as he released his hold on her hair. As his struggling heart sent his blood on one final lap through his veins and arteries, she stepped forward to Joe, who caught her shoulders and pulled her close. She grabbed at the pain in her arm awkwardly, but her knees were suddenly loose and the floor seemed to be on its way up to her face. Hot, thick liquid was running down her arm over her fingers. As Joe’s arms closed around her, two more shots were fired, but Pria couldn’t tell where they were coming from. She moved into Joe’s chest, letting him break her fall. Someone was screaming.
Still clutching Pria, Joe saw Whitwater hit the floor and an ocean of blood forming beneath him. He yanked his jacket off to wrap her in it. The sleeve went wet and warm in his hands. “You’re going to be okay…we’re going to get you out of here…,” Joe reassured her. “What’s your name?”
“Pria...my name’s Pria,” she replied.
Within moments, they were engulfed in a swarm of cops and paramedics. Still clutching her to his chest on the floor, Joe picked up Pria’s bloody, discolored hands. He yelled for something to cut the wire with.
“I’m Joe,” he said quickly. “You were very brave, Pria. Stay with me. We’re gonna get you out of here
Pria looked up at the stranger who had offered his life for her own. The man Whitwater would have happily killed. Even frowning and more than a little pissed, he was gorgeous. She had the strangest thought that, she would come to know him in the ways a female knows a man. And would struggle with all that would bring, but faces began swimming before her eyes, pulling her away from the thought. Someone was tugging her from Joe’s arms to lift her. She was being plopped on something hard, flanked by several enormous paramedics. Her legs were being covered. Someone was asking her name. One of the paramedics, a woman with a kind, round face, asked her about medical problems. Did she take any medications? Was she allergic to anything? Pria shook her head. Loud voices and the sound of at least one woman weeping clogged her ears but it all seemed to be moving away from her now. She struggled to keep her eyes open. Someone was cutting the wires around her wrists, which stung like hell. A paramedic in a blue uniform was wrapping something thick and white around one of her wrists.
“Sorry we have to hurt ya’, sweetheart,” a rusty-haired paramedic said, lifting her hand. “We’re gonna put an IV line in, honey, so we can give ya’ fluids and other stuff.” The paramedic raised one of Pria’s hands, eyed her discolored fingers and shook his head. He pulled her right arm straight at her side, wrapping a tourniquet in place and shoving a needle into a vein, which burned a trail down to her mottled hand. Pria jerked away involuntarily. And jerked again as her wounded arm was maneuvered and wrapped.
“Easy with the fucking needle, Mike” Joe said tightly, across her body.
“Sorry Joe. I gotta put a line in,” the paramedic said apologetically.
“No…no hospitals,” Pria whispered to no one particular. “No hospital…” Her voice was literally falling on deaf ears, but Joe’s face filled her eyes for a moment. His eyes seemed endless and so filled with concern, as he frowned.
“You’re going to be okay,” he promised. “You’re going to be fine.”
“Hospital…no…,” Pria replied, trying in vain to sit up.
“Yeah, you’re going to the hospital,” Joe assured her, pressing her shoulder gently to the gurney. “We’re going to take care of you.”
“We’re ready to go, Joe,” the rusty-haired paramedic said. “The gunshot wound…we just stabilized her. It’s best if the docs deal with it at the hospital.”
“Where’s she headed?” Joe asked, as the paramedic adjusted a thick belt across Pria’s middle to keep her from falling as they moved her.
“Saint Rushton University General. They’re prepped and waitin’,” the paramedic said, without looking up.
Joe looked down at Pria. God, she was really gorgeous, even bloody and half conscious.
Pria’s eyelids were so heavy, so hard to keep open, yet she knew he was staring at her, needed to say something more. He touched her shoulder through the white sheet the paramedics had wrapped her in. His jacket was somewhere under it with her.
“I’ll see you again, Pria,” he said. “Just lie back. Try to relax. Let these guys do what they do best.”
“Fuck…,” Pria murmured although the surrounding noise prevented anyone from hearing her. The gurney was moving and she was suddenly dizzy, moving past so many faces turned in her direction. As she slid into darkness, she wondered when Joe would find her.
For the first moments Pria was awake, she didn’t understand why the lights were so blinding or where so many loud voices could be coming from. For that brief time, she remained still and flat in the hospital bed, unsure of where she was. With a blinding speed, the details overtook her, jolting her into brutal reality. Launching herself upright, she saw the pale, yellow privacy curtains around her bed…a bed with safety bars, which could only mean she was in a hospital for humans, probably an emergency department with lots of doctors and nurses who were completely used to treating humans. And she’d probably been there for hours. Her red slip had been replaced with a hospital gown and her bicep was bandaged. Her wrists were covered with white dressings as well. Prodding the bandage on her upper arm she felt a tingling sensation A bag of clear fluid hung over her on a stand connected to the needle in her hand. What she knew almost instantly was what she didn’t have.
No cell… no purse… no clothes…no car.
“Relax,” Joe said quietly. “You’re okay now. You’re in the ER at Saint Rushton University General Hospital.”
Joe’s voice startled Pria, as he’d been sitting almost behind her, on a hard plastic chair that felt like it had become part of his ass. He’d planted himself there about an hour ago, simply waiting for her to wake up. He’d used the time to talk to his supervisor, Cy Kent, and learned that Marcus Whitwater had died, although it would take a coroner to figure out exactly why. The thief had taken the second and third shots fired in the bank; one had fractured his hip and the other had traveled through his ass. Neither should have killed him, but Whitwater was parked in the morgue.
The first shot fired had wounded Pria, a fact likely to cause a massive problem for the Saint Rushton Police Department. As a result Cy had ordered Joe to remain with her, promising to stay in touch, but orders were only one reason he’d remained. Something had just annoyed the hell out of him about her being alone there, even though the ER was a place he knew as well as a staff member. Of course, he’d tried not to stare at her, but he couldn’t seem to pull his eye away from the fall of dark waves framing her too-pale face. He’d had time to notice that although tiny and wrapped in the ugliest garment in the universe, commonly called a hospital gown, her curves were impossible to miss. He’d also had plenty of time to call himself a bastard for thinking like this about a woman who had survived being a hostage and a gun shot.
“I’m sorry I frightened you. You’re safe now,” he said, rising to move to the upright bed rail.
“You were at the bank,” Pria said. “I remember… you offered to change places with me.”
“Yeah, I was in the bank. I’m Joe Cafaris,” Joe said, taking in her eyes, which were the same wild green as the ocean just before a storm.
“I’m glad you were there. I’m grateful for what you did,” Pria said, amazed at his courage. She knew she was staring. Staring kind of hard, but damn, he was breathtaking, with his wide shoulders and dark eyes. Mentally she slapped herself for going in that direction.
“Your name’s Pria, right? Can I get you anything? I should get a doctor or a nurse. They told me you’re going to be fine in a couple of days,” he said, aware that he was talking too fast. “A doctor should really tell you…whatever you need to know. I think they’re admitting you for the night anyway.”
Being admitted to a hospital for humans was so not going to happen,