“Nobody tried to save my parents. Nobody!”
Rachel tried to speak, to reply, but all she could hear was the terrifying gasps of her own strangled breaths.
“The firemen at the scene, they took too long to get my parents out of the mangled mess of their car. The paramedics could have done more for them, I’m sure of it, but they didn’t! And then, Dr. Moeller told me that there was nothing he could do, that he was going to operate on the bastard who’d driven the car that hit my parents . . . why? Why didn’t anybody try to save my parents? Why did they let them die like that?”
Rachel couldn’t reply. Dalisay’s hate-filled accusations weren’t true, but neither could she deny that the men and women on the scene that night would have made choices. Terrible heart-rending choices. They wouldn’t have had a choice. Dalisay was a nurse! She knew that sometimes hard decisions had to be made. Sometimes, doctors had to make a choice, not only on whom they could save, but who had the best chance of survival and recovery. Dalisay knew that! She knew!
Horror swept through her. Her eyes stared into Dalisay’s, a moan escaping her throat. Why David? Why the cop? Why—
“They’re all going to pay. All of them. I was ready,” she said, lifting the now-empty syringe into Rachel’s line of sight before she tossed it into the corner of the elevator. “But you had to stick your nose into it, didn’t you? You’re supposed to be my friend! You’re supposed to support me, but no one has. Not you, not my fellow nurses, not the doctors, nobody! And you’re all going to pay . . .”
Rachel tried to protest, to scream, to get help, but her voice was frozen, the only sound that came out of her mouth a gurgling, choking sound. She ordered her brain to make a fist, to lift her arm, to fight Dalisay, but her body refused to obey. Then, to her growing horror, a black shadow began to creep around the edges of her vision, growing deeper and darker until all she could see was the angry, evil, black glint of a Dalisay’s eyes watching her, the crooked smile forming on her lips as she slipped into unconsciousness.
19
Jeremy
Jeremy walked quickly through one hall after another, looking for Rachel, asking about her, but nobody seemed to know where she was. He ended up back in the lobby area, where he glanced toward the Emergency Room. Dr. Moeller ran past him down the hall. If he was still on duty, Rachel certainly wouldn’t be in the there. Pushing down his growing panic, Jeremy stepped toward the bank of elevators, two on one side, two on the other side of the hall near the end of the lobby hallway. Maybe she’d gone upstairs. The noise from outside subdued somewhat the further he moved down the hall and into the building. He took stock of the situation. If he was stuck here for a while due to the new tornado, he could pitch in to help in the Emergency Department, or anywhere else he was needed. Like most of the firefighters, he had first aid and triage training. He would even help nail pieces of plywood over windows if needed. Anything to be useful. He worried about his buddies out there in the storm, and prayed each and every one of them had found shelter somewhere. Once he found Rachel, he would gladly wait out the tornado, the hailstorm, whatever Mother Nature decided to throw at them with her by his side. His need to find her and make sure she was safe had grown nearly overwhelming.
He pushed the up button for one of the elevators and glanced at the others, waiting for a light to appear on one of them. One of the doors behind him swished open and he turned, ready to step inside until he saw two nurses, each pushing a patient in a wheelchair quickly approaching. He stepped back and held the door open for them to enter. It would be a little crowded with him in there as well, so he told them he would catch the next one. The doors swished shut just as Dr. Moeller appeared in the hallway, walking quickly toward the elevator bank, his white coat flapping, a stethoscope draped over his neck. Jeremy wanted to hate his guts but couldn’t. Despite what the man had said to Rachel, he was working his ass off. His usual put-together look was completely gone, his shirt askew and his tie completely missing, as he raced down the hall.
The doctor nodded a silent greeting as he pushed the up button on one side of the hallway, and then the same on the other. Then he returned to stand next to Jeremy, fingers tapping impatiently on his thigh as he waited impatiently for a car.
“Have you seen Rachel Sorenson?” Jeremy asked. Rachel would likely be avoiding him, but their paths still might have crossed. To his surprise, the doctor nodded.
