What He Promises

WHAT HE PROMISES (What He
Wants, Book Fifteen)

by
Hannah Ford

Copyright 2015, Hannah Ford, all rights
reserved.
 
This book is a work of
fiction, and any resemblance to any persons, living or dead, is entirely
coincidental.
 

CHARLOTTE

“He’s dead,” I cried.
 
“He’s dead, isn’t he?”

But no one would answer me.

The paramedics were working on Noah, their
hands moving in tandem as they tried to force life back into his body.
 
I watched as one of them breathed into
Noah’s mouth while the other one performed chest compressions, their movements
perfectly choreographed.

“Charlotte, you need to come with me,” the
policeman who’d called for help said.
 
His name was Officer Reinhart, and I’d made the mistake of telling him
my name when he’d asked.
 
Now he was
using it in a way that implied we had some kind of connection, and that he
therefore had the right to tell me what to do.
 
“We need to get you out of here.
 
You need medical attention.”

He glanced surreptitiously over to the other
side of the room, where
Professor Worthington was being
tended to by a separate team of paramedics
.
 
I watched as they loaded him onto a
stretcher and began wheeling him out of the room.
 

Professor Worthington was screaming at full
volume, shrieking about the pain in his eye, that he couldn’t see, that he was
blind.
 
And yet the paramedics who
were helping him were calm.
 
There
was no frenzy, no cacophony of screaming, no CPR.
 
I knew enough to realize this meant his
injuries weren’t as serious as Noah’s, that he must have been stable.

“Please,” the policeman said. He had salt and
pepper hair and a broad chest.
 
His
face was weathered, but his eyes were kind. The combination made me think he’d
been around for a long time and seen a lot, that he’d been faced with the
unthinkable.

“I can’t leave him,” I said.
 
“I need to know if he’s going to be
okay.”

I was starting to get hysterical – I
could hear it in my voice.

“You need to come with me so we can get you
looked at,” Officer Reinhart said.
 
“You’ve obviously been through some trauma.”
 
He put his hand gently on my elbow, and
began leading me to the door, but I shook him off.
 

“No,” I said.
 
“No, I need to make sure he’s okay.”

“We have a pulse,” one of the paramedics
tending to Noah said.

I gasped in relief and began to cry, the sobs
racking my body.
 
But a second
later, they brought in another stretcher and lifted Noah onto it.
 
His body was still lifeless, and the
paramedic who’d announced Noah had a pulse jumped onto the stretcher and
continued giving him chest compressions.

I felt like I could feel him slipping away.

He’d been so pale, and there’d been so much
blood.

If they’d found a pulse, why were they still
doing CPR?

I started to follow the stretcher, but the
policeman stepped in front of me.
 
“Miss,” he said.
 
“Please,
miss, you need to get checked out.”

“I’m going with him.”

“You can’t go with him.
 
There won’t be any room in the
ambulance.”

“Then I’ll follow it.”
 
The words slipped out of my mouth before
I could stop them.
 
Of course I
couldn’t follow the ambulance.
 
I
didn’t have a car.
 
But maybe I
could find a cab.

“What hospital are they going to?” I demanded.

Officer Reinhart looked at me and shook his
head sadly.
 
“Miss, please, you need
to stay calm.
 
You need to see a
doctor.”

“Please,” I said, my eyes filling with
tears.
 
“Please, I just… he’s… you
have to know that he’s everything to me.
 
He’s… he’s my world, and I need to be with him.
 
I need to make sure he’s all right.”
The officer’s face softened, the wrinkles at the sides of his eyes smoothing themselves
out.

“Fine,” he said.
 
“Will you agree to get checked if we
take you to the same hospital?”

I didn’t want to.
 
I hated the thought of being stuck in
some exam room while the doctors poked and prodded at me and kept me in the
dark about Noah.
 
I was
fine.
 
I didn’t need to be checked.

But I had no choice.
 

I needed to get to Noah, and I had no other
way.

So I agreed.

**

I’d never ridden in an ambulance before, and
I’d thought it would be scary.
 

But it wasn’t.
 

The wail of the sirens and the way the other
cars parted as we zipped through the streets was comforting.
 
I wanted to go faster, to get to the
hospital – to get to Noah -- as soon as possible.

When we arrived, the ambulance pulled up in
front of the emergency room.
 
They’d
insisted on putting me on a stretcher, but as soon as the ambulance doors
opened and they’d wheeled me out, I tried to get up.

“I’m fine to walk,” I said, even though I
wasn’t sure it was true.
 
Someone
had found a clean white t-shirt for me to put on, but I had nothing on underneath
it, and I wasn’t wearing shoes.

“You need to be wheeled in,” one of the
paramedics said jovially.
 
“Hospital
rules.”

I didn’t like how friendly he was being.
 
It was almost condescending, like I was
one of the countless delusional people who insisted they could walk into the
hospital on their own when they were obviously incapable of actually doing it.

