Page 51 of Thea's Hero

No. Please.

With a shaking hand, I push aside her hair and touch her neck. Her skin is still warm.

But.

There’s a horrible second when I can’t feel anything.

And then.

A pulse. Slow. Steady. I almost burst into tears.

“Sweetheart,” I croak, my eyes burning from more than just smoke. “Ah, Thea, baby, please wake up.”

I want to check her, find out where she’s injured. She could have broken bones, a head injury, internal bleeding… I don’t know anything. But there’s no time here.

Thea needs fresh air and oxygen now, and that has to be my priority. So I carefully gather her limp body in my arms, one arm under her knees, the other behind her back. She’s still unconscious, so pale and fragile-looking, and I’m so damn scared she won’t wake up.

“Please, sweetheart,” I beg her as I run back towards the entrance. “Please, Thea. Please wake up.”

Just as I round the corner of the adult section, Thea coughs. And—oh, thank God—her eyes open and she looks right at me. “Ben!” She glances around, her eyes going big and scared. “What happened?”

I don’t slow my pace; as much as I want to comfort her, explain what I can, we need to get outside first. “It’s okay,” I grit out, not feeling okay in the least. “It’s all going to be okay.”

She doesn’t answer, just wraps her arms around my neck and clings tightly.

I blow through the doors, down the stone steps, past the incoming firefighters, not slowing until I have Thea safely away from the library. Only when we’re a good thirty feet away do I finally stop and sink down gratefully on the cool grass.

When I try to put Thea down, she makes an unhappy noise and hugs my neck tighter.

Still coughing, I rasp out, “Sweetheart, I need to check you.” As much as I don’t want to let go of Thea, I need to examine her.

After a pause, she releases her death grip and says quietly, “Okay.”

It’s chaos around us—firefighters streaming into the building, police converging, a crowd of worried friends and observers closing in. But it all fades into the background. My only concern is Thea.

“Back up, everyone who isn’t supposed to be here, back up.” One of the oldest members of the force, Mike Troy’s voice is authoritative as always. In seconds, he’s efficiently shooed everyone but the police and paramedics away. He crouches in front of us, while Grant and Ryan kneel on either side.

It’s painful to let them treat Thea.

Not because they aren’t competent. I know they are. And I’m not on duty right now; I don’t even have my equipment. But I can’t turn off this instinctive need to be the one taking care of her. So I settle for holding her wrist, my finger resting lightly on her pulse, feeling the reassuring throb that tells me she’s alive.

But when Thea hisses in pain as Ryan prods the back of Thea’s head, I growl, “Be careful!” before I can stop myself.

And when Grant hands me an oxygen mask, I stubbornly refuse to put it on until Thea has hers on first.

I can’t take my eyes off her. And I’m filled with a rabid need to protect her.

As Mike gently asks Thea questions about what happened, I’m balanced on a tightrope, a moment away from insisting he stop. That it’s too much for her. That she clearly has a concussion from the blow to the back of her head, she was unconscious, for God’s sake, she needs more time to recover.

Thea handles it much better than I do. Although she doesn’t remember much, either.

“I don’t know,” she repeats for the third time. “I was leaving my office after the alarm went off. Something hit me in the head. I didn’t see anything. Just flashes of color before everything went black.”

When she says that part, a growl starts in my chest. And worry resurges.

Another head injury in less than two months isn’t good. And that’s not even taking into account the giant elephant in the room. Or on the library property, as it is.

Like the fact that someone tried to kill her.

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