Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 68515 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68515 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
Or what was left of her hands.
“Call 911,” I urged as I moved closer.
Her forearms were duct-taped to the sides of the table, the tape wrapped around the two-by-fours, and then paracord around her wrists. There was no blood flow to her hands at all, and there was no telling how long they’d been like that.
The last time I’d talked to her had been when I’d left, and that’d been over two hours ago.
Anything could’ve happened in that time…
“Her hands are crushed,” he said as he eyed the table. “We’re going to have to take the wood with her. The hospital is going to have to take her hands out.”
Price was right.
There was nothing we could do for whatever was wrong with her hands here.
But we could get the wood separated from the frame, making it easier for her to be transported.
We heard the sirens before we’d completely gotten the table free enough to move her.
And by the time that we did, the paramedics and cops were already arriving.
Price took the time to explain to the cops what was going on seeing as there was a dead person out front—and he was the one that dealt with them the most due to his job—while I stayed with Gracie.
Gracie, who never woke up in the entire time that it took the paramedics to take her to the hospital and leave us there.
• • •
Three hours later, I was no closer to figuring out what in the hell had happened than I was when I’d arrived.
I did know that, for a heartbeat, my alarm had gone off at the bakery.
But, since the code had been inputted, the alarm had been shut off. And no alerts had been sent out to me on the matter.
I also knew that, based on the time that the alarm had gone off, she’d been in that situation for an hour.
Sixty minutes of hell where, according to the doctors, Erich had turned Gracie’s hands into pulverized mush.
“She has no bones left to mend,” the doctor was explaining. “Even with pins and surgical measures… she would have absolutely no use of her hands ever again. The nerves, the muscles, the bones. They’re all damaged beyond repair. At this point, I recommend amputation.”
Amputation of both of her hands.
The removal of her hands.
“I’ll need you, as her fiancé, to sign off on her having the surgery,” the doctor explained. “While we’re dealing with her hands, Dr. Ling is going to be dealing with the traumatic brain injury. Dr. Ling, would you like to explain what you’re doing?”
That’s when the other doctor, the one that was concerned about the swelling in her brain, explained that he was going to remove a piece of her skull to relieve the pressure in her head.
“I don’t…” I hesitated. “I don’t know what to do.”
I didn’t.
I was beyond lost.
“He agrees.” Tide, who’d arrived in time to hear the doctors explain what was about to happen.
I looked at Tide. “You’ll go in there with her?”
He looked torn. “It’s not my hospital. I have no rights here.”
I felt sick to my stomach. “I don’t want her to be alone.”
I didn’t know why the idea of her going in there to have her hands removed, and her brain opened up, filled me with so much unaltered terror. But it did.
The idea of her being alone was just too much to bear.
“Please,” I said, looking at the two other doctors. “Can he go with her?”
Tide squeezed my shoulder, then went with the doctors upon hearing my verbal consent. “They’ll be here with paperwork for you to sign soon. We’re going to scrub in.”
And they did.
Five minutes later, they left, and I was left with shaking hands to sign a paper that would irrevocably change Gracie’s life.
• • •
It took them five hours to remove her hands, fix her brain, and get back to me to tell me that she made it through surgery.
In that time, all of the club had arrived.
Even a few people I’d never met, but I could tell with one look they belonged to Gracie’s family.
I didn’t bother to speak to them.
I wasn’t sure why they were called, or how they’d learned of her fate, but I didn’t have the energy to ask.
Instead, I sat between Dory and Iris, and looked at the double doors, just waiting for someone to come out and tell me that she made it.
Eventually they did.
And I was allowed back to a room where she looked absolutely horrible.
She had a bandage wrapped around almost her entire head. Only the tiniest sliver of her eyes was able to be seen.
And her hands.
God. Her lack of hands.
They were covered up as well. At the wrist, they were wrapped with gauze up to her forearms.
She had an IV in her neck, of all places, and she looked deathly pale.