Chapter 21
I mainly eat whole foods. Whole blocks of cheese. Whole pizzas. Whole cakes. Whole tubs of ice cream.
—Text from Ellodie to Quaid
QUAID
“He’s okay,” I said to my dad. “Got pinned down under gang-on-gang fire. He took a bullet to the hip. One to the chest. Refused to ride in the ambulance and drove himself to the hospital. The ambulance took three more gang members from the BreakersGang.”
“Good.” Dad sounded relieved. “Where are you going now?”
“Heading to the gas station around the corner,” I answered. “Assman was rear-ended by a semi-truck. His patrol car is fucked, but he’s okay, according to him.”
“Ellodie is alone?” Dad sounded alarmed.
Hell, I was alarmed myself.
“Yeah,” I croaked.
I found the gas station she’d told me she was going to, then cursed myself for not buying a phone for her that was with my phone company. Cell service on her provider sucked donkey balls and was notorious for going out at the least opportune time lately. Like fucking right now.
I pulled up at the gas station and felt a sense of relief to see her no longer there. Maybe she’d decided to leave and go straight home…
Pulling up my phone, I parked next to the pump that I would need to fill up my own cruiser and got out.
The phone rang.
And rang.
And rang.
And the unease that’d been with me since I’d left her that morning hit me right in the chest, full force.
“Baby,” I said when her voicemail picked up, “I told you to wait in your car with the door locked. Where are you?”
“You looking for a young woman? About yay high, beautiful brown hair?” the woman wearing bright pink scrubs and smoking a cigarette at the gas pump asked.
She wasn’t pumping gas. At least there was that.
I looked at her, feeling a bit of relief that she’d been seen. “Yeah.”
“She left with a doctor not too long ago,” she explained, looking relieved herself. “I stayed a bit because she was talking about you comin’. She left with an ER doc who used to work with her. He said his car broke down about two blocks that way. He mentioned his knee, and that he was needed at the hospital.”
I blew out a relieved breath.
Dr. Brewn.
She’d told me about him and his guide service in BrokenBow.
She wasn’t alone.
That was good.
“Thank you, ma’am.” I nodded my head at her.
“Welcome.” She paused. “I didn’t like the look of that guy. I’m a nurse in the pediatric unit. Something was off about him and that’s why I waited here.”
I hoped she was wrong. I mean, how was she going to tell me there was something off about a doctor when she was literally lighting up a cigarette next to an open gas container?
I called Ellodie again once I got in the cruiser, and then started to track back to the hospital.
I didn’t see her car, but that wasn’t really saying anything. The hospital was huge and took up four blocks. Cars were everywhere.
Double parking next to a utility van, I got out and jogged inside, hoping to find Dr. Brewn.
Only, I got a bunch of confused looks and an explanation from a nurse. “Dr. Brewn quit last week.”
Gut sinking, I pulled out my phone and called Auden who was at the station today.
“Yo,” he said.
“Ellodie is missing. TrackDr. Brewn’s cell phone,” I said as I stood in the hospital hallway, a bunch of worried looking nurses surrounding me. I spoke and paced. “He got a ride from her at the gas station. Was supposed to be taking him to the hospital, but they never showed. That was twenty-five minutes ago. I got a bad feeling, Auden.”
Auden said he’d look it up, then I called Tobin.
I gave him the same information and stayed on the phone with him while I listened to him type.
Tobin started to work, and within minutes, he had access.
With the blanket agreement from the judge to do whatever we needed to get this motherfucker out of his town the information came fast.
And within ten minutes, we’d pinpointed his location to a popular hiking trail on the outskirts of LakeLavonne.
I made it to the lake entrance in three.
“It’s him.” Tobin sounded excited.
I wasn’t excited.
I was experiencing bone-deep terror as I hung up on him and called my dad.
“Carter,” he said gruffly, sounding distracted.
“The killer has Ellodie,” I said as I bailed out of my cruiser and headed for the trailhead. “It’s a doctor from the hospital.”
“Don’t fuckin’ move, kid. I know you want to, but you need backup. If he was able to get her into the woods, there’s a reason.” Dad activated the phone tree after hanging up, and soon I had all kinds of people calling me.
I didn’t answer any, hoping to keep the line open in case Ellodie called.
She didn’t.
