Branded (Ignite #2)

With a deep sigh and a quiet ‘thank you’ to God for keeping my friend safe, I push through the curtain and wait in the hallway for Collin and DJ. A few minutes later, the doors to the ambulance bay burst open again and I look up to see Collin running through them, his eyes anxiously searching all around the busy area until they connect with mine. I run up to him, throwing my arms around him and giving him a hard squeeze.

“She’s going to be okay. The doctor said she’s going to be okay,” I tell him as I pull back to look at his face.

His tense shoulders sag with the news and he closes his eyes in relief.

“They just took her upstairs for a CT scan. She was alert and talking right before they took her and she was asking for you. I told her I’d send you right up.”

Collin thanks me and takes off running for the elevators. Five minutes after he leaves, DJ comes through the doors and I run into his arms just like I did with Collin, but this time, I pull back and pepper his entire face with kisses.

“Thank you so much for taking care of her. I don’t know what I would have done if…”

I can’t even finish that statement. Thinking about losing my best friend is not an option.

“Where’s Jackson?” DJ asks, looking past me down the hall.

“He was back there somewhere sitting in a chair last I checked,” I tell him in confusion.

“Stay here, I need to talk to him,” he tells me as he starts to walk around me.

I sidestep him and get in his way. “What’s going on? Why do you need to talk to Jackson?”

He won’t look at me, just continues to search over my head down the hall.

“Don’t worry about it. Just sit here and wait for Collin and Finnley to come back down and I’ll be right back.”

He tries to get around me again, but I slap my palms against his chest. “Stop it! Talk to me! What the hell is going on?”

He lets out a huge sigh, tilting his head back to stare up at the ceiling. “Please, Phee, just let it go for now. I’m going to take care of it.”

I shake my head back and forth. “No, absolutely not. We’re in this together. If something is going on, I have a right to know.”

Thoughts start screaming through my head, bad thoughts. Things I don’t want to believe, but if DJ needs to talk to Jackson after just leaving an accident that my best friend was supposedly responsible for, there’s only one reason for that.

“It was her fault, right? Brad said she ran a stoplight and even though she’s the most conscientious driver I know, accidents happen sometimes. Tell me it was an accident, DJ,” I beg, even though I know just by looking at the sadness and fucking pity on his face that it’s not true.

He tries to wrap his arms around me, but I swat them away. I don’t want his comfort right now, I want the fucking truth.

“The cop on the scene told us there weren’t any skid marks from Finnley’s car,” DJ tells me softly.

Okay, so that could happen. Especially if she just wasn’t paying attention. God, how bad of a friend am I that I hope she just wasn’t paying attention as opposed to the alternative?

“And?” I prod.

He bites down on his bottom lip as if he’s trying to shut himself up and stop himself from telling me more. I can tell by the conflicted look on his face that he really doesn’t want to tell me more.

“DJ!” I shout in irritation.

He growls, throwing his hands up in the air in frustration, spitting out the next bit of information as quickly as he can.

“Dax called when I was parking the car after I dropped Collin off at the doors. He went to the accident site and checked over her car.”

He pauses and I hold my breath, trying not to curse at him.

“Her brake line was cut.”

My breath leaves me with a sob. DJ tries to pull me to him once again, but I back away.

“Phee,” he pleads.

I shake my head back and forth as I continue walking away from him.

No! No, no, no!

This is my fault, all my fault. It should have been me today, but I’ve had Jackson on my ass since I left DJ’s house and he couldn’t get to me. He hurt my best friend because of me. He almost killed my best friend because of me.

I can physically feel my heart breaking in half. My chest hurts and I want to curl up in a ball and scream until my throat is raw.

DJ starts to head towards me when another paramedic grabs him from behind, pulling him down the hall away from me to help with another emergency that’s coming into the hospital. I watch as he tries to struggle away from the guy, keeping his eyes glued to mine, waiting for me to call to him, to beg him to hold me and stay with me.

I close my eyes and turn away from him. There’s nothing he can do to help me now.

I curse my fucking job and the biker who was hit by a car that I needed to help move from the ambulance into the ER when I should have been racing after Phina. That goddamn stubborn woman is blaming herself for what happened to Finnley. I wanted to hold her and erase all of that blame from her head, but she wouldn’t let me. I could see the exact moment she shut down and forgot about everything we’d promised each other. Her eyes became vacant and her face shuttered every emotion from me. There is no fucking way I’m going to let her shut me out. Not now. Not after everything that’s happened and how far we’ve come.

By the time I helped move the injured biker, Collin and Finnley were back down from CT. I wanted to leave immediately and go to Phina, but my best friend clearly needed a little support. He was visibly shaken even though Finnley was still awake and talking both of our ears off about the accident. I stared at the huge bandage over her forehead, noting most of the blood had been washed away by one of the nurses and memorizing the irritated look on her face as she complained about the hospital food she would have to eat for the next twenty-four hours. I would much rather commit this face to memory than the one of Finnley unconscious and pale with blood covering almost every inch of her.