Page 17 of Shielding Instinct

That’s how he’d work to keep her safe.

As she came into his arms, Petra turned to lean her head on his shoulder, clasping her hands behind his neck. And with Levi ahead of them, sliding his hands down the guardrail, ready to grip and block at any moment to prevent a fall, they made their way efficiently down to the ground and the gurney.

“You’ve got this,” Levi said, patting Petra’s shoulder, then he climbed the stairs again, getting out of the way.

With flashing lights and blaring sirens, the first responders roared down the street toward the emergency room.

But for Hawkeye, they couldn’t get there fast enough.

Chapter Seven

Petra

Petra felt ridiculous.

But therehadto be something to this.

The response was the same with every person who looked at her face.

As soon as the paramedics wheeled her into the hospital, the nurse turned toward Petra. Without a single word of information from the ambulance crew, the nurse grabbed the phone to send out the code. “Stroke protocol.Stroke protocol.”

Hands helped Petra shift from the gurney to a rolling bed, and that bed speeded down the hall and parked right in the middle of the corridor. “This is where we assess stroke patients. We don’t want to waste time angling you out of a room. When we have to go, we have to go. We’re clearing the imaging room now.”

“What does that mean? Someone was in there, and you’re pulling them out?” Petra was horrified that she was displacing another person in need of help.

“Stroke patients take priority,” came the response. In her distress, Petra wasn’t seeing or remembering faces, just one blue-scrubs-wearing person after another, each efficiently doing the next thing on a list of critical things that needed to be done.

Hawkeye never let go of her hand.

This was real. This was happening. And how strange that she should feel fine, but that her life could change radically. Stroke could lead to all kinds of bad outcomes.

Brain damage. Paralysis. Death.

She could die.

How strange.

It all just felt so normal. And yet, Petra could be dying.

Hawkeye was talking, and Petra forced her attention toward him so she could hear and understand his words. “She was fine when she put on her mask to go to sleep. She slept the whole way here. It could be as much as six hours since a possible event occurred.”

“Could you be pregnant?” the doctor asked.

“Not possible,” Petra said.

“Any medical conditions I need to know about? Prescription drugs that you use on a regular basis?” The doctor read from her tablet.

“I don’t have a chronic condition, no,” Petra said.

“She’s had a TBI,” Hawkeye added.

That’s right, she’d told Hawkeye in passing when they were talking about unhoused people. TBI and neurodivergence, a double whammy. “Blast concussion and shrapnel in my abdomen,” Petra clarified. “That was in Afghanistan a decade ago. Oh, and I was exposed to burn pits while I was over there. I don’t know if that could be at play here. But that’s all historic. Presently, I’m healthy.”

No, that couldn’t be right. Presently, she couldn’t be healthy. Presently, she was on a hospital bed in the middle of a corridor so the nurses could race her to lifesaving care, slicing off every extra second so that shewouldn’t die.

Petra focused on how the doctor received her information. Petra had been a watcher of faces, a studier of nuanced expressions all her life. It was a trait shared by many neurodiverse people as they tried to figure out how to fit in. At this moment, the doctor’s face lost its elasticity. It didn’t change expressions, but the muscles under her skin became rigid, and Petra knew that the woman’s sense of danger had increased. Her body was preparing her for emergency action.

Action to help me, Petra Armstrong.

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