“I sent her upstairs to the third floor to help evacuate patients down to the basement. I—”
His comment was interrupted as the door to the stairwell opened and a short, Asian-looking nurse wearing lavender scrubs stepped out. The moment the nurse saw them, she quickly lifted a hand to her right cheek, tipped her head down, and turned, quickly sliding past them. Jeremy recognized her but couldn’t remember her name. He had seen Rachel talking to her on numerous occasions.
“Wait!” Jeremy said, reaching to touch her shoulder as the elevator across the hall slid open. Dr. Moeller turned, watching with idle curiosity. As the nurse turned to look back at him over her shoulder, he saw scratches on her face. He frowned.
“Oh my God!”
The exclamation came from Dr. Moeller, halfway out of the elevator he had just stepped into as he strode across the hallway toward the other bank of elevators. Jeremy turned at the exclamation. One of those elevator doors was half open. At first his mind refused to comprehend what he saw. Someone lying on the floor of the elevator car. He turned quickly to call the nurse back, but she kept going.
In seconds, everything happened at once. His brain almost short circuited as he recognized the form lying still on the floor. “Rachel!” he shouted, just as the doors slid shut and the elevator started on an upward journey. Dr. Moeller cursed, quickly glanced back over her shoulder, and shouted for help. Jeremy headed for the stairway the nurse had emerged from until Dr. Moeller’s shout stopped him.
“The nurse! Dalisay! Go after her! I’ll take care of Rachel!”
Jeremy didn’t want to. He wanted to get to Rachel, but of the two, Dr. Moeller was able to give her the help she needed. He wanted to be the one I wanted to wrap his arms around her, to make sure that she was all right. Was she? What had happened? Who had—
Without pausing, Jeremy turned and rushed down the hallway, looking for the Asian nurse who had hurried away, hiding the side of her face, refusing to turn around and help when they called for it. Heart pounding, Jeremy raced toward the lobby. He was forced to slow down from the ever-increasing numbers of people were crowding into it, seeking shelter from the storm outside, where the wind howled and debris flew. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a flash of lavender. Long black hair. “Wait! Dalisay! Stop right there!”
The nurse cast a quick glance over her shoulder, and then she sprinted toward the front door, pushing her way through people in the lobby. She slammed the bar that opened the glass doors, darted out of the lobby, and ran into the parking lot, the wind tugging at her clothes, whipping her long black hair around her face. Jeremy quickly followed. The moment he stepped outside the doors of the hospital, the wind pushed against him so hard it took his breath away. Squinting against it, shoulders up, head hunched down, he quickly scanned the parking lot and narrowly avoided a rolling trash can. He swore. The nurse ran toward the staff parking lot. She glanced over her shoulder once, and for the first time, he got a proper look at her face. Deep scratches gouged her cheek at regular intervals. Fuck! There was no mistaking what had caused them. Someone had dragged their hand down her face, had fought back in desperation. His heart nearly stopped even as his legs kept pumping. Stopping the person who had hurt the woman he loved—that was his job. He could only pray Dr. Moeller had found Rachel before it was too late.
“Dalisay!” he shouted, but the wind swept his words away. She darted between rows of cars, several of them violently buffeted by the wind. He glanced up at the sky. There wasn’t a funnel yet, but from the way the clouds were swirling, it wouldn’t be long. The circling clouds were movi
ng faster, seemingly building in fury.
It all came together as he raced toward the nurse, praying that he could get to her before she got into her car and escaped. She was the one. She was the one killing the patients! He gained on her, but the wind kept pushing at him, making him feel as if he were running in place. Then again, so too was the nurse. He gained several more yards on her. Only one row of cars separated them now. Suddenly, she spun around and then turned to face him, a look of fury pulling at her eyebrows, her lips curled back over her teeth as she screamed at him.
“Get away from me! What do you want? Get away from me!”
