Page 121 of Keep This Promise
“Dr. James, we need you to step back.” Before I can move, Dr. Gage is shouldering me out of the way. I feel as though I’m going to pass out as I watch the nurses and doctor work on Sophie.
Jackson’s employee comes to me, helping me as I start to sink. “Come on, let’s get air.” I don’t want air. I don’t want to leave Sophie. “We’re just going out to the hallway so I can keep an eye on both Sophie and Eden’s rooms.”
I nod and allow him to help me into the hall. As soon as he releases me, I sink to the floor and close my eyes, holding my face in my hands. Relief, fear, anger, and despair crash through me at once. In the wake of the crisis, I am stripped bare, and it isn’t until I feel the warmth of the tears that I realize I’m crying.
I could’ve lost her. She could’ve died, and I don’t know how I would’ve survived. If I had been just two seconds later or hadn’t gone into Eden’s room, this would’ve ended differently. Instead of sitting in this hallway, drained and emotionally shattered, I’d be planning a funeral.
Then I think of Eden. My sweet baby girl never would’ve survived that injection. God, this is too fucking much.
My chest heaves with the force of the emotions battling within.
“Holden?” Spencer’s voice breaks through, and I feel his hand on my shoulder. “Did she make it?”
Forcing myself to look at him, I lift my head. “Barely, but yes. She’ll need constant monitoring for the next few hours. Kate fucking injected her with Fentanyl.” The words come out with so much hatred and disbelief. “She was going to do it to Eden too.”
“But she didn’t. Thank fucking God she didn’t. I don’t know how any of us would’ve survived losing them, let alone you. I’m so damn sorry you’ve had to go through this, Holden.”
I wipe my cheeks and then ask the next most important question. “Did Kate get away?”
“No, we have her. They had to pry me off her when I grabbed her. It’s over.”
And then I drop my head back down and cry in earnest. It’s fucking over.
ChapterThirty-Six
HOLDEN
“Idon’t want to hear another complaint. You will do exactly as the doctor ordered, and since I am the doctor, you will do what I say,” I tell Sophie as I tuck her into bed.
She rolls her eyes. “You’re being ridiculous.”
“You almost died. You have two cracked ribs, so . . . be a good patient and stop bitching.”
“This is bollocks.” She smirks and adjusts a pillow.
“This is the way it is,” I reply.
The five days they spent in the hospital as they recovered was incredibly difficult for everyone. Physically, Eden bounced back incredibly fast, but nightmares wake her each night. Sophie had a harder time. We had to give her another dose of Narcan when the first two wore off and she started showing signs of overdosing again, but after that, she stabilized and stayed that way. More than anything, it’s been emotionally draining.
The disbelief that someone we trusted did this was hard to work through. I let Kate into our lives. I trusted her, and behind that sweet disposition and friendship was a monster.
“You’d make a very good nurse, if you ever consider a change in profession,” Sophie says, bringing her hand to my cheek.
I force a smile, pushing down the rising guilt that comes each time I think about why she’s in this bed. “If I do anything else, it’ll be handing out beach balls in the Caribbean.”
“I could go for that.”
I laugh and bring her palm to my lips. “I could go for a lot of nothing.”
“Have you heard from Emmett?” Sophie asks. “Anything more about Kate’s arraignment?”
“He called this morning to tell me she is being held without bond. The other guy they arrested with Kate sang like a canary. They have been able to connect her to the missing girls, the deaths in Portland, and Wilkinson. I don’t have the full list of charges, but it’s long and she will be facing a lifetime in prison.”
“Good. Wretched woman.”
I agree. Cora even managed to talk Ryan into turning against Kate for a slightly lesser charge since we had him now too.
“Know what else is good?” I ask, leaning in, wanting to put Kate out of our lives for now.
