One Unexpected Adventure by Sofia Sawyer

Author:Sofia Sawyer
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781648982002
Publisher: City Owl Press

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

BROOKS

Three minutes. Three minutes could change a whole life.

Brooks had pushed the helicopter to its limit, shooting through the clear, inky sky toward the hospital. Those fifteen minutes felt like a flash and yet seemed to drag on forever, stalling them in place.

They’d made it to the emergency center in time for the doctors to slow the internal bleeding.

Brooks had waited with Leah in Rob’s hospital room as the doctors performed emergency surgery down the hall. For the entire two hours, they’d said nothing. Ava had checked in once or twice to ask if they needed anything, but otherwise she stayed in the waiting area, following hospital rules.

Rob’s blood had dried on Leah and Brooks’s clothes, leaving dark, angry stains on their shirts, pants, and bare skin. Brooks had managed to scrub most of it off his hands, face, and wrists. Leah was too shellshocked to even think of it.

Finally, the doctor had come in to let them know they’d stabilized Rob and stopped him from hemorrhaging. Had they arrived three minutes later, Rob would have died.

Brooks was in a daze when he left the hospital room, thinking of the stark difference between the traumatic experience Rob had faced and the long, drawn-out months his mother had. Brooks had seen a lot in his life as a SAR pilot. As part of his training, he learned how to compartmentalize his empathy and grief in those moments, otherwise he’d be rendered useless when people needed him most.

This was the first situation since his mother’s passing that he’d faced losing someone again. The majority of his rescue missions had been helping stranded or lost people, treating frostbite or hypothermia, or helping tourists from a stupid situation they’d caused by trying to get the perfect photo.

None of them had been as dire as Rob’s situation, and the weight of it punched Brooks straight in the gut and gripped his throat. After losing his mother, he was having a hard time separating his feelings. As he watched Leah’s hysterical outbursts and saw the numbness in her eyes while she waited helplessly in the hospital for news on Rob’s condition, all the memories of his last few months with his mother came rushing back.

Maybe her death wasn’t nearly as dramatic as Rob’s situation, but that feeling of not having any control over the outcome was all too familiar.

Brooks had never known pain like that of being a helpless bystander while a loved one teetered between life and death.

The fluorescent lights of the waiting area nearly blinded Brooks as he turned the corner from the dimmed hallways. Ava sat in the far corner alone, her elbows resting on her knees. Her legs bounced up and down, and she wrung her hands—also stained with blood—as she stared blankly at the wall across from her.

She was the reason they’d made it to the hospital in time. She was the reason they had three minutes to spare. She was the reason Rob was alive.

Brooks hadn’t expected her to leave the chopper or to pull Leah from the car and distract her.

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