Page 134 of Guarding Over You
Then he remembered the screaming girlfriend covered in blood outside the doors. She was hysterical and he didn’t see anything other than emotions, too focused on his job. It could have been Erika, but the woman back then had a dress on smeared in blood, her hands covered with it, some on her face with tears mixing in. No features stood out to him.
The Erika he knew wore scrubs daily with her hair pulled back from her face, always offering a smile.
“I brought him back after he coded,” he said through his teeth. “We did everything. He died in surgery. I wasn’t even in the room.”
“You don’t owe anyone any explanations,” Ford said, lowering his gun. Tate’s was still aimed.
“Yes, he does! He killed Tyler, so I need to kill Arden. It’s the only way I’ll be free. If someone else feels what I went through. If he sees what it’s like to go through the pain of losing someone he loves.”
“Are you confessing to poisoning Arden Bellamy?” Tate asked.
It was as if she was finally seeing what she’d done.
Her eyes were more focused. She was staring at Tate’s gun aimed at her.
Then she was nodding her head and coming apart. “It was going to be you,” Erika said, sobbing and lowering herself into the chair again, her body almost sagging under the weight of her confession. “I got hired here to make you pay. I applied for a year before I got the interview. I never thought I’d be in the ER with you, but it was fate. I just had to bide my time and figure out the next step. But once you fell for her, I thought how much worse it’d be if you had to live with losing someone at your hands you loved just like me.”
Erika’s head was on the table now as she broke down in tears.
“Erika Johnson, you’re under arrest for the attempted murder of Arden Bellamy?—”
He walked out of the room as Tate read the rights.
He got his answers, but none of it made a lick of sense.
Ford was fast on his heels.
“Hey, don’t let her get in your head.”
“You heard her. It was supposed to be me.” His hand hit his chest. “I don’t have a child. I don’t have anyone. And Arden’s lying in the bed while we wait for her to wake up. I don’t even know if she’s going to be okay. It’s all on me.”
“Don’t fucking do this to yourself,” Clay said, having followed them out. “I’ve been there. Don’t let something suck you in you can’t control. It wasn’t you. It isn’t going to be Arden.”
He couldn’t stand there and listen to his brothers, just turned and strode back to the woman he loved to watch and wait for her to wake up and prayed the guilt didn’t take him under this time.
41
BEEN ALL ALONG
The haze was thick, her eyelids were heavy, and her tongue felt twice the size it should be.
There was something cold in her nose. Something blowing in. Why?
She tried to open her mouth, but all she did was cough.
“Hey there. Open your eyes, Arden. That’s it. Just open them. You’re safe. I’ve got you.”
It was Blaze’s voice. He was talking to her, but it felt so far away. So distant. Almost tiny.
“Gracie,” she rasped out. It was the first thought. If Blaze got to Gracie, she’d be fine. She knew it.
“She’s fine. She’s safe. She’s with your parents.”
Her eyes blinked open, then closed, then flew open again, trying to focus on the man in front of her.
He was almost bouncing around the room, blurry, but his voice was soft. Coaxing her. Letting her know he was right there with her.
Like he’d been all along.
