Page 131 of Guarding Over You
“Paddles!” he yelled.
The defibrillator was wheeled closer, gel smeared, pads pressed to her chest from the shirt that had been cut away as the monitor was flatlining.
“Charging. Clear!”
The jolt hit, lifting her body off the mattress. The monitor stayed flat. His heart was thumping loud enough he thought the entire room heard it.
He swallowed hard, his eyes locked on the screen. “Come on, Arden. Don’t do this. Don’t you dare leave me. Think of Gracie.”
“Charging again!”
He stepped back, hands trembling now.
A second passed. Then another.
A single blip.
Then another.
A slow, fragile rhythm crawled back onto the screen.
He exhaled the breath he’d been holding, his vision blurring as relief flooded in. His hand hovered over hers.
“Stay with me,” he whispered. “I’ve got you. I swear to God, I’ve got you.”
40
NEED TO KNOW WHY
“Any change?”
Blaze turned from where he’d been dozing in the chair next to Arden’s bed to see her mother standing in the open doorway. He hadn’t left her side.
She was still in a coma and all they could do was wait it out.
Tox screens showed PCP. Someone slipped it to her and there was no saying when or how it happened.
He needed her to wake up. He needed her to walk him through her day.
He refused to think aboutifshe woke up. Or if there was any long-term damage. She’d crashed once more but was steady now. At least her heart was.
There was no room in his brain for more.
“No,” he said.
“I should have been told something was going on in her life,” Trisha Charles said. “Arden shouldn’t have been keeping this from me.”
“There isn’t anything I can say to that.”
And he couldn’t worry either.
With Arden not waking up, he had to get her emergency contact, call her parents and arrange for them to get Gracie. They’d rushed to the hospital first, staying there while he updated them, then broke the news he wasn’t just Arden’s doctor, but her boyfriend.
It wasn’t until Trisha and Josh returned after Gracie was sleeping and his sister was staying at the house with Arden’s daughter, that he could fully explain what was going on.
“She’s always been a stubborn one,” Trisha said. “I never thought Billy was the right guy for her. Could it have been him?”
“No,” he said. “There is no way. Someone in this hospital gave it to her. Security is looking into everything and everyone. The same with the Glens Falls Police and Sheriff’s Department. They’ll get something soon.”
