59. River

FIFTY-NINE

RIVER

Panic slammed me as Charleigh crumbled to the hard, unforgiving ground with Nolan still in her arms. I dropped the motherfucker like a rock, his worthless body toppling to the ground, and I flew for Charleigh and Nolan.

"Charleigh. Fuck, Charleigh."

Hands shaking out of control, I rolled her over, and a shock of pain ripped from my lungs when I saw the blood that saturated the front of her shirt over her stomach. Her skin was pale and sticky with sweat, though those arms still clutched Nolan.

His support.

His sanctuary.

I gulped through the disorder, and my crew came hustling up, Otto at the helm. "Are they okay?" Otto shouted.

Anguish shook my head as I peeled back her shirt enough to reveal the wound. It was more than a cut. It was a two-inch wide puncture that went deep. So deep that the skin gaped open as blood poured from it.

"Someone get me a compress," I roared, the desperation hemorrhaging from my mouth .

Kane knelt down, already prepared as he started pulling supplies out of his pack. "Here."

I accepted the compress and pressed it against her injury, my hands pushing firm to it, praying it'd be enough to staunch the flow of blood.

I did my best to keep my cool as I shouted orders, though I could feel myself splintering apart. "Someone help me get her to the car. Get Dr. Reynolds on the phone and tell him we need him. Otto, you drive. Trent and Jud…take Nolan and follow us."

They were the only other ones who had something other than a bike.

A furor of activity rushed around us. Boots thundering. Trent scooped Nolan into his arms, and Theo and Cash helped me carefully lift Charleigh, doing our best not to jostle her so I could keep the compress held firmly to her side.

They cast me worried glances, glances that made it feel like I was the one being stabbed straight through, knowing what those expressions meant.

She was in trouble.

The situation dire.

My heart bleeding out.

We carried her to the back door of the car, and I slid in with her in my lap.

Fucking praying with all the strength I had.

"You're going to be okay," I whispered the hoarse words, my arm bound around her as I held her against my chest, my hand wedged between us to give extra pressure to the compress. "You're going to be okay. Just breathe. Breathe."

I poured my belief into her.

Otto jumped into the driver's seat and tore out of the lot. He sped back through town.

I was so close to telling him to take us to the emergency room. To get her immediate help. But I'd promised. Knew it wasn't what Charleigh would want.

Nolan would be taken from me if it was discovered what I'd done, and she'd made me promise, no matter what, that Nolan would be the first priority.

The second we made it through the town, Otto gunned it, taking the car to its limits. Trees whizzed by on both sides of the road as we traveled the twenty miles back to Moonlit Ridge, the landscape growing denser with each second that passed.

He made the thirty-minute drive in half the time, and my heart was battering at my chest as he blazed through Moonlit Ridge. He barely slowed as he took a sharp left into the parking lot of the medical facility, and he flew around to the back of the building to the private door.

He screeched to a stop. I didn't wait, I tossed open the door and jumped out with Charleigh in my arms.

Dr. Reynolds was already there holding the door open.

"Hurry," he wheezed, and I angled around him and jogged down the hall to the private room that we'd had stocked for circumstances exactly like this, though I'd never imagined it would be quite like this. I'd always thought it'd be a stranger I'd carry in and not the woman who'd come to mean everything to me.

The one I could feel beating through my veins.

The one I could feel slipping away.

I laid her on the elevated examination table.

"Help her." I fucking begged it, I didn't care.

Dr. Reynolds shuffled forward, then he stumbled in confusion. "Charleigh?"

My chest clutched in a fit of desperation. "She's Nolan's biological mother. Help her. Save her. We can't lose her."

"Oh my God." The old man jumped into action, his concern clear as he examined the wound and then bustled to the cabinets to pull out supplies.

I knew he knew what he was doing. A retired surgeon who'd opened his own practice once he'd left the hospital in Denver. A man who'd shown his integrity and care and compassion with every victim we'd brought through his door.

Still, my insides were in knots of grief and tangles of desperation .

Trapped in the disturbance, Otto hovered at the doorway, his face a mess of sorrow and sympathy.

I turned back to my girl. My perfection. My match.

And I pressed my lips to her temple and murmured, "Don't leave, Little Runner. Don't leave. Run back to me."