Page 27 of The Devil's Ice

His mind went back to what he’d seen when he’d bolted out of Satan’s. He’d been the first in the bar to hear Keira’s screams and the gunshots, the first out the door to the parking lot. The first to see this five-foot-one woman standing tough and protecting a little girl – by placing herself in front of a fucking speeding van.

Ice had seen courage under fire, in many cases literally, back in his SEAL days. But he’d never seenanythinglike Vixen that day.

When he first caught sight of her, she was standing with her feet wide apart, solidly braced on those mile-high, mid-thigh black boots, the ones that he loved fucking her in. Her minute green skirt had ridden high and tight up her perfect legs, and her dark eyes were dilated to black as she grimly stared down the approaching vehicle, shooting and shooting, both hands holding the gun. She’d looked every inch the hot female assassin in some blockbuster Hollywood movie, right down to her hair flowing behind her in the autumn wind.

Then the van had turned away from her, and she’d lowered her arms, clearly thinking that it was all over. Ice had been running towards her this whole time, and he had known what was going to happen before it actually did. He shouted Vix’s name again, for the second time. The first shout had been in shock at what he’d seen seconds after running out of Satan’s; the second had been a warning of what heknewwas going to happen, what he was powerless to stop from happening.

Sure enough, the asshole had swerved back, and caught Vix with the side of the van. She’d been knocked through the air –God, she must have flown twenty feet– then landed on a horizontal parking block, head-first, her bloody face turned towards him. Ice had heard the horrible crack and crunch of bone, and before he could stop the memory from rearing up inside of him, he was back in that trailer hallway.

A woman lying there with a wrecked face.

He mentally shook himself, and then it was Vixen again, horribly silent and still on the icy ground.

Ice was kneeling next to her less than five seconds later. He couldn’t touch her, not with her neck at that grotesque angle. It was broken, he knew, and he was utterly terrified that she was paralyzed, in a coma, dead. He thought that she was gone, that he’d lost her, and he clenched his fists to stop himself from taking her in his arms one last time, to offer her some warmth and comfort in what may have been her last moments.

Commotion all around him made him briefly look up to see most of his MC brothers in the parking lot. Cowboy already calling for an ambulance, Zoe running over to Blue Dragon where Saint was cradling a screaming Keira, Scars right behind her but stopping to check on Vixen. Arrow and Viking were there with Elle, who looked horrified and was in tears; Jinx and Cole and Silver were chasing after the van. It was sheer chaos, but Ice felt removed from all of it. He was in the eye of a raging storm, but it was just him and Vix, and the only sound he heard was the beating of his heart.

The ambulance arrived in less than four minutes, apparently, but Ice would have sworn in open court that it had taken at least twenty. Every second that he knelt there, desperately trying to see if Vix was breathing without actually touching her, was an eternity and it was hell.

The paramedics had moved quickly and efficiently on the scene, and the initial news given at the hospital was bad, but not nearly as bad as it could be.

Her cheekbone was broken and badly cut up. Her right ankle was twisted. She had deep cuts on her head from the car windows shattering all over her. Worst of all – but also most incredibly – her neck was broken, but it had been broken theright way.

Ice had had no idea that there was any such thing: he thought that a broken neckalwaysmeant paralysis, andthatwas the best case scenario after painful surgery. But somehow, by some fucking miracle that Ice would never stop being grateful for, Vix had sustained what the doctor called ‘a minor neck fracture’. Looking at her, Ice found it hard to think there was anything ‘minor’ going on at all… it all looked pretty goddamn major to him.

“Mr. Johansson.” The doctor entered the room now, her ponytail swinging, and Ice got to his feet. “We’ve looked at Ms. Shaw’s final scans and neck x-rays. The news is very,verygood.”

Ice took a deep breath felt his chest loosen a bit. “OK.”

“As I thought, and I’m happy to confirm, the break is confined to the neckonly– your fiancée’s spinal cord is absolutely intact. This means that she’ll need to wear the neck brace and restrict her movements for about eight weeks. After that time, she should expect a full recovery.”

“No surgery at all?”

“None.” She smiled at him. “She’ll be sore and might experience tingling in her fingers and feet, but that will pass. She’ll need lots of rest and support, but beyond that, we just need to let her body heal. She’s young and very strong, so the best doctor for her is mother nature.”

“Wow.” Ice shook his head, feeling dazed. “That’s amazing.”

“I know people always talk about how half an inch in one direction or another can make a huge difference, and in Ms. Shaw’s case, it’s absolutely true. I’ll never say that she was lucky to have her neck broken – but Iwillsay that the way that it happened to her was almost textbook perfect if you want to recover quickly and completely from a neck fracture.”

“Doctor…” He glanced at her name tag because he was drawing a total blank on her name, despite having spoken to her at least four times. “Doctor Griffith. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” Her blue eyes were bright and kind in her heart-shaped face. “I’ll be back tomorrow morning for rounds, and if you need anything before then, call a nurse. If Ms. Shaw wakes up, Doctor Clarke is just down the hall, and he’ll take things from here. OK?”

“Yes. OK.”

“Goodnight, Mr. Johansson. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Ice nodded, then subsided back onto the chair, still stunned that things were going to be fine. Well, as fine as they could be considering that some fucker had tried to murder Vix and Keira in the club parking lot.

Ice heard something in the doorway, and he looked over to see Scars standing there. Right away, he was back on his feet.

“I just saw the doctor leave,” Scars said. “How is she?”

“Full recovery in eight weeks.”

“Holy shit.” Scars stared at Vixen, taking in the destruction all over her again, unable to believe that in just a couple of months, she’d be OK. “So her spine isn’t damaged?”

“Not at all.”

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