Page 133 of Wicked Proposal
“Because I can’t do that to you.”
But you can do that to her?
“I have to.” My teeth grit, my knuckles pop. “If I let her go, I’ll lose them.”
And if you don’t, you’ll loseher.
“I’ll lose her anyway.”
Kira’s ghost falls silent. If she were truly here, she’d know what to say. She was always wiser than me. If she were here, she would have known what to do. About Nikita, Mia—about everything.
But she’s not here.
She isn’t the one who survived.
I am.
And I’m going to hunt the motherfuckers who took her life to the ends of the fucking Earth.
No matter what it costs me.
No matter what it costs anyone.
41
MIA
ONE MONTH LATER
“I need a gurney here!”
“BP’s 70 and dropping. He’s hemorrhaging from?—”
“Where’s the goddamn cart?!”
I rush to the ambulance doors. The guy strapped to the EMTs’ gurney has definitely seen better days.
So has his stomach. Specifically, the giant rebar-shaped hole in it.
“This the hypotensive patient?” I ask.
“Yes, but Dr. Adams said to wait for?—”
I ignore the paramedic and push one microgram of epi.
“Nurse Winters!” Dr. Adams comes thundering through the doors in his pristine white coat. My scrubs are soaked in blood from head to toe, but his clothes, like usual, don’t have a single goddamn spot on them. “I gave specific instructions for this patient!”
I try to bite back my irritation, but I fail. “If we’d waited, he’d be dead,” I hiss through my teeth, making sure the patient doesn’t hear me. The last thing we need is to add an anxiety attack on top of hemorrhagic shock.
“He’s a patient ofmyOR?—”
“Then get him into your OR!” I snap. “Right now would be good, actually!”
Dr. Adams’s eyes flick between me, the patient, and the EMTs still applying pressure to the wound. I can tell he wants to argue more, because that telltale popping vein on his temple is promising a scolding for the ages.
But he must realize what everyone else in the room has clocked three minutes ago: this guy cannot afford to wait.
“Get him prepped,” he orders his terrified residents with a bossy wave of his gloved hand. “I’ll be waiting in OR 2.”
