Page 82 of Love JD

“No,” Amos replied suspiciously.

I breathed in deeply, trying to settle another rattle of panic that vibrated through me. “Zev was in an accident,” I said, my voice shaking. “I’m trying to get to him.”

Silence permeated Amos’ side of the call. Finally, he asked, “Is he alive?”

“Yes,” Kael assured him. “We don’t know more than that. I’m trying to help Isla get well enough to ride a plane.”

“She can’t,” Amos bit out. “She could be tachycardic or bradycardic; she could be hypotensive or could have suffered seizures while she was fainting and asleep. You can’t just—”

“I’m going to Seattle,” I cut him off. “Help me get there or hang up.”

Amos sighed loudly, ending on a growl of frustration. “Give her an IV and tell me her BP reading.”

Kael finished setting up an IV port and saline EMT-fast, shucking off paper and plastic wrappings, tapping my vein, and sliding the needle in like he’d done it a hundred times. Although, he didn’t wear gloves, and I was pretty sure none of this was “to code.” After he taped it down, he secured a blood pressure cuff to my other arm and took the reading for Amos. “Seventy over forty-eight,” Kael said.

I gave him a surprised eyebrow raise. “Wow. Look at you.”

“Do you have fludrocortisone and oral glucose?” Amos asked.

“Yeah,” Kael said, fishing through the bag.

“Point oh-five of fludrocortisone and a fifteen-gram tube of glucose,” Amos bit out, clearly perturbed. “And if she doesn’t go to a hospital, then it’s on you if she has a seizure in the air, Ghost.”

“I don’t have seizures,” I pointed out, hoping to assuage the doctor’s fears.

Amos snorted. “Isla, when Zev gets better, he’s going to kick your ass.”

“Fine with me,” I said, my throat tightening. He’s going to get better. Whatever else happens, he’s fine. He has to be.

“Maybe you should wire me that money before I drag your almost corpse on a plane,” Kael mused thoughtfully.

“Jesus Christ,” Amos said.

Chapter twenty-eight

Isla

Flying with Kael in the middle of a dysautonomia flare-up turned out to be much worse than I had expected. The IV saline helped, and Kael insisted on putting me through two bags before even attempting to drag me through the airport. Whatever medication he had given me did make me feel better, but I was weak from not eating for a few days, and although he forced me to drink a sports drink while I huffed my way across the enormous airport, I ended up barfing the blue stuff into a trashcan anyway.

I leaned on him heavily as we went through security, and we got a lot of side-eyes from travelers, but Kael had put a mask on my face and told people I had the flu. Right. Totally believable. He gave me a piggyback ride to our terminal, and I passed out right before we boarded.

The whole thing was a disaster.

And all the while, I wondered why I was even doing this. Why I was crawling and clawing my way across the country to get to Zev when I should have been doing the opposite. I should be fighting to put as much distance between us as possible.

This was my fault.

It was my fault a crazy chick had chased us in the first place.

My fault that Zev had been forced to travel and fight for his job.

My fault that he’d left early and gotten hit in a crosswalk.

If he hadn’t left the meeting to rescue me, he never would have crossed the street. He never would have put himself in the path of that car.

I’d tried so hard to keep his mind where it belonged, but that wasn’t how Zev operated. He cared deeply. He cared too deeply, and caring for someone like me was a one-way ticket to a shitty life.

My dad’s life had gotten infinitely better after I’d left. My mom hadn’t even wanted me in hers—giving birth to me alone had screwed up her reputation. Tristan’s life got messy when I was in it at all. It was no surprise to me that I’d fucked up Zev’s life, too, and here I was, on my way to make it worse.

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