Page 44 of Jackson's Redemption
I nodded. “Doogie is waiting at the runway. He’s fueled and ready to go.”
“We’ll take the medical van. I can keep an IV in her right up until she has to get on the plane. I’ve called ahead to the doctor on call at Norton. He knows what’s coming. They’ll have an ambulance waiting at the airport.”
I nodded then waited for them to bring her out on the gurney. When they did, I could see how fucking pale she was. Deathly pale. I wanted to grab her hand. I wanted to squeeze it so hard that she would be forced to wake up. Forced to look me in the eyes and tell me she was going to be okay.
But I knew it was better if she was unconscious for the rest of the trip. Less pain that way.
This was my fault. I made her run. I made her forget where she was.
I knew she was never going forgive me, but it didn’t matter. All that mattered was that she lived.
* * *
Kate
I blinked my eyes open. They felt so dry. My mouth, too. As if all the moisture had been sucked out of me.
I turned my head. Jackson was sitting in a chair with his head down. That’s when I realized I was in a bed. In a room.
Hospital?
“Where am I?” I rasped out. Immediately, his head lifted, his eyes pinned to me. Standing, he picked up a cup with a straw in it and brought it to my lips. I sipped cool water, and it might have been the most delicious sip of water I’d ever had.
“We’re in Nome. Norton Sound Hospital. You had to have surgery.”
“Surgery,” I whispered. That sounded bad. Then I remembered falling onto a sharp branch that impaled me. I winced at the memory of being stuck to that log.
“The doctor will be in to explain. You got lucky. It could have done a lot more damage, but he had to remove your spleen.”
“Do I need a spleen?” I asked, feeling like I couldn’t wrap my head around anything he was saying.
“I’m guessing not, if they took it out.”
Then it all came back to me—why I had run in the first place. Only I was too tired to ask him the questions I now wanted to ask him.
“Why?” I asked, but I couldn’t hear what he was saying, and my eyes were too heavy to stay open.
* * *
I forced my eyes open. It seemed important. There was a reason I needed to wake up. Answers I needed from people. What the doctors had done to me. Why Jackson had lied to me.
This time when I turned my head, I could see it was dark outside. Which it meant it was late. Still, with the moonlight shining through the window I could see Jackson sitting in the chair where he’d been sitting before. Only this time he was stretched out with his head leaning back. His eyes were closed and the soft sound of him snoring told me he was asleep, even on that uncomfortable chair.
I liked that sound. The sound of him sleeping. It was comforting. Peaceful and, at the same time, made me feel like I wasn’t alone in the world.
There was this niggling doubt in the back of my mind that I was supposed to be angry with him, but I didn’t want to think about that. I just wanted to go back to sleep listening to Jackson’s soft snores.
* * *
Then next time I opened my eyes it was light out. This time I felt more awake. More myself. More present in my body instead of feeling like I was floating above it.
I was also aware I hurt. Like every bone in my body ached with pain.
That also might be why I felt more alert. I started to lift myself up, but even that hurt too much.
“Hey, don’t. I can move the bed.”
I turned and saw Jackson get up from that familiar chair. How long had he been sitting in it? How long had I been out of it?