The wind nearly took her words away, too, made them sound as if she were shouting from a long distance away. Jeremy didn’t stop. He was maybe three feet away, knees slightly bent, facing into the wind, arms out so he could snatch her no matter which way she went. She put her head down, dug a hand into the pocket of her scrub top, and waited. Just as Jeremy took a step closer, one hand reaching out to grab at her arm, he saw it. Her hand lifted from her pocket, a syringe in it, a needle glistening despite the dark clouds roiling overhead. Time slowed and a drop of liquid hovered on the edge of that needle for the briefest of moments before the wind took it away. Then, instead of backing away, she lunged for him, her arm drawn back, features fierce, readying herself to stab him with the needle, thumb over the plunger.
That’s what she had done to Rachel! He knew it. While he’d never hit a woman in his life, there was no way in hell she was going to poke him with that needle. As she charged him, her eyes wide, crazed, her mouth open in a wordless scream, he twisted to the side, avoiding the needle as it plunged down toward his chest. He swung out with his left arm, blocking her forearm, but even so, he felt the sting of the needle jab into his bicep. Not deep, but as he watched her thumb push the plunger down, he did something he’d never done in his life. He made a fist and delivered an uppercut to the underside of her jaw.
The woman went down, unconscious before she hit the asphalt in the parking lot, twisting as she landed face down, her head bouncing slightly against the asphalt. He crouched down beside her, hoping he hadn’t heard her badly, when he felt a numbness begin to make its way up his bicep and into his shoulder. His vision blurred.
“Shit!” he muttered, suddenly finding that his legs didn’t want to cooperate. He toppled onto his side, not far from the woman, who looked more Pacific Islander now than Asian. Funny the details he noticed as he could feel his brain slowing down. His heart thudded, and he knew he had to get up, knew he had to try to make his way back to the hospital to get help, but he couldn’t make his legs move. While he hadn’t been given a full dose of whatever the hell had been in that syringe, it was obviously enough to have a negative effect on his body’s willingness to cooperate. It felt like there was a disconnect between his brain and his muscles. The entire left side of his body felt numb. He had trouble breathing, gasping, forcing air into his lungs.
Overhead, the clouds roiled, lightning flash, streaks of it darting down, the noise incredibly loud, like a freight train. The wind whipped at his face, pelting his skin with rain drops. His ears buzzed with not only the sound of the storm above him, but from something that seemed to come from deep in his brain. He struggled upward, gritting his teeth, forcing himself to move, crab-crawling away from the nurse, the syringe still clutched tightly in her fist. He had to secure her, get her back inside. Get help for himself, find Rachel, praying that she was all right. She had to be all right!
Over the sound of the storm he heard another noise. Voices! He turned, saw several people wearing scrubs approaching, one wearing a doctor’s coat. Dr. Moeller! Rachel! Why was he here? Why wasn’t he with Rachel?
The doctor knelt beside him as the nurses stepped toward the nurse. “Syringe . . .” he managed to get the words out though his mouth felt funny, his lips not wanting to move or cooperate with his tongue. He tried to point. “Syringe,” he said again.
“We’ve got it,” Dr. Moeller said, then between him and a nurse, they got him to his feet. Moments later, two wheelchairs appeared and he was placed in one, while the still-unconscious nurse was placed in the other, held upright by two others.
“I’ve already called the cops, but they’ll be awhile getting through. The tornado touched down about a mile from here to the north—”
“Rachel . . .” he managed, fighting the lethargy sweeping through them.
“She’s all right,” Dr. Moeller said, clasping his shoulder. “You’re both going to be all right. We have restraints that we can put on Dalisay say until the cops get here.”
Though he had more questions that demanded answers, they would have to wait. He blacked out.
20
Rachel
Rachel sat in a chair next to Jeremy’s treatment bed in the trauma bay, holding his hand as the storm raged outside the window of the ER. She tapped her foot, waiting impatiently for him to respond to the meds that Dr. Moeller had given him. She’d recovered quickly and been assured that he would be all right as well. Her training told her he would, but she still couldn’t relax. Not until he opened his eyes.
