Page 60 of The Last Straw

“Jade! Lie down. You’re going to hurt yourself! You tell me who Charlie is and I’ll see if I can find out where he is,” she said.

“If I came in bloody and it wasn’t my blood, then somebody better tell me where the hell Charlie is or—”

“I’m here. Calm down, Wyrick. There are sick people here,” Charlie said.

Wyrick took one look at him and burst into tears.

“What happened to you?” she cried.

Now everyone was looking, and they were beginning to make the connection between the two. Her Charlie was Charlie Dodge. And this wasn’t some patient named Jade. This was Wyrick. Charlie Dodge’s Wyrick.

Doctor Julian looked at Charlie’s hands and then pointed to a stool beside Wyrick’s bed.

“Why don’t you sit down there beside her and we’ll all calm down. She doesn’t seem to remember what happened. Maybe you can enlighten us so we can treat her accordingly.”

Charlie sat, then pulled the sheet up over the dragon. “Don’t cry. I’m okay. It’s just cuts and scratches.”

Tears were running down her face as she rolled over and grabbed his hands, turning them palms up.

“What did you do?” she whispered.

“I couldn’t find the door he took you through, so I made one.”

“You are a crazy man, Charlie Dodge. Thank you for saving my life,” she said.

“I had to. You’re the only one who knows the password to the computer in my office.”

She sighed. “I don’t know what happened. There was a pain in my neck and then everything went black. I remember your voice and then nothing again.”

Charlie glanced up at the doctor.

“That puncture wound in her neck. It’s from a needle. She was drugged. We’re working a missing person’s case, and I think the person we’re after was afraid we were getting too close. He wanted to eliminate his biggest threat, which would have been her.”

Doctor Julian eyed Charlie and smiled. “I would have assumed his biggest threat would have been you.”

Charlie glanced back at Wyrick. “I’m just big and decently intelligent. She’s the genius of the whole operation.”

“Did he get away?” Wyrick asked.

Charlie nodded. “We’ll find him again, but you’re what matters now.”

“I have a headache. I’m not hurt. I’m not bleeding, but you are. Don’t anyone ask me questions,” she said and then closed her eyes.

Charlie started to let her go, but she wouldn’t turn loose his hands.

“You need to let go of him,” Doctor Julian said. “We need to—”

“Stop talking,” Wyrick mumbled. She was already with Charlie, feeling the pain in his hands, seeing the flesh cut from within, feeling the warmth of the blood and then zeroing in on the tiny nerves that he’d shredded to get to her.

Charlie could feel his hands getting warmer and the pain lessening. He knew she could do this, but he’d never thought she’d be doing it to him.

It was one of the nurses who first noticed he wasn’t bleeding anymore, and tapped the doctor’s arm and pointed. After that the room went silent. One doctor, two nurses and an orderly stood in silent awe, witnessing what could only be described as a miracle.

Charlie felt her magic and the power of her flowing through him, and knew when this was over he would never be the same. Ever since the day they’d first met, she’d been hell to live with, but at this moment Charlie knew there would not be a life without her. Whatever had been happening between them had been built on years of trust and sorrow shared.

So he watched her face, mapping the beauty beneath the public mask she always wore. Seeing a tiny blue vein in her neck that he’d never noticed before, and watching a tear seep out from beneath one eyelid and roll silently down her cheek onto the sheet. He’d never seen it coming, but he had fallen in love.

All of a sudden she turned him loose. Her eyes opened, and she was looking straight at him.

---