It was one and a half minutes later when I decided fuck it and started hiking.
I couldn’t wait.
Wouldn’t.
Not when she needed me.
The stupidly stubborn, too smart for her own good, really never going to hear the end of it from me, woman.
God, was it possible to love someone too much?
Because the feelings inside my chest right now… they were debilitating.
My hands were shaking. My knees felt weak. My heart was pounding.
And it had nothing to do with the hike I was now taking down a trail I’d been down what felt like a hundred times now.
I’d hiked all the trails in the area. Twice.
In fact, I’d been on this one five times over the last month, because it was the only one in the area that hadn’t been utilized yet, and I’d had a feeling I needed to familiarize myself with it.
NowI was glad that I had.
Pulling out my phone, I clicked on the tracking app Tobin had sent me, and tried to follow it without making it sound like I was a herd of elephants.
Instead of taking the trail, I cut through the woods, hiking up a slight incline I knew headed to a switchback that would lead down to the lake.
I looked at my watch, ignoring how my heart rate was riding at about 200 beats per minute, and glanced at the clock.
It’d been thirty-nine minutes since I’d last spoken to her.
So much could happen in that time…
I’d just topped the hill, being careful to conceal my footsteps and breathing, when I peeked over the edge and found myself staring at a leg.
My stomach sank.
I knew those legs.
I knew those leggings encasing those legs.
I’d watched her slip them on this morning with a laugh on her face as she exclaimed at how tight they were now…
I didn’t stop myself then.
I hauled myself up, went sideways slightly, and found myself staring at her.
She was lying in the middle of the trail, looking like a broken doll.
At first, I couldn’t quite make out what I was seeing.
It was a sight that I’d never seen before except in movies, and that didn’t do it justice, really. My brain couldn’t quite comprehend what I was looking at when I first spotted her.
Then things started to pop out one by one.
Her arm was bent at an awkward angle.
Her face was battered so badly that she didn’t even resemble the woman I loved.
Her leg… It was broken.
Her hair was a matted mess.
Her stomach.
Oh, God. Herstomach.
Her shirt was ripped open.
Her breasts on display.
Her belly… It was cut open.
Just sliced from hip to hip.
And that…
I didn’t…
I dropped to the ground, my hand going to her belly that was cut open deep.
Her stomach was hanging out.
No, not her stomach.
Her uterus.
That was her uterus.
And her intestines.
They were perilously close to touching the dirt.
I called 911 using Siri.
After giving my location, I gently placed my hand over Ellodie’s organs and turned her, hoping that my hand would be enough to keep everything inside.
I felt her heart beating against my hand.
Felt the slick wetness of her blood.
Fuck.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
A commotion had me glancing up, but not moving.
A man came running through the trees.
Dr. Brewn.
He was being chased by someone.
WhenI looked up it was to find Boss hot on his heels, jowls wide open, bravely trying to catch the motherfucker.
Boss leapt and Dr. Brewn went down, falling right off a switchback and onto the creek bed below.
Boss followed at a much less breakneck pace, but I could tell by his barks of outrage that he’d not gotten his prize yet.
Garrett paused with his face taking everything there was to take in, horror evident.
“It’s bad,” I whispered.
Garrett swallowed and nodded.
“Go,” I ordered.
Everything was a blur after that.
I wound up in the ambulance after that, on the bench seat next to a paramedic, helping where I could.
I’d done it before.
I’d done it a lot of times before, actually.
But there was something different about doing this when it was someone I loved.
When it was the only woman that was made for me.
“Baby just kicked,” the paramedic said as he held the pad in place.
I jerked my head up. “What?”
“The baby,” he elaborated. “Moving like crazy.”
The baby.
Moving like crazy.
Was that what I’d felt and not her heartbeat?
I guess I’d never know.
Her heartrate decelerated suddenly, and the paramedic—he might’ve called himself Eric—holding the wound packing to Ellodie’s belly cursed. “Get some gloves on.”
I blinked as the box was shoved into my face.
ThenI did as I was told, slipping them on.
“You’re going to hold pressure here,” he said as he pointed with his chin to Ellodie’s belly. “The tape isn’t holding it well enough with all the blood and debris. She needs a bandage around her, but I don’t want to move her.”
In case anything else was wrong.
Fuck.
And there was a very real possibility that something else was really wrong.
