Page 22 of Medusa's Revenge

“I don’t know. The explosion is having people being pushed back.” He hands me to the EMTs who check me over. “Do you know if they found anyone in there? My worker Noah was in there.” The paramedic is checking my oxygen and trying to ask me questions, but I’m refusing right now. “She won’t let you do anything until she knows her boyfriend Noah is okay.” My boyfriend. Is that what Noah is to me? The paramedic asks her partner to go find out. They had just arrived on the scene. I breathe in deeply and wince at the pain in my back. “Where are you hurting?” He asked me. I tell him my back and head. I hit hard when I landed. The paramedic looks me over. She’s shining a pen in my eyes.

“You’re going to be sore tomorrow. I don’t think you broke anything. I think you have a mild concussion and should go to the hospital to get checked out just to be sure.”

“I need to know about Noah first. Please.” She nods, handing me a bottle of water. She walks away. “TJ, what the fuck happened?”

“Ruby and I left to get lunch. We usually leave around this time every Thursday because I take the money to the bank. Noah was working on some paperwork, finalizing it to practice law here. He gave me his order and we left. We were closing early today because thanks to him, all the cars are done. My customers picked them up this morning.”

“Have the other people been around lately?” I whisper. He shakes his head. He told me about the yellow corvette guy. His name is Luca Rossi. We’re still doing a deep dive on him.

“Ma’am, we found your boyfriend. They got to him before the second explosion and sent him to St Carol’s Hospital about thirty minutes ago. Can I take you now?” I nod.

“Can you have Derby take my bike to the clubhouse and you come to the hospital when you can?” TJ kisses my forehead and tells me after he talks to the fire marshal and the police captain he’ll be there. I hug him tight and get taken to the hospital. My stats are good, but my eyes flutter close because the stress of worrying about Noah has me crashing with relief that he’s at least at the hospital. I opened my eyes, “You didn’t tell me how my boyfriend was.”

“I don’t know his condition, just that they took him to the hospital as soon as the firemen were on scene. Once we get there, I’ll try to find out while they examine you.”

“Thank you. I’m not used to being this scared for someone other than my family. It’s new.” She chuckles and tells me she understands. As we stop and the doors fly open, she rattles off a bunch of numbers and words that make no sense to me. The lights in the hospital emergency room are bright. I don’t remember them being so bad before and I wince as I open my eyes when they tell me. There’s a nurse talking to me and I’m tuning her out. The paramedic informs me she’ll look for Noah for me. I thank her and ask the nurse to lower the lights. Some of them are bright, hurting my eyes.

The nurse leaves after shutting the lights off, and there’s a knock on the door. I hoarsely tell the person to come in. It’s the paramedic.

“I found Noah.” The grim look on her face has me trying to stand. “It’s not good news.” As she’s giving me the news, I let outa scream that brings me to the time I held onto my dying Dad’s hand and fall to my knees.

Chapter Nineteen

Noah

Moments before the fire at the body shop

“Are you sure you don’t want to get out of the shop for a little bit?” Ruby asks again as she puts her leather jacket on. “We’re going to the bank then to grab lunch.”

“Thanks for the offer, but I can’t. I need to finish this paperwork by the weekend and right now it’s slow, so it’s perfect. I don’t want to bring it home to Amelia.” She smiles at me.

“We’ll bring you back something, okay?” I nod thanking her. I navigate my laptop. I hit complete on the documents and close the laptop. I place it back in the bag. Walking out from behindthe counter, I stretch my body and stare out the window. It’s a quiet day and happy to see everything is caught up. TJ thought we’d never get there because he’s been coming in early and staying late. He was going to collapse soon. I hear a noise in the garage bay when I take a step toward it the phone rings. I’ll check the noise later.

“Thanks for calling Tanner’s Auto Body Shop, Noah speaking. How can I help you?” I grab a pen and paper to write down. The next thing I know my eyes open in an ambulance. People are shouting numbers. My eyes are scanning everything. I try to swallow but there’s a tube there. My hands try to pull it out but there’s someone blocking me from doing it.

“Sir, you need to calm down. There was a fire at the body shop. You were coming in and out of it then stopped breathing. We needed to put a tube in so you didn’t die. Relax. Do you understand what I’m saying?” I nod slowly. The tube feels like I’m suffocating. “We need to wait on the doctors at the hospital to take this out, okay? I know it’s uncomfortable but try to remain calm. We’re almost there. You have some burns on your body. Were you the only one in the shop?” I nod again. Thank God TJ and Ruby left. “Okay good. I’m glad we got you out so quickly. This hospital is good and will take good care of you.” I blink staring at her. “Good. You’re relaxing. Listen to my voice.” I close my eyes. He talks about his kids, what he wants to do for Christmas as a family and taking his kids to see Santa. I feel calm but I moan in pain. “Are you in pain?” I nod. “Okay. I’ll give you some more fentanyl for the pain. You have a lot of burns on your right side. Some look to be fifth degree burns. You have a long way to go recovery-wise, but you’re alive, which is great news.” Nodding again, I’m alive, but will Amelia still want me? I’m going to be disfigured. Is this from that guy two months ago? Will TJ be able to rebuild? How long will I be in recovery? As I think these thoughts, everything fades to black.

“We’re losing him. I’m going to start CPR. Step on the gas.” Were the last words I heard.

Chapter Twenty

Medusa

It’s been a week since the explosion at the body shop, and I’m sitting in the hospital next to a sleeping Noah. They finally brought him out of his medically induced coma. There was some brain swelling they needed to watch, and they wanted to let his body sleep so he could heal. Noah’s right side of his body has bandages covering him. Depending on what Noah wants, they are talking about skin grafts or letting it scar. I just want to hear his voice and would give anything to hear him say, Merida. I’ve been splitting my time between here and the clubhouse. We got a video of the man setting the bombs. It was one of the menwho came to talk to TJ on Noah’s first day of work. He went underground once he knew we saw him on cameras. My girls are looking for him. I want him found, and then I will punish him properly. A cell phone rings, and I see Noah’s mom's name flashing. I had Joker hack his phone to find her.

“Hello?”

“Amelia? How is he?”

“The same. We are just waiting for him to wake up on his own.” I sniffle.

Clara chuckles, “He’s always been stubborn about his beauty sleep. He never wanted to wake up for school. My mother would bribe him when she watched him.” I giggle. “Jim and I will be there sometime tomorrow. We needed to make work arrangements. I hate how long it has taken.”

“There’s not much for you to do right now. He’s just sleeping. The time to be here is when he wakes up and needs help navigating. The doctors are talking about graphs or letting it heal to see how it is. They were able to remove a lot of the dead skin since he was in a coma and on good pain meds.”

“Thank you for being with him through all of that. I know he’s quite happy with you. He wouldn’t shut up about you when he first met you.”

“He’s pretty special to me too.” I blush, admitting to his mom about the man I’m falling for. “Let me know when you are to land, and I can have someone pick you up.”

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