He had to wake up. She’d run out of patience, sitting on a piece of joyful news for hours. God knows they all needed a bit of happiness after today. The pregnant woman Jeremy had hauled in solo in his truck hadn’t been the only one to go into labor during the storm. To no one’s surprise really, Meg and Liam’s baby had decided to make a grand entrance into the world on the same day his daddy was out there pulling 24/7 shifts.
Meg had called him in a panic, and the entire truck had turned around, bringing her to the hospital in the back of 81. Rachel smiled, brushing Jeremy’s hair off his forehead. After everything she’d done for the firehouse and the community, Meg deserved nothing less. She couldn’t wait until Jeremy woke up and she could wheel him up to visit with Engine 81’s newest arrival. His whole crew had taken turns to pop their head in and check on both of them while they waited for news from Meg and Liam. Now, Rachel was almost fully recovered, and Jeremy was well on the way, and she couldn’t wait to have a cuddle with the new little life that was being welcomed upstairs. Jeremy just had to open his damn eyes.
Sitting there for another half hour, her mind spun with disbelief. Dalisay. Quiet, shy Dalisay. Rachel had explained everything to the doctor, who’d reported to the administrator, and though she had broken protocol and accessed patient’s medical records that she wasn’t supposed to, she’d been assured that she would face no legal repercussions based on the circumstances. She still couldn’t believe that Dalisay would—
“Rachel . . .”
She focused on Jeremy’s face, smiling as their eyes met. “It’s okay,” she assured him. “I’m okay, and you’re going to be okay too.”
“Dalisay—”
“Locked in a room and restrained to a bed,” she told him. She frowned. “The doctors are worried she might try to kill herself. She’s going to spend the rest of her life in jail,” she continued, sadly shaking her head.
“Why?” Jeremy asked, squeezing her hand. “Why did she do it?”
“She felt that no one tried to save her parents after a car crash . . .” She shook her head again, not wanting to talk about Dalisay. She looked down at Jeremy, her heart thudding with relief, her gaze taking in every feature of his face. She smiled. “There’s something I need to tell you,” she said softly.
“Me first,” he said. “I love you, Rachel. I think I’ve loved you since our first therapy session.”
“I love you, too, Jeremy, and I realized it when the tornado—” She paused, watching the grin on his face widen. “What?”
“Bad things happen to good people all the time,” he said. “But good things happen too. My injury turned out to be a good thing, didn’t it? I met you . . . I fell in love with you, and if you’ll let me, I’ll keep you for a lifetime. What do you say?”
“Is that a proposal?” she asked, placing her arms on either side of him, lowering her face toward h
im, a smile on her lips.
“Damned right it is,” he said, reaching his arms around her waist and pulling her close.
Their lips touched, and then everything around them faded as Rachel poured everything she felt into that kiss, his lips warm, his arms around her, her body warmed by his love, his strength . . . until the sound of clapping broke into her brain, prompting a startled reaction from both of them. Jeremy released her and she turned to find Dr. Moeller and the ER staff surrounding the bay, smiling and wishing congratulations. Behind them, she saw a myriad of people from the waiting room also watching, many smiling as she turned back to Jeremy and grinned. “Ready when you are.”
Thank you for reading Rachel and Jeremy’s story! To find out when the next Southern Heat book is released, click here.
Also by Jamie Garrett
Marked By Desire
Books 1 - 5
Southern Heat
From the Ashes
Fighting the Flames
Burning the Past
Trial by Fire
Line of Fire
Up in Flames
Under Fire
Dreamcatchers
Books 1 - 5
DARC Ops
Darkest Hour (0.5)
Dark Secret
Dark Web
Dark Heart
Dark Control
Dark Threat
Dark Lies
Dark Salvation
Dark Discovery
Dark Enemy
Dark Escape
Dark Deception
Riley Reid Mysteries
Books 1 - 3 (first book free!)
Acknowledgments
Fuel the Fire (Southern Heat Book 8) Page 17