Page 119 of Sacrifice the Knight (Checkmate 6)

“Cap!” Luc Lenaghan slides to his knees beside me and slams my hands away. He’s my friend in another world, Jessie’s loud brother and the jokester whenever he comes into the office, but now he’s an EMT, doing what he knows, and that includes shoving me the fuck out of the way and tearing his bags open. He and another guy in uniform work on my boy and shove me and Bobby back, while another pair in uniform clear the ring and push spectators back.

Luc tears a yellow case open and flicks the switches on the machine inside. Voice prompts begin, and lights blink while Luc’s partner continues the chest compressions I started. Luc peels plastic backing off what I know is a defibrillator, then he places the pad on Mac’s chest. One pad, then another. “Back up, Mitch. Hands are clear?”

“Clear.”

Luc hits the switch; the machine beeps, then Mac’s body jumps against the canvas and drops down with a dull thump.

It’s happening again.

I trip backwards and stop only when Kane presses his hands to my back. It’s like Derrick’s office all over again. How’d he get here? Where’d he come from?

“Go to her.” He looks to my left, toward Katrina as she howls and fights her dad’s arms. “She’s here; she needs you, and he’s getting help. It’s not the same.”

* * *

The waiting roomis packed full of people we know, some we don’t, many crying, and many more trying to comfort. Kane sits on my left and doesn’t leave my side for a single beat. Jessie sits to his left with her heavy twin belly, and her sister sits beside her.

Benny sits with his mom and stepdad. His head is low, his eyes red and puffy. The Rollers fill the room, and those fighter girls who were so eager to fight and cheer earlier now sit with their dads. All of these kids who think they’re so badass and grown up inevitably go back to their parents when they’re in need of comfort. When their world has dropped out and hell has come up to greet them. When their best friend is pronounced clinically dead, but the EMTs refuse to stop trying.

Katrina has adopted a kind of coma-type escape. She sits in my lap like a small child, with her legs pulled up to her chin, her thumbnail between her teeth, and her eyes trained on the door a doctor will eventually come through to tell us our fate.

“Zeke isn’t here,” she murmurs softly. If I didn’t know better, I’d almost ask where her emotion is. Why her voice is so bland. Why she’s able to speak at all. But I do know better, and I know there’s not a single soul in this room who feels this as much as she. “His own father isn’t here.”

“Don’t worry about that for now.” I press a kiss to the top of her head. “It doesn’t matter what he’s doing. It only matters what Mac is doing.”

“I’ll never forgive him for this,” she whimpers. “I’ll never forgive Zeke for not being here.”

I could suggest that Zeke doesn’t know his son is dying. I could say she’s being harsh and should never have expected more from the deadbeat, but I was with her when she made the phone calls. When she left messages on his voicemail begging him to come. When she sent a barrage of texts that told him everything we know.

Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.

It’s a disease where the heart muscle becomes abnormally thick.

Vasoconstriction.

The ingredients found in common over-the-counter sinus and migraine medications can constrict blood vessels. Epinephrine for a sinus infection, mixed with sumatriptan for headaches, mixed with pain medication for his leg, has created a cocktail in his young body that slowly began killing his heart months ago.

Macallistar Blair needs a new heart—or he will die.

He’ll never fight again. He’ll never be world champion. He’ll never win his billions and realize his dream of supporting his mom as thanks for her hard work. But if he doesn’t get a heart, he won’t be anything.

He’ll be dead.

Ironically, my heart gives a heavy one-two thump that steals the oxygen from my lungs. We’ve been here for twelve hours already, but despite exhaustion and grief, no one has left. Coffee has filtered through the room; murmurs and tears have been constant. My ass is numb, and I can’t feel my legs anymore, but nothing could tempt me to ask Katrina to move.

So now we sit in this space of limbo. Mac is being kept alive by machines. He can’t breathe on his own. His heart can’t even beat on its own. He’s completely reliant on machines, while I hold his broken mother in my lap and don’t mention the astronomical waitlist for organs.

Sophia and Jay are here, and though Soph works on her laptop and probably tries to fabricate files that say Mac is next in line for a heart, there’s nothing anyone can do but wait.

For the universe to make a decision.

For a shooting star to pass over the sky.

For Mac to be given another shot at the life he was so ready to win.

“I won’t survive this,’ Katrina quietly cries against my chest. “I can’t live without him, Eric. I can’t walk out of here without him.”

“It’s gonna be okay.” I cast my eyes to the ceiling to hide my tears. “He’s strong; he’s going to be just fine.”

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