Page 51 of Pursuit of Her

Eve finally managed to stand, Martinez's steadying hand at her elbow more support than restraint now. She staggered toward the medical team, each step requiring conscious effort against muscles failing from cold and exhaustion.

"Captain, please—" Martinez began.

"She saved my life. That bullet was meant for me."

Understanding dawned in Martinez's expression—not just professional assessment but human recognition. The vigilante had deliberately placed herself between a bullet and an officer. Sacrificed herself for Eve.

The paramedics continued working, but their movements had taken on the quality Eve recognized from countless crime scenes—the transition from urgent rescue to professional obligation when hope diminished beyond reasonable expectation.

"We need to move her now or we’ll lose her completely," one paramedic announced, preparing the stretcher for transport.

Eve stepped forward. "I'm coming with her."

"Captain, you need medical attention yourself," Martinez objected, though without her authoritative edge.

"She doesn't go alone." Eve held Martinez's gaze, the statement carrying weight beyond professional protocol.

Something in Martinez's expression shifted. "I'll handle the scene," Martinez said finally. "Go."

The ambulance doors closed with terrible finality, separating Eve from the officers, the storm, and the pier where Reagan had fallen. Inside, the paramedics continued their desperate efforts, monitors displaying weakening vitals, blood-soaked bandages requiring constant replacement.

Eve reached for Reagan's hand, cold and unresponsive beneath her fingers.

"Reagan,” she whispered, her voice breaking on the familiar syllables. "Stay with me. Please."

Through the ambulance's rear windows, lightning flashed across Phoenix Ridge's skyline one final time, revealing the hotel where justice had finally been delivered, the harbor whereReagan had fallen, and the city they had both served and sacrificed for in such different ways.

And then the monitors flatlined.

The paramedics moved with redoubled urgency, administering medications, continuing compressions, working with professional determination against increasingly impossible odds.

Eve felt the world collapse inward, focused to a single point of devastating clarity: after finding Reagan again, after establishing the possibility of a future together, she was losing her all over again.

The ambulance raced, sirens wailing into the night, carrying them both toward Phoenix Ridge General Hospital and whatever lay beyond this night of justice and sacrifice.

Eve tightened her grip on Reagan's hand, refusing to let go, even as the monitors continued their terrible monotone and Reagan slipped further away with each passing second.

"Not again," Eve whispered, words meant for Reagan alone. "Not like this. Not when we've just found each other again."

But the storm's fury and the monitors' persistence suggested a truth Eve couldn't bear to accept: that justice had required its final sacrifice, that the bullet Reagan had intercepted might have successfully completed what the Phoenix Network had attempted a decade ago.

That Eve might once again be left to continue alone, with only justice served as cold comfort for everything lost.

10

REAGAN

Pain came first—sharp, insistent, dragging Reagan from the comfortable darkness that had enveloped her. Then sound filtered in: the rhythmic beeping of monitors, hushed voices, and squeaking wheels on linoleum. The antiseptic smell hit next, triggering recognition before her eyes even opened. Hospital.

She drifted in and out, catching fragments of medical jargon. "...substantial blood loss..." "...surgery successful but critical..." "...guard posted..." Her training kicked in despite the fog clouding her mind—assess, analyze, adapt.

Reagan forced her eyes open, a monumental effort that yielded only a blurry view of fluorescent lights above. Her body felt impossibly heavy, disconnected from her commands. Pain radiated from her chest with each heartbeat, a bullet's path marked in agony across flesh and bone.

Memory resurfaced in disjointed flashes. The storm. The pier. Eve's silhouette against lightning. The officer's weapon discharging. The decision made in less than a heartbeat—moving between Eve and the bullet's trajectory. Then darkness and cold as the harbor claimed her.

But she wasn't dead. The pain confirmed that much.

Reagan attempted to move her hand, only to encounter resistance. The metallic clink explained before her vision cleared enough to confirm it: handcuffs securing her to the hospital bed. Not just a patient—a prisoner.

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