Page 64 of Nikolai
“Oh!I’m so sorry!I can get you another copy!”
Dr.Crowley just shook his head.“That’s fine.Don’t worry about it.I understand you’re worried about your friend, Mr.Garin.”He touched her forearm and smiled and looked her up and down.“He’ll be ok.You know, it will be a couple of hours before you can see him.You might want to change out of those bloody clothes.I understand it is his blood, so maybe he won’t want to be reminded of being shot.”
Parker looked down at herself.She’d completely forgotten what she looked like.Filthy from crawling through rubble, and caked with Nick’s blood.Now that she knew Nick was going to live, her skin itched with the desire to shower and change.
“A car and a driver are waiting outside for you,” Dylan said.“If you could pick up Nick’s things from the hotel, that would be great.I called the hotel to have them packed for him.I’ll wait here for you.”
Parker turned to the doctor.“I want to be here when Nick wakes up and can receive visitors.”
“You will be,” the doctor said gently.“Unless you live in Rome.”
“I live on the Vomero.”
“Then you’ll make it.Go on then.You’ll feel better afterwards, and Mr.Garin will feel better not seeing his blood on you.”
Well…put that way…
“I’ll be here,” Dylan said, “And he will be out of it for another?—”
He looked at Dr.Crowley.“I’m not allowing anyone in for at least another three hours.Mr.Garin is currently in the recovery room and will be for a while.Then he will be taken to his hospital room, but I like to give patients time before they are allowed visitors.And he’ll be a little loopy from the anesthesia for a while anyway.”
Dylan put his hand on her shoulder.“The driver is in the parking lot and has your name on a tablet he’ll hold up.He will wait for you at the hotel and then he will wait for you at your house and will drive you right back here.Go.”
She went.
Like everything connected to Nick, it all went super smoothly.The driver, a very nice Italian gentleman, was in the parking lot, offered her a bottle of water she hadn’t realized she wanted until he handed it to her, and took off.He navigated Neapolitan traffic like a pro.Which she supposed he was.When they got to Nick’s hotel, the driver insisted she stay in the car while he got Nick’s suitcase and came back in a quarter of an hour, pushing a big hardcase wheelie.
He miraculously found a parking spot right outside her gate and told her to take however long she wanted.He’d wait for her.
Parker’s hands were shaking but she didn’t want to let the nice Italian gentleman know that.She murmured something, dropped the key to the street door, picked it up, got into the building, ran up the steps, fumbled the key to her apartment door, finally got it open and slammed it behind her.
She shed her filthy clothes as she ran to the bathroom, stepping out of her panties just as she entered the shower stall, and turned the water as hot as she could get it and stood under the stream, crying, until she got it out of her system.
She had no idea why she was crying.She and Nick had both survived something terrible, but they were okay.But as long as she lived, she could never forget that moment when Nick came flying at her, covering her with his body, and the feel of the punch as the bullet hit him.
For one horrible moment, she thought she’d lost him, as the blood poured out of him.That she hadn’t lost him was a miracle, but she understood that as he raced toward her, throwing himself over her, he was consciously sacrificing himself.Shielding her with his body, fully prepared to die.For her.
It didn’t bear thinking about.She sat on the floor under the shower head, legs pulled up against her chest and sobbed.The tears came in great wracking gulps of air, almost spasms.She cried and cried until she couldn’t breathe, until no more tears came, until her chest hurt.
She sat against the shower wall until her sobs ceased, and her breathing returned to normal.She sat for a long time, thinking of nothing, mind completely empty.Letting the hot water pour over her, warming her up from the bones out.
Though it was a hot day, she’d been freezing.Shock, no doubt.But now she was warm again.
Parker stood up, easily.Her legs had been unsteady when she walked into her apartment, but now they carried her easily.She felt light, as if the crying jag had liberated her from a black bolus of evil.She turned the water off and stood there, herself again.Suddenly, she couldn’t wait to get back to Nick.It felt like her life had split into two.Before Nick and now with Nick, and she needed to be by his side, right now.
They’d both survived something that should have killed them.The earthquake and the shootout, either one.But they weren’t dead.They were alive, and Parker felt life sparkle in her blood down to her fingertips.
She dressed, packed a small bag because she intended to stay with Nick for as long as the hospital staff allowed her to, and went downstairs.
Just outside the door, she stopped.Remembering that moment—could it possibly have been only 24 hours ago?—when she came home with Nick.Their first kiss against her door.That feeling of something new and vastly exciting starting.When she looked around her familiar surroundings, it was as if everything became new.
The driver was where she’d left him.He got out and opened the back door for her.“Sorry to take so long,” she said.
“No problem at all, ma’am,” he answered.
It was late.She’d lost all awareness of time.Today had been endless and it wouldn’t end until she was able to see Nick, and if possible, talk to him.
“There are sandwiches and hot tea in a thermos in the bag,” the driver said.
