Page 140 of Crash

I could run now, but Eli was a rabid animal. He might attack someone else out of spite, might even take another shot at Tessa while the paramedics worked to save her.

I eyed the syringe, decision made as I pulled my phone up, firing off a quick text to Dr. Vaughn.Cyanide. Call ER. Have antidote ready.

His thumbs-up reply came instantly.

With Tessa in good hands, I could focus on the monster in front of me. I shoved my phone away, met his gaze …

And launched forward.

I seized his right wrist with both hands, spun so my back pressed against his chest, and grappled for the syringe. He sank his teeth into my shoulder, hooked his leg around my knee, and slammed me to the ground.

I rolled, but he was already on me, straddling my hips, needle poised to plunge into my neck. I grabbed his wrist with both hands, but he had the leverage.

The needle inched toward my skin.

“Tessa was mine,” he spat.

The point crept closer to my throat.

I bucked, but he didn’t budge.

“She trusted you,” I snarled. In college, a guy had violated her, and it took her years to carefully, methodically let anyone in. Each smile, each casual touch, each moment of vulnerability had been hard-won. “She let you in, and you violated her trust.”

“We were perfect together.” Spittle flew from his lips. “She was going to take me back. Until you came along.”

He leaned forward, putting his full weight behind the needle’s descent. But his shift in gravity was his mistake. When I bucked again, he tilted right, allowing me to roll with the momentum.

I flipped him onto his back and knocked the syringe from his grasp. His eyes went wide as I drove my forearm into his throat.

In my peripheral vision, I saw the stretcher with two EMTs racing toward the front doors. They had Tessa. My heart soared.

I snatched up the fallen syringe, pressed it to his neck, and pushed the plunger home.

“Enjoy the fate you planned for her.”

70

BLAKE

I burst into the emergency room, where a swarm of medical professionals surrounded Tessa. ER doctors, nurses, and Dr. Vaughn. A sea of hands moved with practiced efficiency, the kind of orchestrated mayhem that only happened when death lurked at the edges of possibility.

Tessa’s skin had gone ghostly pale, her lips tinged with an all-too-familiar blue that made my chest constrict.

“Get an ECG and increase her on oxygen to fifteen liters per minute. Vitals every two minutes. And get toxicology down here now!” Dr. Calder barked. My rival for chief of emergency medicine—thank God he was the one on duty tonight because he was amazing—pressed his stethoscope to her chest, his face carved in concentration.

“Dr. Morrison, you should leave,” Dr. Vaughn said quietly.

“I’m not leaving.” The words came out raw.

“Heart rate’s dropping. Forty-seven beats per minute!” a nurse called out as she hung a saline IV.

“You could be a distraction.” Dr. Vaughn’s voice was gentle but firm. “We need to work on saving her life.”

“I want to help.” My voice cracked.

“I know you do. You’re emotionally compromised, and we can’t have that in the ER. Out. Now.”

It wasn’t until then that I realized the room had gone blurry. My eyes were burning, my throat so tight that it felt like I was swallowing fire. For the first time in my career, I understood what it meant to be on this side of an emergency, to be the one watching, helpless, as someone you love balanced on the scalpel’s edge between life and death.