Chapter 39 #2
Cillian would love to nail the punk who had shot Victoria. But she came first. “I’ll get help.” He jumped out of the truck and sprinted to the building, the automatic glass doors opening too slowly in front of him.
“Help!” He glanced around, looking for a nurse or orderly.
“This way.” Robert grabbed his arm, then let go as he darted around the corner to the left.
Cillian hurried after him, spotting a desk just ahead with two women in scrubs behind it.
Robert reached the desk first. “We have a female gunshot wound victim in critical condition in our vehicle just outside.”
“Orderly!” One of the women waved at a man coming out from a corridor, and she hurried around the desk.
The other nurse had picked up a phone and was saying something over the PA system that Cillian didn’t try to make out.
“Show us where she is.” The first nurse looked at Cillian as the orderly she’d called grabbed a stretcher on wheels parked by a wall.
Cillian glanced back at Robert. Looked like the other nurse had him filling out some sort of form on a clipboard. Lucky he was a family member. Or was that God’s doing, too?
Cillian spun away, tabling the question for another time as he led the orderly and nurse out of the hospital to the pickup. He helped the orderly transfer Vicki from Hank to the stretcher, then stayed glued to her side as they wheeled her into the building.
More hospital staff met them at the door, walking quickly alongside the stretcher as they threw medical terms and numbers back and forth.
They turned to the right at the corner, no one trying to push Cillian away from Vicki, which would’ve been impossible.
“Stop!” A man’s shout echoed in the corridor.
A guy ran straight at them.
Tall and skinny. Blue jacket. Dark jeans.
Warren.
Cillian bolted into action, running at him.
Warren froze, eyes huge as he stared at Cillian.
He had him.
Cillian dove at Warren. Too soon.
The kid dodged.
Cillian fell to the ground, his chin smacking against the hard floor. He scrambled to his feet as the pursuing cops ran toward him, too far behind to catch the fugitive.
“Warren!” Cillian sprinted after the punk.
Warren headed right for the doctors and nurses surrounding…Victoria.
If he hurt her again—
He suddenly stopped. Next to Victoria’s stretcher.
The nurses and other staff moved into Cillian’s path, forcing him to slow as they tried to get away from the fleeing criminal.
“Victoria?” Cillian pushed through the panicked people who blocked his view of Victoria as they jabbered in confusion and chaos.
His vision of Warren and the stretcher cleared as he reached the other side of the medical staff. All except for one orderly who lingered on the opposite side of the stretcher from Warren. Why wasn’t the orderly rolling Victoria away?
Then Cillian saw it.
Victoria’s arm reached out from the stretcher, her hand on Warren’s wrist as he stood there, unmoving.
Cillian snuck closer, not wanting to spook the punk.
“I thought I killed you.” Warren’s tight, frightened voice reached Cillian’s ears.
“No, Warren.” Victoria’s weak tone was harder to hear as Cillian got within a couple feet of her shooter. “I know you didn’t mean to shoot me.”
The orderly on the other side of her stretcher looked at Cillian, his eyes signaling he was ready to act.
Cillian held up a hand to keep him back. If they made the wrong move, Warren could grab Victoria.
“Sydney needs you, Warren.” Victoria’s words grew even weaker. “Do the right thing. God will forgive you if you’re sorry for what you’ve done. So will I.”
Inches behind Warren, Cillian grabbed his arms, pulling them behind the kid’s back as Victoria’s hand fell away.
The punk didn’t fight Cillian. He kept staring at Victoria, whose beautiful eyes had shut again as her arm hung limp.
Two police officers appeared behind Cillian and reached for Warren.
Cillian gladly transferred the kid and went to the incredible woman who had rallied just enough to stop the bad guy from getting away. He gently lifted her arm to rest on the stretcher again. “A little help here!”
The nurses and other staff, distracted by the police pulling Warren away to cuff him, snapped to attention and returned their focus to Victoria.
The stretcher moved, and Cillian started to follow. But a hand grabbed his shoulder, holding him back.
“They’ve got this.”
Cillian turned to see Hank standing next to him and Robert a few feet away, watching his sister get carted off.
“Well, them and God. She’s safe in His hands.”
Cillian swallowed. It was going to take some getting used to.
This trusting God thing. But it was like Victoria had said, he couldn’t really do anything right on his own.
He’d gotten the killer’s identity wrong and put Victoria in harm’s way through his stubborn belief that he knew best. About time he let someone much wiser take the lead.
God, show me how to stop pushing everyone around to get my way. Help me to do things Your way instead.
He would need all the supernatural help he could get with that. Because now, more than ever before, he wanted nothing more than to spend the rest of his life with Victoria Weston. To love her forever.
But actually…this was different. He felt the change deep in his heart.
He finally loved her enough to let her choose. And whatever she chose, to love him or not, he would keep on loving her to the end of his days.