Page 74 of Reclaiming Adelaide

“Sweets? What’s wrong?” I tapped her cheek.

Her chest rose again, twisting at the waist, and she puked bile all over the carpeted floors.

“Go faster, Charity.” I slammed my hand against the side of her chair. “Fuck.”

Her body shivered as goosebumps erupted across her skin, but she remained latent, her arms hanging limp beside her.

“I’m going as fast as I can,” she said as she picked up her phone and made a call. “We’ve got her, but we need to hit Saint Mary’s hospital. She’s in rough shape.”

My heart wrenched with agony as I watched her fragile body shiver. My gaze dipped down to her bruised hip, still marred with a ring of light yellow circling around dark green—like a halo of pain.

Bastards.

“Adelaide, open your eyes.”Just show me that bratty glare. Something. I needed to see her agate gaze to know she’d be okay. “Don’t do this.”

My throat constricted when they remained closed, her limp body in my arms. The car came to a screeching halt in front of the emergency room sliding doors. Charity bolted inside as I pulled Adelaide out of the car. A team of nurses met me at the door with a gurney, where I placed her on the rolling bed.

“How long has she been like this?”

“She was stuck in a car all morning. I spoke to her forty minutes ago. When I found her, she was like this.”

“Was she responsive?”

The doctor, a woman in her mid-forties, rubbed her gloved knuckle along Adelaide’s breastbone, making her face flinch from the pain. That was a good sign, wasn’t it? She was still reactive. That was good.

“I got her to open her eyes once. She vomited in the car on the way here.”

“We have a head contusion and possible heat stroke,” she said as they raced through double doors.

“Sir, I need you to stay here,” a nurse said, breaking away from the team. “We’ll come and get you when she’s stable.”

My feet quit moving as I threaded my fingers through my unruly hair and tugged. Everything inside of me wanted to tell her to go fuck herself. I needed to be beside her.

Do you have any idea who I am?

Instead, I obeyed. As if on autopilot, my body listened to her order without question, leaving me displaced outside of the double wooden doors with a sign etched across them.

Restricted area.

“Nico’s on his way,” Charity said as she tucked her phone into her back pocket. “It’s going to take them a bit to get an assessment. Why don’t you come sit down?”

I didn’t want to sit. I needed to be there, holding her hand while they worked on her. She’d be uncomfortable and in pain.

The waiting room sat in one long oblong rectangle with white-tiled floors lining the walls and dark tiles in the center where the blue chairs sat side-by-side.

It sat empty, a wasted space which had seen more pain and heartache than anyone could ever know.

I took the closest chair to the doors she disappeared behind and rested my elbows on my knees.

My knee bounced, making it impossible to see straight as it jarred my entire body.

“I’m going to park the car. I’ll be right back.”

The sterile antiseptic room stung my nostrils as I scanned the area. I can’t be here. We shouldn’t be here.We should be in our hotel room eating room service while we both pretended to ignore one another. Instead, my entire world disappeared behind those doors, surrounded by strangers without me.

If she survived, my world would never be the same again. I’d never let her out of my sight. She’d be stuck with me forever.

If she didn’t, that was it.

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