Page 100 of Savior

We had to end it.

Unable to sit still for a moment longer, I released Lauren’s hand and got up to move. As I set a manic pace around the room, I continually checked the clock on the wall, fighting to recall how long we’d been waiting.

I’d sent Zane and Dakota home when it became clear we weren’t going to know anything for hours. As Nate came off-shift, he’d done his best to give us updates before convincing Kate to get some sleep. She’d been almost catatonic with grief, blaming herself for what happened as if she could’ve changed the outcome.

Angel sat silently in the corner, picking at his lips with trembling fingers. “Should’ve been me, Celia.”

I paused, sure I’d misunderstood.

“Should’ve been me,” he repeated. “Kid just got sober and had his whole life ahead of him. Babies… a wife.”

“Hey,” I sank down in the chair beside him. “Don’t talk about him like he’s already gone—”

“Ain’t he?” His watery brown eyes met mine. “You heard the doctors. He’d lost so much blood…”

His jaw settled into a hard line. “Should’ve been me. I ask myself every day why I’m still around, you know? Tryin’ to figure out what unfinished business the saints need me to handle. I think I finally know what it is.”

“What?” I whispered.

“Jamie. Maybe they ain’t gonna take me ’til I find my boy. Just tell me how in the hell I’m supposed to do that, knowin’ that his son is dead? His mama trusted me to take care of him when she was gone, and I couldn’t do the same for his kids.” His voice broke off in a sob.

I lay my head on his shoulder and squeezed my eyes shut, going over every step of the plan in my mind, refusing to accept the idea of failure.

And then I did something I hadn’t done in years.

I prayed.

The doctors entered, and I fought my way back over to Lauren, my feet heavy as if they were being weighed down with concrete blocks.

Once, when I was younger, I’d gone to the local amusement park and purchased a ticket for the main attraction—the Death Scream roller coaster. As the car slowly climbed the first hill, each ominous click along the wooden track seemed to ratchet up my anxiety, leaving me to question what had possessed me to put my life in danger in the first place.

My fear increased when we finally reached the top, only to stop moving altogether. It seemed as if we hung over that drop for ages.

“I’m so sorry, Mrs. Sullivan,” the older doctor began with a shake of his head. Lauren choked out something unintelligible, and I felt the car shift almost imperceptibly. “We did everything we could—”

Just when I’d become convinced that we’d remain suspended forever, the car was thrust forward, and we entered a free-fall.

Chapter Twenty-One

Kate

“Katy! Run!”

I jerked awake suddenly, still hearing Mike’s warning echoing through my skull. His voice was the strongest in the middle of the night, pulling me from a dead sleep to alert me to the danger that surrounded us on all sides.

Nate’s breathing remained deep and even as I slipped out of bed and into the bathroom. I softly closed the door behind me, not bothering to turn on the light. As I stared at my reflection in the mirror, I noted that there was more than enough moonlight streaming in from the window above the tub for me to see the dark circles rimming my eyes.

I flipped on the faucet, splashing some of the cold water onto my face before pulling my bath towel from the hook. My knees buckled beneath me. I sank down to the tile, mashing the fibers against my face to stifle the sounds of my sobs.

In some weird ritual born out of tragedy, I left the faucet running, as if my body needed a soundtrack of running water to properly grieve.

For the past three weeks, the bathroom had become my sanctuary, my safe place to purge the overwhelming guilt I felt when I thought of what Mike had sacrificed in his final moments.

Because of me, he was dead.

One minute he was here and the next, he just wasn’t.

His daughters were going to grow up without their father because he’d died protecting me. I wailed into the expensive cotton towel while my brain replayed every second of that night in slow-motion.

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