Killian collapsed?!
Hospital?!
Oh no, I’m going to be sick.
“W-What happened?!” I force the words out from the tremor that’s settled into my breastbone, fear shaken loose by the panicked flutters of my heart.
“Dante isn’t sure. Killian wasn’t feeling well, they thought he was maybe just sick but he passed out halfway through dinner and our doctor got him to the hospital immediately,” Archer replies, his words as tight as his grip on the steering as we race through the city.
Archer ignores red lights and the rules of the road but I care not. We need to get to Killian and we need to get to himnow.
I press back into the leather seat as bile continues to snake up my throat, swallowing it down with each gasping breath. I feel like I’m going to be sick but I have to fight it, now is not the time.
Not now. Please, not now.
My heart continues to race as we tear through the streets and it’s not until we screech to a halt at the hospital that I realize a sheen of nervous sweat has soaked into my dress.
What if he dies? What if he’s already dead and I’m too late?
No!
Killian can’t die. Not now. Not after everything.
Fear consumes me as I rip open the door and bolt out into the sidewalk, caught only by Archer’s fast reflexes.
“Cara!” he snaps, “you can’t charge in there like a wild cat!”
“The hell I can’t,” I snarl, “he’s my husband!”
Wrenching free of Archer’s grip, I flee into the hospital and almost crash into the front desk where an alarmed, petite nurse stares up at me through some iron-rimmed glasses.
“Scarano!” I gasp, my heart pounding fiercely.
What if I’m too late?
“P-Pardon…?” the nurse stammers up at me.
“Killian Scarano,” I bark, “where is he? I’m his wife!”
“Oh, I-I-.” She stumbles over her words, turning to her computer and pushing her glasses up her nose. I want to snatch them from her face and crush them between my fingers.
“Cara!” Archer pants as he arrives next to me but I ignore him. Each clack of the nurse's keyboard grates through to my very soul and fire ignites in my veins when she turns those doe eyes back to me.
“I-I’m sorry Ma’am, I have no one here by that—”
“I’ll take it from here,” interrupts a smooth, irritatingly calm voice to my left. I spin on my heel and come face to face with Timothy, one of our guards.
“Where is he?!” I bark again and Timothy’s eyes narrow faintly at the loudness of my yell.
“Follow me, he’s in our wing.”
“That’s what I was trying to tell you,” Archer mutters in my ear as he takes my elbow and guides me away from the poor nurse.
It doesn’t click until we’re in the elevator that Timothy saidourwing. Of course, the Scarano’s own their own portion of the hospital yet only now does it come to light. When Killian is hurt.
My fingertips brush past my lips and I dig my teeth into my nails, worrying the nail beds as the elevator moves through sludge to reach the appropriate floor.
Why do these blasted things always take so long!