Chapter 30
thirty
. . .
Maddox
There are moments in your life that you know are going to be life-changing the minute they happen.
I’d experienced it before.
I dropped the bag of food, dropped my phone, and started sprinting before I could truly process what was happening.
“Georgia!” A voice I didn’t recognize left my throat as I moved quickly toward the pond.
She’d been twirling.
Laughing.
Smiling.
My angel. My love.
And then she literally disappeared beneath the ice.
There was no warning.
Like she’d stepped into a hole and fallen right inside it. I’d heard her gasp. And then she was gone.
Terror moved through every bone in my body, but I knew I had a short time to get to her, so I reacted.
I made it to the edge and tugged off my coat, knowing I would need it to be dry when I pulled her out. I dropped down on my stomach and slid as fast as I could toward the center of the pond. I knew stepping on the ice would be too risky.
I needed to get to the hole and get her out.
“Georgia!” I screamed as I got closer. Something beneath me pounded on the ice and I realized it was her trying to get out.
I screamed her name again as the hole was only inches from my reach.
I kept my lower body on the ice and shoved my head down inside the freezing cold water.
And that was when I saw the tint of red flowing around her as she floated in front of me in her white coat.
I silently begged her to give me her hand, but she was lifeless, and her body swayed just out of my reach.
I pushed further into the abyss and grasped her coat as the red water darkened, and I realized it was blood.
I tugged as hard as I could, sliding my body back as I pulled her head through the hole, and blood moved from the top of her head and down her face.
I pushed to my knees and pulled her out as a guttural sound left my lips. My hands shook as I touched her everywhere, covering her cheeks and shaking her.
“Baby, please,” I begged. I pulled her as far as I could from the center of the ice so we wouldn’t risk falling through.
Fuck.
The word repeated over and over in my head.
Once we were close to the edge, I pressed my ear to her mouth, and she wasn’t breathing. Her lips were blue. I turned her on her side and hit her on the back as water spewed from her mouth, and then I leaned down to listen for a breath.
Nothing.
Fucking nothing.
I unzipped her jacket, placing one hand over the other, and pumped my hands into her chest as I shouted and wailed words that weren’t coherent.
“Twenty-nine, thirty,” I said. “Breathe, baby.”
I tipped her head back, plugged her nose, and breathed. I saw her chest rise, and I leaned back down and gave her another breath.
She coughed and made a wheezing sound, and I placed my ear against her mouth again, and thanked God that she was breathing, but she still lay there completely lifeless.
A sob escaped, and I swiped at my face, unsure if they were tears or water.
Everything moved in slow motion, and I knew I needed to act fast.
I picked her up and tossed her over my shoulder, grabbing my coat as I sprinted up toward the blanket.
I reached for my phone and the edge of the flannel blanket, yanking it hard as everything flew into the air around it, and I raced toward the car.
I opened the door and started stripping her clothes off of her as I dialed 911 on speakerphone.
I wrapped her in the blanket and then put my coat around her.
“I need help. My girlfriend fell through the ice. She’s unconscious.” My voice didn’t sound like my own. It was shrill and panicked, and I was on the verge of losing it.
The operator shouted all sorts of orders at me, and when I realized there was no way for anyone to get to us quicker than I could get her to the hospital, I moved behind the wheel, with Georgia in my arms, and raced down the mountain.
“I’m on my way to the hospital.” I ended the call and demanded Siri dial Hugh Reynolds.
“My man. How did it go?”
A strained sob left my throat again as I raced down the road.
“Maddox.” Hugh’s voice was laced with panic.
“She fell through the fucking ice!” I shouted, finding my voice now. “I don’t have time to get her to the city. I’m going to the closest hospital.”
“The hospital is a few blocks from Reynolds’. You’re close. Is she breathing?”
I couldn’t speak again as I looked down at her as she lay lifeless on my lap. “Breathe, baby!”
I ended the call and swiped at my eyes. My vision blurred as I approached a red light.
I laid on the horn and flew right through it, knowing the hospital was not far.
I pushed the gas pedal down and sped into the hospital parking lot, driving over a curb to get there faster.
When I pulled in front of the emergency room, I put the car in park just as a group of people came flying out the door, and I lifted Georgia in my arms, hurrying out of the car.
