had brought and made sure the power sources for each was sufficient. They ran a series of final checks that seemed interminable.
Part of her wondered if they took so long to give her and Tad time to call it all off.
After a final flurry of activity, Dr. Goli stepped back and took Dr. DuBois’ arm to draw him gently out of the way. He complied without looking up from the charts as if he were used to people moving him around this way.
He murmured questions to his counterpart as the nursing team swung the hospital bed into motion. Dr. Goli had flatly refused to transfer Justin from one bed to another, which had necessitated a few tense calls while Tad had attempted to find a private ambulance service that would allow a full-sized hospital bed inside it.
Mary squeezed his hand as they began to walk behind the bed. While she knew how heavily this had weighed on him, she also knew how much he had borne alone for her sake. She could still remember him as he’d been at eighteen—as brilliant and handsome as he was now but with a wild streak, still more concerned with day to day happiness than with the long term or anyone else.
While she still wasn’t sure what had changed in him that year, he had truly become the man she had only seen glimpses of up until then. It was why she didn’t worry about Justin. Each person needed their purpose. Tad had found his in leadership and she had found hers in teaching. Both had found new depths of themselves in parenthood.
Justin simply needed to find what in him could change the world.
Which meant he had to survive this. Mary knew that Tad had leaned on her as much as she had leaned on him during this time, but the truth was that her confidence was built on nothing more than necessity. Justin had to survive. The alternative was unthinkable. The applicable rules and theories of science and medicine didn’t matter.
He had to survive. If he didn’t…she didn’t want to think of what would happen so she didn’t think of it.
They traveled down the hallways in silence. The team was always careful to take corners extremely slowly to make sure that no lateral pressure shifted Justin’s head. They had added foam blocks to stabilize him but from their extreme care, it was clear how fragile his condition still was.
As if that wasn’t enough, the lights in the hallway showed all too clearly how bad the crash had been. There was little of him that wasn’t bruised at this point, from brilliant reds and purples to a sickly yellow-green at the edges. His lips were dry and a small split was visible, no longer bleeding, thank goodness.
Mary thought of the girl who’d driven him and who was already home with her parents and the anger rose again until she thought she would choke on it. She set it aside but did not forget it. She couldn’t.
The private ambulance waiting outside was so nondescript that she might have taken it for an armored car if she didn’t know better. The team of privately contracted paramedics inside exited and changed places with the hospital nursing staff. They worked efficiently as well but she saw their eyes linger on Justin and knew from their subdued demeanor that they rarely saw anything this bad.
When the bed was loaded—with more jerks and bangs than she had hoped for—she realized that the hospital team was gone. She looked around and shivered in the night air as she and Tad grasped each other’s hands so hard that they ached.
“Mrs. Williams.” Dr. DuBois looked at her now. “I assure you, Jordan is in good hands with me.”
“Justin.” The name came out of her mouth with a trace of horror. What was she doing with these people?
“Yes, of course.” The doctor looked only vaguely discomfited. “Justin.” He climbed into the ambulance.
“Mrs. Williams.” A young man stood next to her. “Senator, good to see you again. Would you like to come in the ambulance?”
“Yes,” Mary and Tad said together. They couldn’t leave Justin. Not now.
“Right this way, then.” The young man helped her up and moved to the front seat. The doors swung closed and the ambulance lurched into motion.
There were no sirens or lights. The ambulance, painted a deep red and black, slid through the city almost silently, which meant that Jacob was acutely aware of the way his heart pounded.