Page 95 of Stoker's Serenity

“Okay, you just hang tight. You guys look after her for me, okay?”

“You got it, boss,” Jake told him, and they loaded me into the back of the waiting ambulance.

“Any preference on where we take you?” one of the medics asked.

“No,” I said. “Wherever’s closest?”

“You’ve got it.” The back doors closed, but all I had a view of was the ceiling, my head and neck completely immobilized, the top of the collar digging uncomfortably into the back of my head.

“Woo buddy, that guy did a number on the back of your car. You’re lucky he didn’t go up and over you, monster-truck style,” the ambulance tech said, making notations on his clipboard.

“You good?” his partner called from the front.

“Yeah, we’re all good back here. Take us away!”

“He was going to kill him,” I said, dully.

“Who? Your boyfriend on the bike?”

“Yeah.”

“What’d you do? Brake-check him?”

“I didn’t know what else to do,” I said. “The police weren’t going to make it in time and Stoker was on the bike… I knew I had better chances in my car than he did on the motorcycle. I couldn’t watch him get hit. I didn’t know what else to do…”

“Wow. Sounds pretty brave to me,” the guy said, but he looked like by ‘brave’ he meant ‘stupid.’

I said as much, and he laughed.

“Brave, stupid, the only deciding factor is the outcome. If the guy really was trying to hit your boyfriend like you say, then yeah. Definitely chalk this one up on the winning side for brave. You probably saved his life. A Harley wouldn’t have stood a chance against that big ol’ pickup.”

I closed my eyes and felt hot tears leak down my temples, sucking in a slow breath, trying to breathe through the irritating searing pain of my overworked, whip-lashed muscles.

I could feel my hands again, so I had to take that as a good sign.

At the hospital, I was poked, prodded, and imaged to within an inch of my life and then left to rot, still stuck in the stupid collar, in one of their curtained bays. Stoker found me there. A lot of my clothing had been cut off, my knee had started to throb and ache, and other myriad little hurts had started to surface, though the shot of morphine they’d given me had taken the worst of the edge off of it all.

We were waiting for a doctor to review all of the imagery and to see if they needed to order more before they took the collar off. So, for now, I got to lay here, my hand in Stoker’s while we waited and he told me what happened.

“I was trying to catch up to you,” he said. “I don’t know that fucking guy’s deal but I split lanes and zipped past him and it just, I don’t know, it must have set him off. Next thing I know he’s trying to fucking kill me.”

I swallowed hard.

“I saw him try to run you off of the road,” I said, and before I could say anything else, a voice outside the curtain called out, “Serenity Bowman?”

“Yes?” I called.

A Florida Highway Patrolman batted the curtain aside and stepped into the little space. Stoker leaned back and the patrolman said, “Here’s your purse, recovered from your vehicle, and your citation for reckless driving.” He dropped my purse at my hip and set a sheaf of papers on my chest, covered by my hospital gown.

“You’re fucking kidding me, right?” Stoker grated out coldly.

“Just doing my job, sir. Several witnesses said your girlfriend sped past the gentleman in the pickup and brake-checked him.”

“They also say how he was trying to fucking kill me?” Stoker demanded.

“Not to my recollection, no.” The patrolman gave Stoker one of the dirtiest looks I had ever seen and actually smirked. They absolutely had too told him that, but I was betting that it would be omitted from his report.

I swallowed hard and groped for Stoker’s hand. He stopped and looked down at me and I pled with my eyes for him to just let it go for now.

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