Fighting For You (Danvers #4)(55)
“Dec, stop. Just don’t go there.”
Before he could respond, Mac was pulling up to the doors of the emergency room. Without waiting for the truck to come to a complete stop, Declan jumped out his door and bolted into hospital and to the reception desk. “Ella Webber, where is she?”
The woman behind the desk looked up with an annoyed expression on her face. “Excuse me, sir?”
“Ella Webber,” he growled. “She was brought in a few hours ago. Where is she?”
“Declan?” He whirled around to find Julie standing before him, obviously on duty. He’d forgotten that she worked at this hospital. He reached out to her like a lifeline.
“Ellie’s here somewhere. Damn it, please, please find out what’s going on.”
Julie was already running toward the doors to the nurses’ station as she yelled over her shoulder, “Webber, right?”
He was pacing the floor, not so patiently waiting, when Mac walked in. “What do we know?”
“Not a f**king thing,” he snapped. Just as he turned to go back to the reception desk, a much more subdued Julie walked back toward him. “What?” He didn’t realize that his voice had now taken on a pleading tone.
She took his arm and pulled him over to a sitting area in the corner. “I’m just going to give this to you straight, okay?”
“Yeah, shit, give it to me.”
She took his hand, holding it firmly while looking him dead center in the eyes. “It’s bad, Declan. She has internal bleeding that they believe is coming from a ruptured spleen. Her pelvis is fractured and her shoulder is dislocated. On top of that, she is pretty banged up.”
He jumped to his feet, “I need to see her.”
Julie came up with him, holding him back. “You can’t right now. They’re prepping her for surgery.”
He was pushing Julie aside, determined to get to Ella before Mac grabbed him. He swung around, full of pain and anguish. “Take your f**king hands off of me, man. I’ve got to get to her. I have to help her.”
“Dec, you’re not going to help that girl if you barge back there and cause a commotion. You need to let them do their job.”
“I . . . I need to see her. She doesn’t know. What if something happens to her and she never knows?”
Both Mac and Julie looked confused. “Brother, what are you talking about?”
A single tear ran down his face as he whispered, “I love her. She doesn’t know that I love her. She’s my f**king life. I’ll never live through it if my Ellie doesn’t make it. I wouldn’t want to.”
Julie stepped forward, a determined look on her face. “Okay, here’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to try to get you back there for a minute while she is wheeled down to the operating room. You have to leave when I tell you or we will both be escorted out of here by the police.”
He followed her through the emergency room doors and down one of the vast hallways. The air was heavy with the smell of disinfectant and the noise level seemed deafening to him after the relative peace of the waiting room. When they approached a set of double doors with a sign reading, “Trauma 4,” Julie told him to wait while she went in and cleared his visit. He tried to control the shaking in his limbs as he braced to see what awaited him on the other side of the doors. Julie finally opened a door and motioned him inside. A nurse stood at the head of the bed checking an IV monitor. He was dimly aware of Julie promising her that they would be gone in two minutes. She touched Declan on the arm and told him she would be right outside and that he didn’t have long before they would take her to surgery.
His beautiful Ellie lay in the bed, very pale and still against the white sheets. One side of her face was filled with a long, red angry looking road rash. The sheet hid the rest of her injuries. She looked so peaceful lying there almost as if she were just sleeping and had not been involved in a serious accident. He approached the bed and took her hand gingerly, afraid to do anything to cause her further pain. He had no idea if she could hear him. “Ellie, baby, I’m here.” He used his other hand to gently push the hair back from her face, tenderly stroking her uninjured cheek. “I’m so sorry, baby, so damn sorry.”
When he leaned down to kiss her, he was shocked to see her eyes twitch before opening just the barest slit. Her lips trembled, but no sound emerged from them. He knew his time was almost up. He put his lips against her ear whispering, “I love you, Ellie. Please don’t leave me.” He could have sworn that her finger pressed against his hand for just a brief moment, but he wasn’t sure if he had just imagined it because he wanted so badly to believe that she had heard him.
Julie came back in, her eyes gentle with understanding. “We’ve got to go. They’re coming in for her now. I promise, I’ll let you know everything that’s going on.” He gave Ella one last soft kiss and backed away from her bed just as two nurses came into the room and started preparations to roll the bed down the hall. He followed Julie out feeling like his heart was being ripped from his chest.
What he walked into in the waiting room made him wish that he had stayed in the hallway. Ella’s parents and sister had arrived and, from the looks of things, they had offended everyone there in the short time he was gone. Nick’s face was flushed and Beth was holding onto his arm, speaking quietly in his ear. Gray appeared to be holding Suzy back bodily and even Ava looked like she was seconds from attack mode. Walking up to Mac, he asked, “What the hell’s going on?”