I knew I had to play by their rules, so I
leaned back on the stretcher, but I could feel the adrenaline coursing through
my veins.
 

I was almost through the doors of the emergency
room when I saw him.

Noah, on his stretcher, being wheeled into a
side door marked TRAUMA.

He was
lying
his back,
and they weren’t performing CPR anymore.
 
Instead, they had a bag attached to his face, and someone was pumping it
rhythmically.
 
I couldn’t tell if
the bag was attached to his mouth or his throat.

Was that worse or better than what was going on
before?
 
Had his condition
deteriorated?

“I need to get up,” I said suddenly, sitting
straight up.
 

I hadn’t told Noah anything.
 
He’d said all those amazing things to
me, all those things about how much he loved me, how he’d wanted to spend his
life with me.

And I hadn’t said any of it back.
 

He didn’t know how I felt about
him,
he didn’t know that I loved him so deeply I couldn’t
imagine my life without him.
 

If he’d died, it would be devastating.

But it would be more devastating if he died not
knowing how I truly felt about him.

“Charlotte,” the same condescending paramedic said.
 
He was young, maybe about twenty, with
blonde hair and a square jaw.
 
He
had a friendly smile, but right now, he looked concerned.
 
“Please, you need to stay on the
stretcher.”

“No.
 
I need to get up.
 
Please, I
need to get to him.”

I could feel my chance slipping away.

If I didn’t see him now, if I didn’t tell him
how I felt, he might never know.

I swung my legs over the side of the stretcher
and tried to hop down.
 

The paramedic put his hands on my shoulders and
gently pushed me back down.

But I was done playing nice.

“No!” I screamed, struggling against him.

But he was too strong, his grip too tight.
 
Before I knew what I was doing, before I
could even think about it, I bit him on the arm.

A second later, as if out of nowhere, a team of
people surrounded me.
 
Security guards, doctors, nurses, orderlies, more paramedics.

“Get me two of
lorazapam
,”
someone said.

I felt them inject me with something, the sharpness
of the needle biting into my arm.

“No,” I said.
 
“No, please! I’ve already been drugged
enough!
 
Stop!”
 
I kicked and screamed, but they didn’t
listen.

I’m one of those crazy people,
I thought, stunned.
 
I’m one of those crazy insane people
who
needs
to be knocked out at the hospital because
they can’t be trusted not to hurt someone.

It was the last though I remember having before
everything went dark.

**

There were only flashes after that.

A nurse placing a blood pressure cuff around my
arm.

The prick of an IV.

The cool feel of a stethoscope against my neck.

Gradually, everything began fading back in,
until I was able to open my eyes and take in my surroundings.

I was in a hospital room, and a nurse stood at
the side of my bed, checking one of my monitors.
 
She looked over at me, her eyes bright.
 
“You’re awake,” she said, sounding
pleased.

“Yes.”
 
I swallowed and tried to keep myself as calm as possible.
 
The last thing I wanted was to get
drugged again.
 
“Has there been any
word on Noah Cutler?”

“Who?” the nurse asked, her face wrinkling in
confusion.

“The man I came in with.
 
Is he… has there been any word on his
condition?”

She chewed her lip.
 
“I’ll go get the doctor,” she said.

The doctor appeared a few moments later and
introduced herself as Dr. Chu.
 
She
was tiny with her dark shiny hair that hung in a straight curtain around her
face.

“How are you feeling, Charlotte?” she asked.

“Groggy.”

She nodded.
 
“That’s from the sedative we gave
you.
 
It should be wearing off soon.”
 
She grabbed my chart and scanned it.
 
“Your wrist is sprained, and you have
some minor cuts and lacerations, some bruises of course.
 
But no broken bones, nothing that needed
stitches.”
 
She slid my chart back
into the holder at the bottom of the bed.
 
“You’re one lucky girl.”

I nodded, pretending that I cared. What did it
matter if I was okay if Noah wasn’t?
 

“Is my … the man I came in with, has there been
any word on his condition?”

“The man who did this to you?
 
He’s going to lose his eye, but he’s
expected to make a full recovery.
 
But I don’t want you to worry about him, Charlotte.
 
He’s being held on a different floor
under armed guard.”

“No.”
 
I shook my head.
 
“No, I mean
my boyfriend.
 
Noah Cutler?
 
He was there with me, at the scene, he
was … he saved my life.
 
But there
was so much blood, and I just… I need to know if he’s okay.”

The doctor looked at me for a long moment.
 
“He’s been in surgery.
 
That’s all I know.
 
Hang tight and I’ll go find out for
you.”

I nodded, twisting the sheets in my hands and
praying she wouldn’t be gone long.

My prayers were answered as the doctor returned
a few minutes later.

“He made it through surgery,” she said.
 
“He lost a lot of blood, but he’s
awake.
 
He’s been asking for you.”

I let out the breath I was holding, my stomach
untightening, tension flowing out of my body like a river.

“Can I see him?” I asked through my tears.