Chapter 18
LAWSON
“Lawson, you need to stay still.”
“Fuck that.” I shove at the paramedic who’s currently holding my shoulder in a death-grip. “Let me up.”
“You probably have a broken leg,” the other paramedic says, kneeling in front of me. “Not to mention the smoke inhalation.”
“I’m fine,” I grit out. It’s taking everything in me not to punch these two assholes in the face. “If you don’t let me see my woman in the next two seconds—”
“Let him up,” someone orders, and I look up to see Smitty standing in front of me, arms crossed.
“You know, I could have you arrested,” he tells me as I jump off the back of the ambulance.
I push past him, eyes scanning the lot for Nova.
There are tons of people running every which way while the crew continues to battle the blaze across the street.
Smitty follows me. “What the hell were you thinking, breaking into that building?”
“I was thinking that the love of my life was trapped in there, suffocating, while these assholes were out here twiddling their thumbs.”
“Putting out a fire is hardly—”
“They weren’t even close to the back of that building,” I snap. “They knew exactly where she was and they hadn’t gotten anywhere near her.”
“Because the back of the building was on fire,” he says, like I’m the dumbest idiot in the world. “They had to clear a path—”
“Fuck that. She would have died waiting.” The words bring bile to my throat and I let out a frustrated growl. “Where the hell is she?”
I haven’t seen Nova since I handed her out the window to Sawyer.
He wanted to wait to pull me out, but there were flames all around and I ordered him to take her and go.
I’d had a bitch of a time climbing back out, with the suffocating smoke and the agony in my leg—something is definitely broken.
But none of that mattered, not once I knew she was safe.
In the end, Mac came barreling through in his full fire gear, in direct violation of his chief’s command, and pulled my ass through the window and away from the building.
“Lawson,” Smitty begins, putting a hand on my shoulder, no doubt to try and calm me. Like that’s going to do shit. I need to see Nova and I need to see her now.
“Hey,” another voice says and Nick is standing in front of me. “They’ve got her in an ambulance over here. They’re about to leave.”
A fresh surge of fear goes through me. “Is she okay?”
“She’s awake,” he assures me, grabbing my arm and leading me through the crowd. “They need to treat her for smoke inhalation. Sawyer is still with her.”
I close my eyes, thanking the universe for my brothers. Nick leads me through the crowd and then the ambulance is right there, the back door still open. Nova’s boss, Linc, is standing there, talking to a paramedic. Inside I see my brother, bent over a prone figure.
“Nova!” I shout, trying to jog the remaining distance, but my fucking leg gives out. Nick catches me and gets a shoulder under my arm, practically carrying me to the ambulance.
Sawyer curses when he sees me, his entire body visibly relaxing. “Never thought I’d be so happy to see your ugly face,” he says, voice shaking as he climbs down from the ambulance. I pat his shoulder but don’t stop. There will be time to thank him later. Right now, I need to get to my girl.
Nick has to hoist me up into the rig because my leg is useless, but then I’m there, leaning over her, my Nova, whole and in one piece.
Her face and hair are smudged with black, her jeans and shirt torn from being lifted through the broken window, and she’s got a breathing mask on her face.
My girl is a mess, but I swear to God, I’ve never seen anything so beautiful.
Her eyes fill with tears when I lean over her and she fumbles with the mask, trying to remove it. “Shh,” I tell her. “Just breathe, baby. I’m right here.”
“We need to head out,” the paramedic says. “Are you going with her or—”
“I’m going,” I growl. I’d like to see any of them try to stop me.
“May as well take him along,” Nick says in a dry voice. “He needs medical attention too.”
Nova’s eyes go wide with fear but I lean in, pressing a kiss to her forehead, to her cheeks, anywhere I can find skin around the mask.
“I’m okay,” I promise her, not bothering to fight back the onslaught of relived tears. She’s safe, I tell myself. She’s alive. “We’re both going to be okay.”
I refuse to consent to an X-ray at the hospital.
I only let a doctor look me over because they’ve taken Nova into the back and won’t let me go with her until they’ve finished her exam.
The doctor tells me my smoke inhalation was minor but I have some burns on my hands and legs from where I got too close to the burning building.
She’s mostly concerned about my leg, but since I refuse more testing, she begrudgingly hands over a pair of crutches and tells me she’ll have the orderlies force me into the X-ray room in an hour if I haven’t relented by then.
It’s torture sitting in the waiting room alone.