The gloves slipped on, and then I shifted spots with the paramedic, holding the wound packing down with more force than I thought was necessary.
But since I wasn’t the medical professional here, I did what I was told.
“I’m gonna get her some more fluids,” he said.
“Eric, do you need me to pull over?” the medic in the front asked.
“No,” the paramedic, Eric, in the back disagreed. “She needs a hospital right now.”
Or she’s not going to make it.
I closed my eyes and felt the tears starting to form.
I was so lost in thought that at first, I didn’t feel the movement.
But then, an obvious nudge to my hand, had me opening my eyes and glancing down.
The baby.
I’d felt the baby.
MyGod.
The only reason I could feel the baby was because there was only a small amount of gauze separating me from Ellodie’s actual uterus.
I was sick to my stomach.
And damned if the tears didn’t win.
Would either of them survive until tomorrow?
I had this dawning sense of horror that they wouldn’t.
In the hospital, hours later, with her lying in a bed looking so utterly broken, I couldn’t stop the tears that had dried up the moment we got to the hospital from starting again.
A deep, almost physical ache had taken root in my chest upon sight of her, and it felt like it split wider and wider by the second.
I moved toward the bed, tears threatening to spill over, and stopped within arm’s reach of her hand.
Her hand that was broken.
I pressed the barest of touches to her ace-bandage-wrapped hand and said, “I’m so fucking mad at you right now.”
I was.
I was livid.
Mad that she’d trusted him.
Mad at myself for trusting her instincts when it came to him.
Mad that she’d gotten gas when I’d told her not to.
Mad that she’d almost taken herself away from me.
Mad that my brother had gotten shot and had taken the attention away from Ellodie.
Mad. Mad. Mad.
Just. So. Mad.
She cracked her eye open.
Just one.
The other one was swollen shut.
She had a shattered cheekbone that would take months to heal.
But that was only the tip of the iceberg.
She had so, so many more injuries.
But that deep blue of her eye was the best thing I’d ever seen in my life.
“Calamity,” I growled. “You are in so much trouble.”
Her lips parted.
And a single word came out. “Kiss.”
I closed my eyes, felt the tears fall, and bent down to give the barest of kisses to her cracked and bleeding lips.
“Love.” She breathed shallowly. “You.”
Another tear fell.
“Love you, too, Calamity. So fuckin’ much that I can’t wait to let you have it when you’re better,” I whispered.
“The.” She drew another breath. “Baby?”
The baby.
I hadn’t even thought to ask.
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I didn’t even think.”
Some dad I was going to be…
“Think,” she breathed. “Now.”
I went and got the doctor.
MyCalamity was asleep when I came back with the poor man.
“I’m surprised she woke up,” Dr. Marroni admitted. “She’s been heavily sedated.”
I watched Ellodie’s chest rise and fall, still waiting for shit to hit the fan.
There was no way it was this easy. With her injuries… there was just no way this was going to be an easy road.
“Can you tell me about the baby?” I asked. “She asked when she woke up.”
“Your son, as far as we can tell, is perfectly fine,” Dr. Marroni said as if his words hadn’t just shocked my poor, abused heart. “We did an ultrasound after she arrived, transvaginal because of the trauma she sustained.”
I closed my eyes for a few long seconds, thinking about our son.
Ourson.
“What’s the verdict?” I asked, surprised at how even my voice came out.
The doctor walked up and checked her chart for a few seconds before placing it back in the holder at the bottom of her bed before replying.
“At this point, we’ve stabilized her as much as possible,” Dr. Marroni answered. “It’s a waiting game. One of the biggest obstacles that we’re about to face is infection. Dirt. Grime. Germs. All of it got into her stomach wound. Though we disinfected it as best as we could, and we’ll treat her with antibiotics preemptively, there’s still a very real possibility that she’ll get an infection.” He paused to take a breath. “Then, there’s the obvious. Bruising, contusions, broken bones. It’s going to take a very long time to heal. She’ll be in the hospital, my guess, for about a month. From there, she’ll be on strict bed rest until the rest of her heals. Her belly’s already going to be compromised because of the wound she sustained. With the baby growing, it could also put stress on the wound. TheOB/GYN will be able to tell you more about what she expects after we get you out of here…”
If we get you out of here was left unsaid.