Until Autumn

Please, Thorne. Please, be okay.

CHAPTER 24

AUTUMN

I pace in front of the nurses’ station.

What’s taking so long? It’s been four hours already. Four freaking long ass hours. What the hell is going on in there? All they had to do was go digging for the stupid bullet, pull it out, and stitch him up. He should be done by now. He should be in recovery with me waiting by his bedside, ready to help him with whatever he needs. Morphine? I’ve got it. A sponge bath? I’m the girl for the job. Someone to seek out the dickhead who did this to him and personally end his pathetic existence? Damn fucking straight, consider it done.

Four hours.

Four fucking hours.

Every passing second makes the anxiety rise within me. Why isn’t this over yet? Are there complications? Is he bleeding out?

No, I can’t go there.

I focus on my pacing because in this screwed up world, sometimes pacing is all we have. Thorne’s whole family has been waiting out in the waiting room, desperate for the information that I still don’t have. I know I should go out there and sit with them, but I can’t bring myself to move away from the phone. It’s my one lifeline, the one thing between good and bad news.

My feet slowly drag me up and down the hall in front of the nurses’ station as Patricia watches me with a frown. In most cases like this, the family member or loved one will be sent away to sit in the waiting room, but I’ll be damned if I allow her to shuffle me away. She’s already tried and it didn’t go well for her. I want to be right by the phone when it rings.

The second Thorne gets out of this, I’m going to be right by his side. That’s if he gets out of this.

Fuck, no. I can’t think like that.

Positive thoughts. That’s all that’s acceptable right now. Positive thoughts. I don’t believe in all that positive thoughts can heal bullshit. I believe in medicine and science, and what it can do, but just in case I’m wrong, I keep it up. Thought after thought, desperately trying to manifest a good outcome.

We got word an hour ago that Ashleigh’s husband somehow survived his ordeal, which is great news for Thorne. He won’t have the agony of knowing that he killed a man resting on his shoulders for the rest of his life, yet a part of me, a dark, haunted part of me, kind of wished for a different outcome. I would have died a happy woman knowing that Thorne ended the man who put a bullet through his leg and almost cost him his life.

The trauma we have all had to suffer at his hands is horrendous, and I honestly don’t know when I’ll be willing to get back into the OR to assist on a cesarean again. I know I want to, I wish I could be strong enough to move straight past it, but I fear that the second I step in beside the doctor, all the memories are going to come flooding back with a vengeance.

The phone rings and my head whips around. Patricia is on it like a leech, scooping up the receiver, her eyes flicking to mine as the phone is slammed against her ear. “Maternity,” she rushes out.

Her eyes remain locked on mine, tight and haunted as the person on the other end explains what’s going on. Then finally, her whole demeanor changes as she sags with relief. “Oh, thank god,” she sighs. “He’s out and he’s doing alright. He should be waking in the next hour or so.”

I crumble onto the desk as the relief surges through me. “What room?”

“Recovery. Room 1410,” she says.

I take off like a bat out of hell, racing through the hospital to reach the recovery ward. I haven’t had to be down here often, only when it’s crazy busy and they need a few extra hands, but for the most part, the maternity ward has its own little recovery section that does us just fine.

My gaze sweeps over the doors, scanning for his room number but I don’t really need to as a group of nurses and doctors stand hovered outside one particular room, gaping through the window as though he’s some kind of sideshow, put there for their entertainment and gossip.

I reach his door and fly straight through it before turning on the crowd and pulling the curtain closed to give Thorne the privacy he needs. I hear them all grumbling, some demanding to know why I get to be in here when I don’t even work on this ward.

I ignore every single one of them and turn to take in Thorne fast asleep in his bed. My heart aches for him. I hate seeing him like this. There’s nothing that I wouldn’t do to take his pain away. I wish it was me. I would have jumped in front of that bullet a million times over if I could.