I can’t even fucking pace to get some of this nervous energy out, with my leg being all fucked up.
I don’t know how long has passed when I hear loud voices in the hall, then Jonah, Sawyer, and Jules are pouring into the waiting room, all talking at once.
My little sister takes one look at me and bursts into tears, running over to throw herself at me. The force of her nearly knocks me over on my bad leg and I end up falling back into one of the plastic chairs. “It’s okay,” I murmur, rubbing her back. “I’m fine, Jules.”
“You could have died,” she sobs. “Don’t you ever do that again!”
I laugh. “I’ll do my best.”
“I’m serious!” She pulls away from my chest, her expression outraged. “This family doesn’t work without you, Lawson.”
I soften, smiling down at her. “I love you, Jujubee.”
She scowls. “Don’t you be all sweet, I’m so mad at you.”
“Let’s give the guy some room,” Jonah says, taking her arm and lifting her from my lap. “How’s the leg?”
Jules winces. “Shit, sorry. They told me you hurt it.”
“It’s fine.”
Sawyer snorts behind them. “Yeah, I saw you jump through that window. There’s no way you didn’t fuck that leg.”
Jules starts fussing. “What did the doctor say? Did they X-ray it? Why haven’t you been admitted?”
“Where’s her fiancé?” I mutter to the twins.
“Nick is still helping out at the site,” Jonah says. There’s a tightness around his eyes that I don’t like the look of. Once Sawyer convinces Jules to go with him to find me some coffee, I find out why.
“There’s going to be an investigation, obviously,” Jonah tells me in a low voice. “But it’s pretty clearly arson.”
Red tinges the edge of my vision as my stomach clenches. I’d expected as much. The fire moved too fast for there not to be accelerant involved. And someone had blocked the back door with a couch before lighting it on fire.
“What we don’t know is if they were intentionally trying to hurt Nova, or if they were just after the building.”
“Why would they have put that couch there if they weren’t trying to trap her?”
He shrugs. “They might have just wanted to cut off the firefighters’ access to the building to make sure the whole thing went down. No one is usually there that time of night, Law.”
Guilt slams into me for the hundredth time tonight. She was only there because of me. Because I made her feel like leaving town was her best option.
“Do you think it was King?” Jonah asks and I nod once, feeling my entire body tense up. It couldn’t be a coincidence that Nova’s place of work was targeted on the very night he demanded we renew our business relationship.
“I just don’t know if he did it to hurt her or to send me a message,” I mutter. “Either way, he’s a dead man.” I look at my younger brother, unease stirring in my belly. “Maybe you should get back to the house. Be with Ellie and Lucas.”
“That’s actually where Nick is,” he says in a low voice. “Didn’t want to say it in front of Jules. He knew I wanted to check on you so he volunteered. I don’t think any of the girls should be on their own until we figure out what’s going on.”
I nod, feeling grim. Before we can say anything else, Jules and Sawyer come back with coffees and, a few moments later, the nurse comes out to tell me I can see Nova now.
“Only two at a time,” she says, eyeing my hulking brothers, probably thinking how much space the three of us would take up in a hospital room.
“It’ll just be me,” I tell her, already making my way to the door on my crutches.
“It will not be just you,” Jules says, sounding annoyed as she joins me. I look down at her, confused, and she rolls her eyes. “You care enough about this woman to go into a burning building, Lawson. I wanna meet her.”
Since it’s pointless to try and talk my little sister out of anything, I just nod and we follow the nurse down the hall just as fast as my crutches can take me. While we walk, she fills me in on Nova’s condition and what they’re doing to treat the smoke inhalation.
I stop short when we enter the room. Nova looks so tiny in that hospital bed.
They’ve cleaned the soot off her face but her hair is still much darker than it should be.
There’s an IV in her arm, something attached to her finger, and what looks to me like a lot of wires connected to a machine that beeps and flashes numbers I don’t understand.
A breathing mask covers much of her beautiful face but her green eyes are open and locked on mine.
I want to throw up. Someone did this to her. Whether it was her uncle or some other asshole, they lit the building on fire with my girl inside.
Since I seem to be incapable of moving, Jules pushes past me and goes to the bed.
“Nova, I’m Julianna, Lawson’s sister. I’m so, so sorry for what you went through.
” Jules takes Nova’s free hand and presses it between both of hers, leaning down so their faces are closer.
“I wish it wasn’t under these circumstances, but I’m very glad to meet you. ”