Page 97 of Living with Fire
“Tell Nate I love him, okay?” I whisper.
I’m pretty sure if I could cry right now, I would, but there are no tears. There’s nothing but pain. Even the relief was short-lived. I think I might be teetering on the edge of death. Which scares me. More than being scared of dying, I’m scared that I won’t be able to live. To live and experience all that life may have had to offer with Nate. With the friends I’ve met, and the ones I haven’t seen in too long. With my family.
“He heard you, Sav. But you’re going to tell him yourself as soon as he gets here, okay? He’s almost here.” I can hear fear in his voice, and it makes me think that whatever he sees can’t be good.
“Liam?” I say, the dizziness beginning to make the whole world spin. I don’t know if I can take it much longer.
“Yeah?”
My mouth feels like I’ve eaten sand. I lick my lips, tasting blood. “How bad is it?”
He blows out a big breath. “I’ve seen worse, but it’s not good. You need to get to a hospital.” That makes me smile. Leave it to Liam to give it to me straight. “But you’re a survivor. You’re going to be fine.”
That’s the last thing I hear before I succumb to the darkness.
CHAPTER 33
NATE
It’s been twelve hours of hell.
I’m not used to being on this side of things. Normally I get to help a person in a car accident, get them in an ambulance, and then I’m done. It’s the end of the road for my relationship with that person. Sometimes Quinn and Hailey tell us about the trip to the hospital, but nine times out of ten, we know nothing.
I realize now how much I take that for granted. I wouldn’t be able to do my job if I were emotionally invested in every single person I helped, but this gives me a different outlook on those I help, and their loved ones.
It’s hell. I am living in a waking nightmare.
By the time I got to the scene, Savanna had blacked out. If it hadn’t been for Liam and Brody, I probably would have lost my damn mind. Those two kept me levelheaded. With the three of us working together, we managed to get the door open on the driver’s side so we could at least get in there to assess her properly.
When I say we, I mean Brody got in there. Liam was in firefighter mode so he was keeping it together, but Brody could see he was right on the precipice of losing it after witnessing the crash. I was a write off.
There was no compartmentalizing my feelings, or what I was seeing. Once we got the door open, I knew the things we had to do, but I couldn’t make any part of my body function. It was like I had stepped outside of myself to watch everything going on. My fingers and toes went numb, I felt sick, and at one point when I looked down at my hands, I realized they were shaking as badly as Savanna’s had the night she broke the glass at the bar. The night she first told me about the scumbag who put her in this position.
This wasn’t my first time at a scene of someone I knew, but it was the first time the woman I love was involved. I’ve never been so happy to see another rescue crew show up so they could get her pulled from the wreckage. When a hand clapped me on the shoulder, it took me a moment to realize that it was Tyson. The same Tyson who had stared at her like he’d wanted more than just a meal, or her number.
“We’ll take good care of her,” he’d said to me.
They had. It felt like it’d taken all day to free her, but that wasn’t the logical part of my brain talking. The firefighter in me knew they’d worked efficiently, yet carefully, extricating her in the safest and quickest way possible. It had been hard to watch, but harder to look away. Especially when I had looked away, it was to see a couple of other guys looking at Vincent who lay in the field.
Dead.
Some dark part of me wishes it’d been me to end his life. The rational part of me knows it’s better this way. No longer a threat and will never be one again. At least not physically.
Savanna spent most of the day in surgery. There was internal bleeding, which was the most critical, but they managed to get it under control after they removed her spleen. At least that’s what the doctor told me.
Then there was everything else.
Her left forearm was fractured, her right collarbone had to be repaired along with a dislocated shoulder, and she’d sustained major blows on both sides of her head. That was the most concerning right now; the doctors were worried about the swelling in her brain, but they wouldn’t know the full damage until she woke up.
They’re keeping her pretty heavily medicated, which I know is the best thing, but Christ, what I wouldn’t give to see those gray eyes of hers.
Movement out of the corner of my eye catches my attention and I expect to see a nurse coming into the room. Instead, it’s Brody.
He gives me a nod before glancing at Savanna. “How is she?”
Sitting up in my chair, I release a breath, running a hand through my hair. “No change.”
Savanna was airlifted to the trauma center in San Jose which is a little more than an hour from Santa Rosé, so Brody drove us to the hospital once she was loaded in the helicopter. Liam followed on his bike, not wanting to leave it on the side of the highway even though we both tried to convince him not to ride after being so shaken up. Damn asshole wouldn’t listen to us.