I cut him off. “I told you, he’s not. If my mother was A-negative, then he has to be either B-positive or AB-positive, which is compatible with my type! Right? And you said yourself, he needs blood as soon as possible. So give him mine! Even if it’s not much, it’ll still buy him some more time before we can get him airlifted to a proper hospital, won’t it?”
He rubbed his chin and sighed. “Yes, it would. Shit…” He let out another sigh.
“If for some reason it all goes wrong, I’ll take the blame, okay?” I put my hands up. “I’ll tell everyone I forced you to do it; threatened to kill you or something. Your license won’t be at any risk.”
My father’s heart monitor began to beep even slower, and the doctor finally relented. “Fine. Sit down and roll up your left sleeve. I don’t have any blood bags, so we’re going to have to do an old-style person-to-person transfusion.”
“Fine by me.”
He busied himself setting the transfusion up, and I sat and watched my blood flow out of my arm a moment later, streaming directly from me into my father’s veins.
“I can only take so much,” Dr. Paulson said as he hovered over us. “It won’t be enough to fix the situation, but it should stabilize him for now. Let me know if you feel any weakness or dizziness.”
“I’m fine.” I gritted my teeth. “Take as much as you can.”
As I waited, I thought about my mother’s death again; the way she bled to death to give me life. Now I was giving my blood to save my father. Kinda fucked up family tradition, really.
“That’s all we can do,” Dr. Paulson said a moment later. He removed everything from my arm and quickly patched up the puncture mark with a cotton ball and medical tape. Then he busied himself checking my father’s vitals again.
“How is he? Did it work?” I asked sharply.
He nodded. “His pulse is steadier. Breathing slightly steadier too. He’s going to make it.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. Thank fucking god.
A guard knocked and entered the small medical wing a moment later. “Chopper’s landing in five minutes. We should get ready to transport him out to the helipad.”
The doctor nodded and barked some orders at the nurse. I excused myself and ducked out, telling them I’d meet them on the helipad in a few minutes. Then I hurried down to the underground section of the mansion and found Brett, a Finishing School security guard I’d befriended when I first found out Tatum would be given to me.
“How’s your father?” he asked, eyes wide with concern.
“He’s gonna be fine. Where’s Tatum now?” I asked.
“Locked in her cell. We cleaned it up a bit before we left her alone.”
“Okay. I need you to do something for me,” I said. “We’re going back to the initial plan.”
He raised one thick brow. “I thought you said you wanted to go in another direction to break her down.”
“Not anymore. As soon as possible, I want you to make it happen. She needs to learn her fucking place here.”
He smiled. “Got it. We’ll do it later today.”
“Good. She needs it.”
I turned and briskly headed upstairs and out to the helipad. A large helicopter had just landed, and Dr. Paulson and some mansion guards were helping two paramedics load my father into it. I joined them, hoisting myself up inside the chopper.
The paramedics and Dr. Paulson set about hooking my father up to several tubes and machines. Then one of them gave the pilot the all-clear to take off.
“Nearest hospital is twenty minutes northwest,” one of the paramedics called to me over the loud whir of the rotor blades. “He looks bad, but he’s gonna pull through. Your transfusion helped his heart start pumping properly again. Lucky you were here.”
I nodded and stared down at my father’s pale form, my jaw set in a grim line. His lips and fingernails had a slightly blue tinge, and his chest was rising and falling far too slowly.
I still couldn’t fucking believe Tatum did this to him. She was going to regret it, though. I’d make sure of it. In fact, when I was done with her, she’d regret ever being alive.
One of the machines my father was hooked up to started beeping violently in my ear a few minutes later, and my gaze shot up to Dr. Paulson. “What’s happening?”
His brows furrowed, and he moved closer to my father. I noticed the skin on his face looked red now, and he seemed to be having an even harder time breathing. “Shit,” the doctor said, looking at his chest. “Look.”