The Captain's Dirty Little Secret

Chapter 393: Chapter 393 - Clear

A doctor hurried through the doors, and Angela immediately started crying again. ”Something’s wrong.”

Roxie couldn’t answer. She had already moved closer to the narrow glass panel, trying to see past the people crowding around Karen’s bed. Nurses were moving quickly, one watching the monitor while another pulled equipment closer, and somebody near Karen’s head was calling out numbers Roxie couldn’t understand.

There were too many hands, too many voices, too much movement around a girl who had been talking to Roxie less than an hour ago.

Then someone shifted aside and Roxie saw the pads against Karen’s chest.

For a few seconds her mind refused to understand what they were. Angela came up beside her, breathing unevenly as she looked through the glass. ”What are those?”

Roxie stayed silent because she already knew and couldn’t make herself say it.

Angela looked again, and the understanding reached her face almost immediately. ”No. No, no, no.”

Zac’s hand closed around Roxie’s arm, but she barely felt it. Inside the room somebody called out a rhythm she didn’t understand, another voice responded, and then everyone around Karen moved back.

”Clear.”

Karen’s body jerked against the bed.

Angela screamed.

The sound tore through the waiting room as she slammed both hands against the glass and shouted Karen’s name. Mason grabbed her from behind before she could reach the door, but Angela fought him immediately, twisting so violently that he nearly lost his grip.

”Let me go! Karen!”

”Angela, stop.”

”Let me fucking go!”

”They’re working on her.”

”They shocked her!” Angela screamed, turning desperately toward Mason as tears poured down her face. ”Why did they shock her? What’s wrong with her heart?”

Mason opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

That seemed to frighten Angela even more.

She screamed Karen’s name again while Roxie remained beside the glass, strangely unable to move. Her palm had somehow ended up pressed against it, and she kept staring at Karen’s body through the people surrounding her. Somebody was checking the monitor. Another person leaned near Karen’s face.

Roxie couldn’t hear enough to know what was happening, but Karen herself looked frighteningly still.

Roxie waited for her chest to move.

That was all her mind could focus on.

One breath.

She just needed to see one.

And without warning she was small again, standing beside Claire’s bed after another night when her mother had come home drunk and collapsed without changing her clothes. Roxie remembered using both hands to push at Claire’s shoulder because she had been too little to shake her properly. She remembered calling her mom quietly at first, then louder when Claire didn’t answer, crying while staring at her chest and waiting for it to rise.

Sometimes Roxie had put her hand beneath Claire’s nose because she didn’t understand anything about pulses or breathing. She only knew that if she could feel air, her mother was still there.

Claire always eventually moved. Sometimes she groaned. Sometimes she shoved Roxie away. Sometimes she woke angry and called her dramatic for crying.

But she woke up.

Every time Roxie had stood beside that bed terrified that her mother might be dead, Claire eventually opened her eyes.

Until years later, when there had been no bed to stand beside and no shoulder left for Roxie to shake.

There had only been a phone call.

Then the morgue.

Claire already dead before Roxie ever saw her.

Roxie’s fingers curled against the glass as the old fear crashed into what she was seeing now. Karen had opened her eyes in the car. She had complained about Roxie yelling. She had asked to sleep. She had apologized. Roxie had held her hand in the ambulance and watched her breathe all the way here.

Karen had been alive.

She was supposed to stay alive.

”Rox.”

Zac’s voice sounded far away.

Roxie finally looked at him. ”She was awake.”

His face tightened. ”I know.”

”She was talking to me.”

”I know.”

”She was fucking talking to me, Zac. What happened?”

He swallowed. ”I don’t know.”

”What happened to her?”

”I don’t know.”

For the first time that night, Roxie heard actual fear in Zac’s voice.

That frightened her almost as much as what was happening behind the glass.

Behind them Angela was still sobbing while Mason held her around the waist. She had stopped fighting him for a few seconds, but now she was staring at Karen with a look Roxie had never seen on her face.

”She’s not moving.”

Mason tightened his arms around her. ”Angela.”

”She’s not fucking moving.”

Angela’s knees suddenly gave out.

Mason dropped with her before she hit the floor, catching most of her weight as she folded against him. She tried to push herself back up immediately, reaching toward the treatment room even though her legs wouldn’t hold her.

”I need to go in there.”

”You can’t.”

”I need her!”

”I know.”

”No, you don’t!”

Angela grabbed the front of Mason’s shirt and sobbed so hard she could barely get the words out. ”I yelled at her. She left and I fucking yelled at her.”

”Angela.”

”What if she dies?”

Mason’s face crumpled.

Angela saw it.

”No.”

She shoved at his chest. ”No, don’t fucking look at me like that.”

”I’m not.”

”Yes, you are!”

Angela tried to stand again, but her knees folded beneath her and Mason caught her a second time. ”She’s not dying. She’s not. Tell me she’s not.”

Mason couldn’t.

Angela turned toward Roxie instead.

Roxie was still standing beside the glass.

”Roxie.”

Her voice cracked.

Roxie looked at her.

”You tell me.”

Roxie’s chest tightened.

Angela reached toward her from where Mason was holding her. ”Tell me she’s not dying.”

Roxie wanted to say it.

She wanted to lie so badly that the words were already there.

But through the glass Karen remained surrounded by doctors and nurses, motionless beneath the lights, and Roxie had just watched electricity throw her body against the bed.

Nothing came out.

Angela stared at her.

Then her face completely collapsed.

”No.”

Roxie finally moved.

She dropped beside Angela and pulled her into her arms, and Angela immediately clung to her, sobbing against her shoulder while Mason stayed close enough to keep them both steady. Zac crouched behind Roxie with one hand against her back.

”She can’t leave us,” Angela cried. ”She can’t fucking leave us.”

”I know.”

”We were mad at her.”

”I know.”

”I yelled at her and she left thinking I was mad at her.”

”She knows you love her.”

”You don’t know that.”

”Yes, I do.”

”How?”

Roxie held Angela’s face between her hands. ”Because she knows us.”

Angela shook her head violently. ”Then why did she do this?”

Roxie froze.

She had no answer.

Before she could even try to find one, another alarm sounded from behind the doors.

All of them turned.

Roxie saw the medical team move quickly around Karen again. Somebody looked toward the monitor, another person stepped closer to the bed, and Roxie felt Angela’s hand clamp painfully around her wrist.

”No.”

This time Roxie said it too.

Inside the room someone called something out. Another voice answered, and Roxie already knew what was coming.

”Please.”

Then she heard it.

”Clear.”

Karen’s body jerked a second time.

Roxie couldn’t move this time.

She slowly stood again and stared through the glass, her whole body numb as people crowded Karen’s bed. Her hand found the glass once more, fingers spreading against it while she watched for the smallest movement.

A breath.

A twitch.

Anything.

Her lips started trembling.

Karen couldn’t become like her. She couldn’t become another person Roxie loved reduced to one final image she would carry around forever.

Zac came up behind her. ”Rox.”

Roxie shook her head.

”She can’t.”

He moved closer.

”She can’t fucking die.”

Zac didn’t answer.

Roxie turned toward him, desperate now. ”Tell me she’s not dying.”

His face changed.

That was enough.

Roxie’s breath broke.

She looked back through the glass at Karen lying beneath the lights while doctors moved around her, and for the first time the thought came without Roxie being able to push it away.

Karen was dying.