Page 86 of Heartless

Gideon placed Olivia on the sofa and checked her over for visible damage, finding nothing that would explain her collapse.

As Hawke stood beside her, Gideon checked her vitals. “Her pulse and respiration are good. Her pupils are reactive to light.” He shook his head. “I see no injuries. Nothing.” He glanced up at Hawke. “Did she eat or drink anything? Does she have any allergies you know about?”

“We both ate the same thing—coffee and a muffin. She doesn’t have any allergies.”

The sound of a helicopter closing in on them had everyone scurrying. Hawke noticed that Serena, Liam, and Xavier were hovering near the door, their expressions filled with the same worry.

Did Livvy know how much she was loved? No, not past tense. What’s wrong with me? Livvy is loved.

“Okay, let’s go,” Gideon said.

Once again following behind them, Hawke barely registered that someone handed him crutches. Getting onto the helicopter with a bum knee would be no picnic, but there’s no way he could let her go without him.

Once settled, he took her hand in his and held tight. It was all he could do to keep howls of anguish from erupting.

She had to be okay. There was no other option. Livvy had to be okay.

* * *

Two hours later, she was still unconscious. Not in a coma. Several doctors and specialists had examined her already. So far, they agreed on only that one thing. Her body wasn’t reacting the way a coma patient would, they said. All they could do was continue to monitor her vital signs and test blood samples to try to figure out what the hell was happening.

Hawke stood outside the closed door of her room. He’d been shoved outside while newly arrived doctors did another examination. Her room was filled with them. More blood was being taken. MRIs and scans were being ordered. They were doing all they could, but what if it wasn’t enough?

He’d never felt so hopeless, so lost.

“Hawke, any word?”

He turned to see Ash headed toward him. The concern in his eyes mirrored that of all the other operatives who’d gathered in a room down the hall, waiting for word on Olivia’s condition.

“Nothing,” Hawke said.

“Come sit with me a minute.”

“I don’t—”

“We won’t go far. Just over there. You can still see her door from there.”

Feeling like a zombie, he let Ash lead him to a row of chairs across the hallway.

Once seated, Ash said, “Okay. Tell me exactly what happened today.”

Hawke blinked, knowing he needed to focus. If the explanation rested in anything that had happened today, he needed to find it.

“Our flight was an early one. We grabbed a coffee and a muffin at the airport. Got on the plane. She drank some bottled water and ate half an energy bar during the flight. She was fine. Nothing out of the ordinary happened. We landed. Went to long-term parking and got the car. Drove to OZ.”

“Did you talk to anyone? Did anyone come close enough to touch her?”

“No, I would have noticed that. Why?”

“I talked to the admitting doctor. He said she has no wounds, nothing that would indicate she’s been injected with anything, but he said it’s like she’s been drugged or dosed with something.”

“I opened the water for her on the plane and ate the other part of the bar. Neither of them could have been tampered with.”

“Okay. When you got to OZ, what happened?”

He told himself not to think about the words, about the awful things he’d said. Things that made him want to cut his tongue out.

“Hawke?”

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