Page 120 of Sacrifice the Knight (Checkmate 6)

“He’s not going to be fine,” she whimpers. She hits the panic button on her watch rhythmically. Over and over again, she sends out the SOS for Spence to come save her, but he’s in this room, and there’s not a damn thing he can do but watch her crumble in my lap. “He’s just a baby. It’s not time for him to go. Moms should never live longer than their babies. It’s not the way it’s supposed to happen.”

“I know. I know, Katrina. I promise I know.”

Her soft cries turn to loud howling that makes Jessie and the fighter girls start again. “I don’t know how to live without him.”

“He’s still here.” I rub circles against her back and lie like my life depends on it. “He’s still showing a reading on those machines, so we don’t call it done until we absolutely have to.”

“I hate him.” Her nails dig into my shirt and leave marks on my chest. I know she doesn’t mean Mac. “I hate Zeke more than I’ve ever hated anybody in my whole life. I will never feel this much hate for anybody ever again. Why isn’t he here for his son?” she cries. “How can he not be here?”

I don’t know.

I truly don’t know how he could walk away from something so special. Something I would give my life for, if only I could.

Hours pass, and hospital personnel move through our waiting room. Day turns to night, and night turns to day. Loud shouts carry through the halls almost as rhythmically as Katrina’s pulse under my palm, loud enough that we hear the instructions yelled, loud enough that I hear a woman’s voice discuss compressions as though that’s the word of the day.

“Gunshot wound! One shot, through the temporal, exit occipital. Continuing compressions. Straight to the OR.”

Because Luc is our med guy, my eyes naturally stray to his. I await his reaction, or non-reaction, since he’s cuddled up beside his nurse girlfriend. All day, I’ve watched him as things are said in the hall, but until now, they were almost always met with his non-interest as he continues his silent vigil. But this time he frowns. He holds Kari under his arm and works hard not to jostle her from her pensive state, but he turns his head toward the hall as though what they say means something to him.

The voices pass within seconds, and nothing else is shouted, so he shakes it off. He turns back to face the rest of the room, but as though he feels my stare, his eyes meet mine. His frown remains, and a deep wrinkle between his brows shows his confusion. But when I lift a brow in question, he only shakes his head and goes back to playing with the bracelet tied around Kari’s wrist.

More hours pass. Hours and hours where my body allows me to put everything on hold. I don’t have to eat; I don’t have to sleep; I don’t have to use the bathroom. I just remain in my seat and provide Katrina with the only thing she needs: a set of arms that will hold her together when she so desperately wants to fall apart.

She says nothing more about Zeke. She says nothing more about anything once she processes what’s being said.It’s my fault!I gave himthe majority of his medications. I nagged him to take them!She’s become mute and has reentered her coma-like state so she can cope as the doctors come in and out every few hours to explain Mac’s condition. There’s no surgery because we have no heart. There are no updates to give, except that the machines are doing their job, and he remains medically stable, though, of course, they omit the part where if they turned those machines off, he’d be gone.

The child I allowed myself to love again after tragedy is merely a broken power generator away from death.

I know hospitals have backups for their backups, so a blackout won’t hurt him, but it all feels that close. It feels like he’s been gone since his scared eyes met mine just seconds before he dropped, like he knew something bad was happening, and he looked to me because he knew I would be Katrina’s protector after he was gone.

She won’t survive his death, and I won’t survive losing either of them.

“Up!” Sophia’s laziness turns to alert when her computer dings with something the rest of us can’t know. Katrina jolts in my lap; she remains in her half-awake-half-asleep zone and slowly comes to when Sophia bounds to her feet. “Cap, get up!”

“What?” I turn my head as our crowd begins to stir. “What’s up?”

The door Katrina spent so long staring at whirs open. Finally, Katrina snaps to attention and sits up tall as a doctor in bloodied scrubs enters with his face mask lowered to hang around his neck. He tugs his fabric hat off and stares a moment too long at Jay when he stops by Soph’s side.

A moment of recognition flares in his eyes, but he’s pulled from his thoughts when Katrina trips forward and clutches at his hand. Her son’s blood is on that man’s shirt, on his arm, and just a little bit on his shoes, but she clutches the only living connection she has and begs, “Tell me, please tell me. He’s going to be okay, right? Please don’t tell me he… please don’t say he…” She stutters her words as her body rejects the very thing she’s failing to say.

But instead of confirmation her son has passed, the doctor’s lips kind of smile. It’s tiny and forced, and it doesn’t meet his eyes, but it’s not a grimace, and in this moment, I’ll take it.

“Miss Blair, I’ve come to inform you that we found a heart.” I jump forward when Katrina’s legs give out. “A thirty-two-year old Caucasian male was brought in seven hours ago. He was dead on arrival, but our responding medical team kept his heart beating until they arrived. It was a rescue mission from the moment dispatch sent out the buses. Not a rescue for the man, but for the heart.”

“Did you… did you do it?” Katrina’s voice cracks. “Did you operate on Mac? Did he get the heart?”

“Yes, ma’am. I held your son’s heart in my hands.” He holds his hands up in the space between us and doesn’t back away when Katrina grabs on and squeezes. “I held both of them, the old and the new, then I placed the new heart inside Mac’s chest and didn’t walk away until I watched it pump blood.” The surgeon’s dark eyes meet Katrina’s with a heated intensity. “I watched it pump with my own eyes.”

“It’s…” No longer able to stand on her own two feet, Katrina lets me take all of her weight and sways into my body. “He’s okay, right? He’s going to be okay?”

“I have every hope that your son will be just fine. He’s going to be asleep for a little while longer, but I predict you’ll be able to talk to him in the next twenty-four or so hours. Somebody is watching over your son, Miss Blair. The stars aligned, or the universe isn’t done with him yet. I’m not sure what it is, but he’s very much alive. I’m honored I got to be a part of this.”

---