Archenemies (Renegades #2)(130)

They were too late.

Adrian only hoped that he wasn’t.

Turning away from the sirens, he ran.

No—he flew.

The healers were all at the gala. Everyone was at the damned gala, and the hospital was six miles away and Adrian could think of nothing but the blood on his hands and Max’s weak breaths rattling through his skinny chest and the fact that all the stitches he could draw wouldn’t be enough to keep the life from slipping out of him.

The ice had bought him time, but still, he was dying. Max was dying.

And the hospital was six miles away.

Adrian had never moved so fast in his life. His entire world became a tunnel, pitch-black and narrow. He saw only obstacles— the buildings in his path and the streets crammed with traffic. He saw only the hospital waiting at the top of the hill, too far away, then closer, and closer, as he bounded from rooftop to fire escape to water tower to overpass. All the while he clutched Max’s body so tight he could feel the faint flutter of his heartbeat even through the armored suit. No, he was probably imagining that. Or it was his own heartbeat, erratic and desperate.

There was wind and the hard slap of boots on concrete. Another leap, another rooftop, another building, another city street blurring below, and the hospital—closer, closer, but never close enough. Don’t die, hold on, we’re almost there, I’ll get you there, don’t die.

And then he was there, a lifetime having passed in the minutes—seconds?—since he’d raced out of headquarters. He was moving so fast that the automatic sliding doors didn’t have time to register him and so he crashed through, sheltering Max’s body as well as he could as glass shattered around them.

Gasps and screams. Bodies leaping away from the infamous prodigy who had just burst into the emergency room waiting area.

A man in scrubs jumped up from behind a desk.

“A doctor, quick!” Adrian yelled.

The receptionist stared.

“NOW!”

Swallowing, the man reached for a call button.

Adrian crouched down, holding Max away from his body so he could inspect him. He tried to ignore the boy’s frost-covered clothes and the splatter of blood that had dried on the side of his face. It was the pallor of his skin that terrified him most, and the way Adrian could barely see his chest moving, until he couldn’t see it moving at all.

“What’s taking so long?” he screamed, just as a set of double doors burst open and a man and a woman in nursing scrubs appeared, pushing a gurney between them. Another woman followed, pulling latex gloves onto her hands. Her focus landed on Max, devoid of emotion as she took in the blood and ice.

“Let’s get him on the table,” she said. “Gently.”

Adrian ignored the nurses who seemed to want to take Max from him, and carried Max to the gurney himself, settling his body onto it as carefully as he could. It felt like handing over his heart.

The female nurse put a palm on the chest of Adrian’s suit, ignoring the smears of blood on the armor. Her gaze dipped to the red S. It had been an R when he had first designed the suit, but he’d changed it after Hawthorn had thrown him into the river. There was no longer any point in pretending that the Sentinel was a Renegade. “I’m sorry, but you can’t come back—”

The other nurse gasped. Something crashed. The doctor collapsed against the gurney, her breaths heavy as she pressed a gloved hand against her chest.

Adrian cursed and pushed the nurse away. “Not a prodigy!” he yelled. Grabbing the doctor, he pulled her back from the stretcher, dragging her to the opposite side of the waiting area before anyone could think to stop him. “It can’t be a prodigy healer. He needs a doctor—a regular doctor!”

The male nurse stood over Max’s unconscious body, stunned. They were all speechless—the nurses, the receptionists, the waiting patients and their families—all gawking at Adrian as if he’d lost his mind.

“Not a prodigy?” the nurse finally stammered. “What do you mean, you don’t want a prodigy healer?”

“Just do it!” Panic rattled inside his skull until he could barely see, barely think, barely breathe. “Don’t you have any civilian doctors?”

“Not in the ER!” the receptionist shouted back, as if such a request was the definition of inconceivable.

“Then get one from somewhere else!” Adrian shouted back. “Hurry!”

The weakened doctor was escorted away. Hot, furious tears blurred Adrian’s vision. Hurry, hurry, what was taking them so long—

His thoughts stilled. A realization struck him like a bullet.

They could use a prodigy doctor … if that doctor was immune. If Adrian had the Vitality Charm.

But he’d given it to Simon. It was at home, or Simon still had it, and though Adrian’s thoughts spun with desperation, he couldn’t fathom how he could find it and bring it back here in time to make any difference.

A new physician in a white coat burst through the doors, harried and breathless at having been called to the ER, which was clearly the domain of prodigy healers only.

The doctor approached the stretcher and began shouting orders. A second later, Max was being whisked away, back into the sterile yellow corridors of the hospital. Adrian could no longer detect his breathing at all.

“Save him,” he yelled after them, pleading. “Please. Whatever you have to do. Just save him.”