down her face. I collapsed against the wall and dug my hands into it and started to climb. There was no way that guy and his girlfriend could lift me. I was too damn big.
It was hard, but when I made it to the top, he grabbed my hands and dragged me to the rest of the way until I was flat on my back. “I owe you my life,” I said, licking my dry lips. My lungs burned, my chest ached, I felt like I was about to have a heartache.
“Are you okay? We heard you screaming her name, and we came as fast as we could,” he said.
“I’m fine. I need to get her to the hospital.” I managed to stand and reached into my pocket to grab the leather wallet that held my cards. It only had a number on it. “Call this number whenever you need a favor. Ask for Steel. Whatever the problem, I’ll do it.” The guy took the card from my hand, questions lingering in his eyes, but I didn’t have time to answer questions. I picked Quinn up and started running down the path we came up on, leaving the couple behind me. I was forever grateful to them, but Quinn was a priority.
I jumped over the familiar tree laying across the path, nearly falling when my damn ankle gave out. The air hurt as I inhaled hard, and my throat screamed for water. It didn’t make me feel any better when I heard water splashing every time my feet landed in a body of shallow water. I wanted to bury my face in the creek and drink until I was full.
If I stopped, I was afraid I wouldn’t get back up. The path between the fence posts came into view, and I could have wept with joy— if I had the time. The car was there, and I dug into my pocket, grabbed the key, and opened the backdoor, laying her on the seat.
“I got you. I’m not going to let anything happen to you.” I should have caught her when she fell. She reached for me, and I swore our fingers skimmed each other, but I couldn’t get a hold of her. She slipped right through my fingers. I climbed into the driver’s seat, pressed the hazard lights, and tore out of the parking lot like a bat out of hell. The back end fishtailed, and I sent a cloud of dust into the air, which clouded my view as I drove. Rocks hit the undercarriage, no doubt ruining the car. Like I cared.
The tires squealed when I got onto the road, the smell of burning rubber drifting through the vents. I glanced into the rearview every few seconds to check on Quinn. She laid so still, and it scared me. Too still. A shaking hand reached for the Bluetooth button, and I called Sebastian.
“Come on, answer!” I snapped after the first ring blared in my ear. I was impatient, but I was also doing something that was so unlike me, I almost didn’t know how to place the feeling. I was panicked and panicked people never thought with a clear mind.
“Hey, I was wondering where you were,” he answered finally.
“Listen to me. Get to the hospital, okay? Quinn fell. It’s bad, Sebastian. It’s fucking bad. She won’t wake up. I’m barely keeping it together.” My voice shook, and my eyes went to the rearview mirror again. I should have never taken my eyes off the road, but my concern was in the backseat.
A car horn honked, stealing my attention from Quinn. Two headlights blinded me, and I jerked the wheel to the right, barely missing the semi-truck.
“Jaxon! Jaxon! Are you okay? Talk to me.”
“I’m fine. Just get to the hospital,” I rubbed my hand over my face and sighed. “Please, Sebastian.” He inhaled when I said ‘please’. I didn’t ever say please.
“We will be there.”
I hung up the phone by pressing the red button and drove like I did when I was young. Careless and urgent, only this time, I was trying to be careful, and it was fucking urgent. Rain started to patter against the windshield, and it made my temper fly through the roof. “Of course it would rain. As if anything else needed to get in my way right now,” I didn’t recognize my own voice. It was the darkest I had ever heard it like something sardonic had possessed my vocal cords.
Ten minutes later, I pulled into the emergency room entrance and left my car half parked on the curb, flattening a bush, while the other half was on the road. I didn’t give a fuck. They could tow it for all I cared. Her weight was a feather in my arms as I carried her inside the hospital. The air conditioning breezed over us, sending a chill that could only be described as death down my spine.
Wasn’t that what hospitals were? Death.
“Help me! Please, she needs help,” I tried to shout, but my voice gave out. I guess I had been yelling more than I thought. “Please!’
Doctors and nurses both came to my aid. A tidal wave of blue and green scrubs flew toward me, threatening to run me over, but their shoes squeaked and stopped just in time before flattening us to the ground.
“What happened? What’s your name?” a younger doctor, maybe my age asked. He looked fresh out of his mother’s fucking womb. No way was he going to touch her.
“Get me a doctor that knows what the hell he is doing!” I barked, but none of the health workers flinched.
I wasn’t used to people not flinching.
“Sir, I can assure you that Doctor Flemming is more than capable of taking care of?”
“Quinn. Quinn Taylor. Please, she fell into a rock quarry. There’s blood, and her leg was broken. I had to snap it back in place.”
“Get me a gurney. I want a head CT and MRI. Right now,” the young doctor ordered the nurses, and they ran to do what he said.
Instead of listening to me and doing what I said. I wasn’t used to that. I wasn’t the boss here. The doctors were.
I laid Quinn on the gurney, and the nurses rolled her away. “Wait, where are you taking her?”
“Sir, we are going to take good care of her.” Doctor Flemming reassured me, but it wasn’t enough. “We are going to check you out too. You’re bleeding.”
“I’m fine. Focus on her. If you save her, I’ll donate ten million dollars to your department. Just do it and stop standing around!” I roared, and my dominance finally fell into place. Doctor Flemming saw dollar signs, his young blue eyes that had probably never seen a pair of tits before widened, and he grinned, like cat finally catching a fish.
“Yes, sir. She’s in good hands?”
“Steel. Jaxon Steel.”
The doctor left through the swinging grey doors where they took Quinn, and now all I could do was wait. I sat down in one of the chairs and groaned when my back pinched where it landed against the rock. I had dirt all over me and blood all over me.
Blood that wasn’t mine, which never bothered me. I’ve bathed myself in a man’s blood before, but it didn’t scare me like this. I was haunted. My hands violently quaked, and I laced my fingers and pressed my palms together to stop the tremors.
All I could do was wait.
I had never been good at waiting.
Prison did not teach me patience. It only made me hungrier for what I really wanted.
“Jaxon!”
I saw Sebastian, Heaven, Grayson, and to my surprise, Owen. They jogged toward me, and Heaven’s eyes looked me over to see just how serious this was. The guys looked tired, and Heaven had new bruises along his knuckles. Owen looked like hell, which made sense. He had been paralyzed for twenty-four hours.