The car reluctantly straightened out and I got it heading towards the doors. Two police cars were parked outside, shining their headlights inside, and I shot between them. I stared at the sliding glass doors, willing them to open. They were made to cope with speeding gurneys so they should activate in time. But ten feet from them, they were still firmly closed. Six feet. Four—
There’s no power. Shit!
I screamed as the car crashed through the doors, safety glass showering down all around me. But I was in. The car sped through the ER, tires fighting for grip on the tiles. Everyone had looked round at the crash of glass and most people had jumped aside but a few patients were still standing right in my path, mouths open in shock. I slammed my palm on the horn. “Get out of the way!” I yelled desperately.
They scattered and I raced along the hallway. Thank God this thing is so small. I clipped a supply trolley and it went flying, then scraped a bed that was sticking out, but I kept my foot down, focused on the frantic group of people gathered around the critical care beds.
I screeched to a stop, groped for the button that released the hood, and jumped out. Maggie, being Maggie, had figured out my plan as soon as she saw my car. She grabbed the power cables from the ventilators and started splicing them into the batteries that powered my car.
I rushed over to the beds, staggering a little because my legs suddenly didn’t want to hold me up. I was still shaken from the skid, I guess, and the exhaustion was hitting, too, but I had to help. Every one of the ventilators was dark and silent and nine people were doing CPR in unison.
It was tempting to make straight for Rebecca but the guy resuscitating her, his back turned to me, looked like he knew what he was doing. I gently took over from a woman with a bandaged head and she slumped into a chair, relieved. As I pumped the patient’s chest, my eyes met Corrigan’s and the worry and affection in his gaze made all the exhaustion and shock melt away. He looked at me like I was the single reason he got up in the morning, the center of his whole world. Deep, tender care, that burning lust and a hint of caveman anger, too that made me feel warm and protected. What did you think you were doing, running off like that?
I held his gaze as we worked away, all nine of us falling into the same desperate rhythm. Everyone was tired, but no one was quitting. Come on, come on—
Suddenly, the ventilator next to me came to life, bathing my face in its glow. All of them lit up, the ER filling with the sound of slow, mechanical hissing. We staggered back from our patients, arms aching. Maggie straightened up from my car, grinning in relief.
“There should be enough power to keep them going for hours,” I told the group, shocked at how tired I sounded. Then I blushed. “I, um... keep it fully charged.”
Corrigan grabbed my waist and lifted me off my feet, crushing me against his chest. “Of course you do, Beckett,” he told me. I could feel him ruefully shaking his head. “God, I love you.”
A hot wave of emotion rippled down my body, hearing that, and I tightened my arms around his shoulders. God, I was ready to drop. I had no idea what time it was, only that it was late. Between the bank robbery and then Rebecca’s surgery and then the hospital shooting and then Krista and the fire and then this, I hadn’t stopped in about fourteen hours. Waking up in Corrigan’s bed felt like a lifetime ago.
But now, finally, we could stop. I disentangled myself from Corrigan just long enough to join everyone else in high-fiving Maggie, and to check on Rebecca. The guy who’d been keeping her alive turned around—
Seth?! Colt’s son?!
I twisted around and looked at Corrigan, but he just gave me a solemn nod. I bit my lip, then turned back to Seth. He wouldn’t meet my eyes. I hesitated. After everything Seth’s dad had done….
But Corrigan had trusted me, with my crazy plan. I had to trust his judgment too. I checked on Rebecca and her vitals looked strong. “You did great,” I told Seth. And I meant it.
Seth nodded quickly. He still wouldn’t meet my eyes, but I saw his shoulders drop in relief.
“Let’s all just take a minute.” Corrigan had raised his voice so that everyone in the ER could hear, that gorgeous Irish bass filling the room in the way mine never could. All of the volunteers nodded gratefully and stepped away from their patients, Seth included. I stayed where I was but let my head hang down and my eyes close. Corrigan was right: we deserved a moment’s rest. We had plenty of time now to get a new generator back here to power the hospital. Everyone had made it through alive. We’d won.