"Why did I let you go there tonight? I should never have let you go. When we get home you're not leaving the damn house without an armed guard." I kissed her fingers and kept my eyes trained on her face for any sign of her rousing but there wasn't so much as a flicker behind those lashes.
"Mr. Hunter?" One of the coats and a couple of nurses hustled back into the room what seemed like hours later. "You'll need to step out of the way while we work here." Like hell! I'd read somewhere that comatose patients could hear what was going on around them. I would give them space to do what needed doing but no fucking way was I leaving.
"I'm right here baby." Their look, the way they sprung into action had me on edge. "What's going on?" They were inserting some kind of tube into her mouth and my heart dropped to my toes.
"We rushed the tests since nothing was showing in preemptive testing to justify her condition so to be on the safe side we thought it prudent to put a rush on. Does your fiancée have any enemies?"
"What are you talking about?" What the fuck was up with this guy?
"Well, the EMTs that brought her in said that she fainted on the sidewalk. There was no sign of dehydration, or any of the normal things that might've caused that so we did a blanket test where we search for pretty much anything. The last test we ran showed succinylcholine in her blood."
"The fuck is that?" I'd never heard of it but the shit did not sound good.
"It's a lot of things but a long story short, it can cause malignant hyperthermia. It's a rare Life-threatening condition that is usually triggered by the exposure to certain drugs used for general anesthesia."
"She doesn't do drugs you fuck." I'll chuck his ass through the window no fucking joke. He backed up and away from the kill glare in my eyes with his hands up in the universal sign of surrender.
"I'm not accusing her of anything Mr. Hunter, that's why I asked if she had any enemies. We found a tiny needle prick in the skin just above her hip. Because of the sequence of events that led to her being brought here, we surmise that this had to have happened just before she passed out."
"What do we have to do? Can this thing be reversed what?"
"The primary treatment is respiratory support until she stabilizes that's why she has the breathing tube. We're not sure of the dosage she received, but we think she got here in time for us to do some good. She's very lucky."
"Thanks for telling me." I waited until the room was clear before calling my family in. "Chad I need Jace." I would call him myself but I didn't want to leave her long enough to do it. My brother left to make the call while I gave my parents an update.
"I'm so sorry son, traffic was backed up and I was a few minutes late."
"This is not your doing dad." But I'm sure I know whose it is. He'd gone from stalker to attempted murderer, maybe now the cops would get off their ass and catch this fuck because if they didn't before I did, he would be one dead fuck.
Jace was there twenty minutes later and by then I was ready to knock holes in the wall. "He did this shit." There was no need for me to expound he knew what I was saying. "We don't know that yet tell me what's going on what're they saying?"
"You wanna catch some of this heat you keep talking like an ass. This isn't a TV show, this is real life and we both know the only one who'd stick a fucking needle in her in the middle of a busy sidewalk is him."
"Okay Champ calm down, I'll have my tech guys look at the footage from the security cameras on that strip. I'm not questioning your reasoning bro, but you and I both know if we don't handle this shit by the book it can go south real fast. You don't want this fucker walking on a technicality and trust me, I go after this guy without evidence some slicked up asshole lawyer will be all over the fact that we're brothers in everything but blood."
I knew he was right, his words rang true, but that did nothing to calm the rage that was building inside." I won't keep you then, I'll let you get to it." I went back to her side and took up my vigil again.
They were in and out all night checking on her and giving me progress reports. I didn't breathe easy until they told me her statistics were improving, but still she hadn't opened her eyes, instead she laid there like a little porcelain doll.
It was hours before I heard from Jace. Ma and dad were sitting in the little sitting area in her room fighting sleep. They refused to go home no matter how many times I told them. I hadn't called her parents until she was out of danger. I felt like a failure when I explained to her dad that I had let her down. I'd promised him in one of our private conversations that I would protect his little girl.
"I'm so sorry baby." Beneath the rage was the hurt that this had been done to her, that I hadn't been there when I should've been. "Wyatt … " Her voice sounded like a choking frog but it was the sweetest sound I'd ever heard. I jumped out of my chair and sat on the edge of her bed as she fought to open her eyes.
"I'm right here sweetheart open your eyes." They fluttered open bloodshot and drooping but she was in there, my girl was back. I pulled her up and into my arms for a hug while ma rushed into the room with dad on her heels. One of them pressed the button for the nurse but they were already coming through the door. Apparently some kind of alarm had gone off when she woke up.
I moved out of the way while they removed the tube and checked her over for the one-hundredth time but I was fine with that. They explained that she was out of danger but still very sick and they wanted to keep her for observation.
She slept off and on into the next morning while I sat there with my eyes glued to her. I wasn't scared shitless anymore thank fuck, and her color was looking better. Of course every bad B-movie I'd ever seen played through my head and I envisioned all manner of things that led me to contemplate hiring those armed guards after all.
"Wyatt."
"Yeah babygirl I'm here." Her eyes looked a lot better this time when she turned them on me. "How're you feeling?"
"What happened?"
"You got hurt but you're going to be okay. The docs said you're out of danger, you need some water?" She shook her head no but I held the straw up to her lips anyway. The nurse had said she might have dry mouth from the breathing tube.
I didn't share my suspicions about the stalking fuck with her. I didn't want her any more afraid than she already had to be, waking up in the hospital with tubes and shit sticking out of her. Instead I tried to take her mind off of it by talking about any and everything else.
By the time I was allowed to take her home, I was dragging ass. Jace had tried calling but I texted him to hold on until I had her safely tucked away at home. I planned to clean up a little and then go on the hunt myself. Nothing against cops, but they got too many leashes on their ass.
I had to carry her out to the car because she still wasn't steady on her feet. I'd looked up the stuff the doc had said they'd found in her system and gave thanks that she was fine, it could've been worse, she could've fucking died.
I paid close attention on the ride home making sure no one was following. Obviously, he had eyes on her if he knew where to find her last night. He was way too fucking good at this shit for this to be the first time, and I was thinking it was maybe time to get a PI in the game.
I hope I do see the fuck lurking around my home, there're a lot of places to hide a body there. I'm not a violent man, given my profession some may find that hard to believe, but that's just not the way I'm made. This motherfucker had brought me to the point that I had not only contemplated his murder, but was actually plotting that shit in my head.
"Babe, there're some things on this list that I know we don't have in the house. So after I get you squared away I'm gonna make a run to the store." Ma busted into my room while I was running her a bath and started fussing.
I'd stopped trying to assuage her guilt since that shit wasn't working. I figured I'd just let it run its course until she got it our of her system. Why the fuck shouldn't they be able to go out for a night without being harmed? Fuck that. If Jace and his cohorts couldn't ensure her safety I was gonna do that shit myself.