I didn’t know how they knew we were coming, but I figured Hugh must have made a call.
Blood poured from her head down her face, and three men reached to take her from me.
I didn’t let go at first, and I choked on a sob.
“Sir, we need to see what’s going on. Please, let us take her.”
I held on to her hand when they took her from me, and I followed them over to the gurney where they laid her down.
Her hand slipped from mine as they hurried inside, and I followed them, quickly answering their questions as fast as I could, but everything was happening so fast.
“How long do you think she was under the water?” one of the men asked me, as another group of people hurried in our direction to help when we moved through the waiting room.
“Maybe two minutes?” I shook my head. “I don’t fucking know. She wasn’t breathing at first. But she coughed up a lot of water. I did CPR, and she started breathing.”
They moved her toward the double doors, and the guy talking stopped me. “You need to wait here. We will do everything we can and be out as quickly as possible. Where did the head injury come from?”
“I don’t fucking know. I think she hit her head when she fell in or maybe she hit it beneath the ice when she was trying to get out,” I said, shaking my head with disbelief.
“Okay. Thank you. We’ll be out as quickly as we can.”
I stood there, staring at the double doors where they’d taken her, and rage suddenly took over. No fucking way was I standing out here.
She needed me.
I pushed through the doors, and two guys moved toward me and asked me to leave, and I swung.
“I’m fucking staying with her!” I wailed, just as two arms came around me from behind and squeezed tight.
“I’ve got him. He’s just upset.” It was Hugh’s voice.
“We need you both out of here. We can’t help her if we’re fighting you.”
I threw my hands in the air in surrender, and Hugh walked backward through the doors as he kept hold of me. Once we were out in the hallway, he turned me around to face him and wrapped his arms around me.
“You’re okay. Breathe. Tell me what happened.” His voice was eerily calm.
I stepped back, looking down to see my hands covered in blood.
My clothes were covered in blood and soaked.
“I don’t know. She ran down to the ice while I was setting the food down.
And we were talking. We were fucking talking.
And then she just fell through the ice. There was no warning. She was just gone.”
I leaned against the wall. I couldn’t catch my breath.
I couldn’t fucking live in a world that Georgia Reynolds wasn’t in.
Not now that I’d experienced life with her in it.
“Jesus. You’ve got blood all over you.” He reached for my hands and took his coat off and put it around my shoulders. “Where is the blood coming from?”
“It was coming from her head,” I said, staring down at my bloody hands. “She was unconscious. She never spoke.”
“Was she breathing?” Hugh’s voice cracked, and my eyes snapped up, and I saw the panic.
“Not at first. I did CPR, and she started breathing. But she wasn’t conscious. I don’t know what the fuck happened. I’m so fucking sorry. I let her go out on that ice. I fucking let her go out on the ice!” I shouted and turned and punched the wall.
Hugh grabbed me again, just as Cage and Finn came running around the corner.
The next hour was filled with all of Georgia’s family members showing up.
There were tears and questions, and they hugged me, repeating over and over that it wasn’t my fault.
Lila brought me dry clothes, and Cage and Finn dragged me over to the bathroom and forced me to go in the stall and change.
When I came out, I washed the blood from my hands and then fell against the wall beside the sink, sliding down to the floor and letting myself break down.
They moved on each side of me, sitting on the floor as they cried right along with me.
When Brinkley arrived, she paced for the longest time and then went and got a hot tea and insisted I drink it while she paced some more.
The next few hours were brutal. We were told that Georgia had suffered a traumatic brain injury when she’d fallen through the ice and most likely hit her head hard enough to split it open. She was in a coma, and they had no idea how long it would be until she woke up.
I called my grandfather, who had a friend that was a prominent neurosurgeon in San Francisco, and he flew on our helicopter to give a second opinion. No one thought she was in a state to be moved, so we’d bring doctors here and do whatever it took to make sure she got the best care.
We were able to sit in her room in the ICU, and the Reynoldses had all agreed to take shifts, as the hospital didn’t want more than two people in her room at a time.
I wasn’t big on taking shifts.
I was here, and I wasn’t leaving.
When the sun came up in the morning, I blinked a few times, my hand covering hers and my head resting beside her waist on the bed. I’d slept in the chair on one side of her bed, with Alana on the other.