Please, somebody help me!”
“I’ve got, him, Lexie. Stand back, honey, let me get him on the floor.”
Lexie watched in horror as Clint lowered Jake to the ground. Jerking off his jacket, Clint pressed it against the blood pouring out of the wound on Jake’s chest.
“He’s not breathing! Clint, he’s not breathing!” Lexie screamed.
The rush of footsteps and men’s voices filled the room.
“Medic, over here! Now!” Brady’s cry was as fierce as hers.
Terrified, Lexie fought against Brady’s arms pulling her back, out of the way of the two young men in uniform who knelt down beside Jake’s unmoving body. His skin was deathly pale.
The first man jerked back his stethoscope and said. “It got his lung.”
“No, God, no!” Lexie shrieked.
To her horror, the second young man opened his case and took out a tube like instrument with a sharp blade on the end. Drawing back his hand, he stabbed the blade into Jake’s chest.
The blood rushing in her ears drowned out the sound of her screams as the panic overtook her. First Anthony and now Jake, dead.
As the room spun in crazy quilt circles around her, she cried out, her voice a keening wail, “No! No! No!”
From miles away, she heard Brady’s shout. “No, Lexie! He’s alive. He’s still alive.”
Knowing that he was lying, she gave into the dark waters that swallowed her up drowning out everything except the knowledge that first Anthony and now Jake was dead.
~~~
“Lexie, please, drink this. C’mon, hotshot, you need to drink something.” Brady added, “Please, Lexie, at least let me help you wash off this blood.” His voice was pained, “Honey, you’ve got Jake’s blood all over your shirt.”
She shoved Brady’s hand away and continued to stare at the floor. She’d counted all the holes in the acoustical ceiling tiles and was working on the brown spots in the linoleum. It was an old trick she’d learned years ago when the present was too horrifying to bear and she couldn’t physically escape.
Brady’s voice cut through her focused task.
“Lexie, it’s the surgeon.”
She looked up to see the stern man in a knee length white coat standing in front of them. Several other men and one woman in similar garb crowded behind him.
Her chest clenched. Brady grabbed one of her arms in a tight grip, Clint took hold of the other. The three of them rose to their feet.
“I’m Dr. Simpson. You are?”
Brady spoke, “Lt. Colonel Schaefer, Major Morrison, Alexis Beloi, Sgt. Anthony Beloi’s sister.”
The grim grey haired surgeon didn’t waste words. “Folks, I’m not going to sugar coat it. Colonel Gardner is in critical condition. But he is alive. It was touch and go for much of the surgery. At one point, we lost him, but he battled back. He’s as strong a man as I’ve seen. The bullet missed his aorta by less than an inch. It’s a hell of good thing that his assailant missed his mark. With a better aim, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.” He peered at Lexie. “I understand it was your knife that brought down the guy who shot him. You saved Col. Gardner’s life, Miss Beloi.”
Ignoring his praise, Lexie was startled at the sound of her voice. She sounded like a wounded animal. “Will he live?”
Dr. Simpson held her gaze.
“The next several hours are critical. We’ll know more then.”
~~~
Three days later, Lexie rested her head on the bed, her hand on his thigh. She hadn’t left his side since they’d moved him from intensive care. To rest his heart, the doctors had put him in a drug induced coma. They’d stopped the drugs several hours ago and expected him to wake up at any moment. According to the surgeons, once he woke, it would be just a matter of time until he was sitting up in bed and even walking with help.
Looking at the pale man lying in the narrow bed, Lexie marveled that he was still beautiful. His three day beard growth highlighted the pallor of his skin, but made him look more gruffly potent, if possible. Even swathed in bulky bandages, with tubes in his chest, IV’s strung to his arm, and sensors attached to every part of his body, he was still powerful, powerful enough to survive an assault that would have been fatal to anyone without his reserves.
The clicks and suction sounds from the various machines underscored the monotonous beeps confirming that his heart was beating strong.
Knowing that he would be awake at any time, Lexie strengthened her resolve. For seventy-two hours, she’d sat by his bedside, leaving only to go to the bathroom. She couldn’t remember the last thing that she ate. She didn’t change out of her blood stained clothes until the doctors confirmed that there was a one hundred percent chance that he would recover.
Looking in the bathroom mirror, she was shocked at her appearance. Her hair fastened in a tight ponytail hung limply down her back. Her eyes took up a third of her face and threatened to take over the rest. The deep hollows in her cheeks put her high cheekbones in sharp relief and accentuated her pallor. If she’d had any pride left, her appearance would have cinched her resolve. But that wasn’t necessary. She knew what she had to do. Now.
What few minutes of sleep her exhausted body grabbed over the last three days were shattered by the ghastly dreams. The images were always the same. Anthony’s tortured corpse flared up in all its hideousness, only to morph into Jake’s blood stained body. The images swirled together until they completed one gruesome whole. When she could no longer tell them apart, she woke with tears streaming down her face soundlessly sobbing into the pillow by his head.
She’d stopped examining her decision. No longer listened to the fierce woman inside her begging her not to be a coward, to be brave, strong. But she’d made up her mind. She couldn’t live with the terror of knowing that at any minute he could lose him. She’d rather live her life numb than face the pain of losing him. For that reason, she had to go.
Brady met her at the door, his eyes dancing with excitement. He grabbed her and whirled her around in a dizzyingly circle.
“I just got the news, hotshot! They said Jake’s gonna wake up any minute. Clint’s on his way and, hell, even Chief Burton is hauling his ass over here to celebrate.’’
As though seeing her face for the first time, Brady grimaced.
“Never thought I’d say this, hotshot, but you look like hell. How about I commandeer one of the staff showers and you go do those things that women do when they say they’ll just take a minute to freshen up.”
Lexie gave him a wan smile.
“I…I can’t Brady. I’m leaving. Take care of him, please.”
Brady reared back, shocked. “What the hell are you talking about, Lexie? What do you mean you’re leaving? Goddammit, Lexie, he’s going to wake up at any minute and the first thing he’s going to ask for is you!”
“I…I know.” She handed Brady a note. “When he does, give him this.”
Ignoring the horror on Brady’s face, she added, “And please, Brady, tell him how much I love him.”
Chapter 34
Master Wan refused to let her practice in the dojo until she started eating. She was shocked at how weak she was. But as she forced herself to eat, little by little she began to regain her strength. By the second week that she was home, she was physically healed, although she still hadn’t regained the ten pounds she’d lost.
The first three days, Brady left three or four messages a day. She deleted them without listening to them. On the fourth day, the message came from Jake’s telephone number. She tried, but couldn’t force herself to delete it.
