Your life is meant to flash before your eyes, just before you die. I saw a different one, one where I’d stayed upstairs that day.
I’d never have met Corrigan. I wouldn’t have been there when Rebecca had come in, and she would have died. Without her there, I wouldn’t have pressed for the ER to stay open and we would have evacuated along with everyone else. We’d never have known about Colt or his plan. When the snow melted, we would have come back to find the town wiped out by what seemed like a natural disaster. Corrigan and I would have found new jobs and gone our separate ways.
We’d both be alive.
But we’d both be alone.
A big, warm hand came to rest between my shoulder blades. “I trust you,” he said. And his voice was calm. He really did.
Twenty-three seconds.
I took a deep, shuddering breath and focused. I told myself that wires weren’t so different to arteries, really. Feeding from a heart—the battery—to a brain—the clock—with nerves running from that to the muscles—the explosives.
Eleven seconds.
The weak point, the point where the brain could be cut off without throwing out a rogue signal, would be….
I heard Corrigan draw in his breath.
Would be…..
There. I lunged forward and snipped a canary-yellow wire before I changed my mind. When I looked at the clock, the display had gone dark. I’d never know how long we’d had left. I thought about asking Corrigan and then decided I didn’t want to know.
And then it hit me that it was over. We’d won. I carefully laid the wire cutters down and then didn’t so much hug Corrigan as fall into him, laying my head on the top of his pec. All of the exhaustion and emotion slammed down on me at once and if he hadn’t wrapped me up in his arms I think I would have slid to the floor.
He let out a huge, shaky sigh and smoothed the hair on the back of my head with his palm. I snuggled into his chest and locked my arms so tight around his back that there was no danger, none, that anyone would ever separate us again. A bitterly cold wind was lashing the mountain and I could feel my ears and back and feet going numb. We should really get inside. But neither of us moved because that strip of flesh down our fronts, where we were pressed together, was so gloriously warm, neither of us was willing to sacrifice it. We rocked there silently for long minutes. Then he gently eased my head back, cupped my cheeks in his hands and kissed me.
It was slow at first, those hard lips gentler than I’d thought him capable of. For the first time, we weren’t in the middle of a crisis and it changed everything. He explored me, teased me with little flicks of his tongue against my lips, the pleasure delicate and pink, but shot through with a wicked silver promise that made me press myself hard against him. His hands slid into my hair and our mouths opened, his lips seeking and demanding, drawing me out.
My hands grabbed at his biceps, then his shoulders, reassuring myself that this was real, that we’d done it, that he was there. And he ran his hands protectively down my back as if he wanted to cover all of me and keep me safe from the world. It was a kiss that was full of possibilities, of hope for the future.
Corrigan gently broke the kiss. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s get back to the hospital and—”
Colt stepped out of the darkness. He was limping badly, the bandages on his leg soaked with blood, and his face pale and damp with sweat. But his eyes were bright with vengeful fury and he was holding a gun.
Corrigan lunged forward, hands outstretched to grab the weapon.
And Colt raised his gun and shot me in the chest.
65
Amy
AT FIRST, just disbelief. He can’t have—No, I can’t be—
Then the pain. Searing and aching, throbbing with each heartbeat. It hurt but, weirdly, it wasn’t as bad as I’d imagined getting shot would be. It was dull, somehow. It must not be too serious. I’ll be okay.
“You fucker!” yelled Corrigan and ran at Colt. Colt stood his ground and tried to bring the gun around, but Corrigan was a human battering ram, smacking into him and carrying him down to the ground. Before they’d even landed, Corrigan was smashing his fist into Colt’s face with wild-eyed rage. Corrigan would win. Colt must be close to passing out: how was he even on his feet?
Suddenly, my legs gave way. There was no warning, they just collapsed under me as the muscles stopped working. The fall jolted my chest, sending sharp waves of pain radiating outward, and I was suddenly so weak that I couldn’t even use my arms to break my fall. I tried to scream, but even my lungs needed more energy than I could give them.