“Is he dead?”
I bend over Scott looking for a pulse at his neck. His eyes are closed. He appears asleep, but his face is ghostly pale while Tom bites his knuckles.
“I feel a pulse, but only very weak. He must’ve lost a vast amount of blood. I’m not sure how long he will hold on. How the hell do we get him out of here?”
He’s alive. It’s like someone flipped a light switch on inside my mind. The news that we’ve found Scott and that he’s alive is spreading like a tidal wave through the tribe.
“We need to carry him out of here.” Tom pulls his cell-phone out of his pocket and dials 111 for the Ambulance. After giving them the direction to Scott’s cabin, he hangs up and stares at me.
All I can think of at the moment is that he’s alive. There’s hope.
Hope.
As long as there’s a single breath in him there’s hope. Fate can’t be so cruel as taking him from us and give him back only to take him away again. No! There’s more than a little hope in us.
“The ambulance will be here in thirty minutes. You take his upper body and I’ll take his legs.”
I fire off commands and stand ready to pick up Scottie’s legs. It took us less than five minutes to get to Scottie, but twenty minutes to return with him to my car. I don’t know how I managed. Luke is at my side and gives me his strength. Tears are streaming down my face as we finally lay Scott on Prince’s blanket by the car. I want to pick him up and hold him in my arms, but I’m too afraid I’ll make matters worse.
Tom pulls a hanky out of his pocket and wipes my face.
“That’s better.”
Silly man. I don’t care how I look. I don’t care that my arms are hurting, the blisters on my hands chafed open, and my back muscles are burning from carrying the heavy load. All I care about is the hope that we reached Scott in time.
The howling siren of the ambulance cuts through our anxious silence. Minutes later the green-yellow van slides around the corner on the gravel road and stops next to my car.
Tom explains to the paramedics the condition we found Scott in. Wasting no time, they put him on a gurney and drive off. Time is of the essence.
Before they took off, the paramedics said that he would have died if we hadn’t found him. They might have said it to comfort me, but all it did was send my fear through the roof.
Our ride to the hospital is torturous, even though Tom races along the country road, making sure we don’t lose sight of the ambulance. By the time we arrive, I’m a wreck. My thoughts circle through a range of worst-case scenarios. I need to speak to a doctor. The uncertainty drives me mad. I need to know that Scottie will make it. A touch on my shoulder startles me.
“Ms. Seagar, why don’t you go home? We’ll ring when we know more. We are taking him for a head scan, and after that, we must wait to hear what Dr. Wilmer says.” The head nurse looks at me with a truckload of pity in her eyes.
If she thinks I’ll move before I’ve spoken to a doctor, she’s mistaken.
“Someone tried to kill Scott Thompson. They set his house on fire and we still don’t know if he’ll pull through. If you think I’m leaving him and going home, hoping you’ll keep him safe, you are sorely mistaken. I’ll sit by his bed until he opens his eyes again or we carry him out of here in a coffin.”
Chapter Nine
Lilly: 5 March 2017, Midday, Port Somers
There’s little hope we endeared ourselves to the nursing staff since we refused to leave Scottie’s bedside last night. They tried every trick in the book to make us leave. I get it. Relatives are in the way in intensive care units. They even called the police but that was an unexpected bonus. The officers took our statement and promised to take a closer look at Tom and my arson theory. The best thing, though, they talked about extra security with the hospital management.
It also means we can’t stay another night. The hospital will ring us the moment Scottie gains consciousness. That could be days away. Induced coma is such a scary expression. I’m worried silly. Even the doctor’s reassurance that it was needed to keep Scottie comfortable and pain-free, and give his battered body the chance to heal, didn’t help.
Tom is annoyed with me.
“Don’t be so stubborn. There has been a serious attempt on Scott’s life. Your patchy home security gives me shivers. It needs upgrading and you need someone living with you. I’ll call my office and ask them to suggest a bodyguard for you.”
Nobody ever accused me of shying away from a good fight. But here? Next to Scottie covered in bandages like Tutankhamun’s mummy and hooked up to a breathing machine? My eyes are sore and a lump is blocking my throat. I blink back tears that threaten to well up as I’m imagining him being caught in the fire.
I told him to shut up.
He sits now on the other side of Scottie’s hospital bed and sulks. He can be such a baby at times. I have more important things to worry about than his hurt feelings. The nurses have cleaned up Scottie and bandaged the burned parts on his arms and legs. His face was unharmed, but his head sustained the worst of his injuries. Someone tried their hardest to kill him. My question is who?
I’m breathing deeply to push away the rising panic seeing him hooked up to all these apparatuses that blink and flicker and spring into action
