Page 70 of The Unknown Colton
“What happened?” she asked in a whisper. Her throat was raw, and her voice muffled by the mask over her mouth. It wasn’t the tape or the handkerchief. It was plastic and full of oxygen.
The grasp on her hand tightened, and she peered up to find Troy leaning over one side of her while a stranger sat on the other. Wherever they were, they were moving, bouncing along a road. Sirens blared, making her flinch again. The pain intensified so much that she couldn’t hang on.
She had to let go of Troy.
Had to let go of the pain.
Of consciousness.
* * *
Ignoring the pain in his back and his knee, Troy paced the waiting room. “How long does it take to do a CT?” he asked Eli.
Leaning against a wall, Eli shook his head. “I don’t know. They need to make sure there’s no bleeding or swelling on her brain.”
Troy flinched at the thought. “She regained consciousnessin the ambulance,” he reminded her brother. “She asked what happened.”
Was that a good thing or a bad thing, though? Didn’t she remember what had happened, that Whitlaw had abducted her? Or was it the fall she’d forgotten?
She’d gotten hurt because of that horrible man. He was in custody now; he couldn’t hurt her.
But a brain injury could. Even though she’d regained consciousness, the bleeding or swelling could still take her life. Troy knew that many people, even movie stars and celebrities, had lost their lives because of traumatic brain injuries like that.
His breath caught in his lungs with the panic pressing on his chest. For a second, he couldn’t move.
Eli reached out and grasped his shoulder. “She’ll be all right. She regained consciousness. My little sister is tough. She’ll be fine.”
Troy wasn’t sure if her older brother was trying to convince him or himself. “Lakin is tough,” he agreed.
She’d gotten away from that creep. And she’d put up with Troy for years, with the long-distance relationship so many other people, besides Billy Hoover and Eric Seller, must have pointed out to her was going nowhere. Troy had been such an idiot.
“You’re an idiot!” Kansas exclaimed.
Troy jerked his head toward the door to the waiting room, expecting to see Kansas pointing at him. But she was talking to another man. Troy had seenhim around enough to know that he was Eli’s partner with ABI. Asher or something like that.
Eli groaned and levered himself away from the wall as if he needed to break up the fight. But then the tech with the dark blond hair stepped between the two of them.
“Ah, Scott Montgomery to the rescue,” Eli remarked.
Unlike Asher who’d obviously upset her, Scott spoke softly to Kansas. She offered him a faint smile before glowering at Asher again.
Troy focused on them for a moment, mostly so he would stop worrying about Lakin and how badly she might be injured. “What’s the deal with all that?” he asked Eli.
“I think both my partner and the brilliant tech have crushes on my beautiful cousin,” Eli said with a chuckle that sounded almost pitying. “But Kansas is too focused on finding the serial killer to give either of them the time of day.”
It was true; Kansas walked away from both men and headed toward Troy and Eli. “What have you heard? How is she?” she demanded.
“Nothing new yet,” Troy said.
“Uncle Will and Aunt Sasha were pulling into the lot as I was walking into the lobby,” Kansas warned Eli. “They’re going to want news.”
“We all want news,” Troy said. The longer it took for this damn CT scan, the more worried he got. What was taking so long? Had they found the verythings they were worried about? Bleeding, swelling… Was she going to be okay?
If only he’d found her sooner…
Once he had, it hadn’t taken the SAR team long to get them up from the ravine and down the mountain to the ambulance. Hopefully they’d gotten her medical attention fast enough. He couldn’t consider the alternative.
He couldn’t consider losing her.
