Chapter 294
[ 503 words ]
Chapter 294:
She took a step back. Her back hit the cold concrete wall of the corridor. She was physically cornered with nowhere to run.
He saw her panic, misinterpreting it as confirmation of his theory. He stepped closer, his voice dropping to a gentle, persuasive whisper.
“You don’t have to protect him,” he said softly. “Whoever he is. You deserve to be safe.”
Trapped against the cold concrete wall, Caroline glared at Julian. His well-meaning concern felt more suffocating than any threat.
She demanded he step back immediately. Her voice was steady. It was laced with the lethal authority of someone highly trained to handle hostiles.
Julian held his hands up in a placating gesture, but didn’t move. “Caroline, I’m just trying to help. You’ve been a ghost all week. Brenna’s worried sick. I’m worried sick. Talk to us.”
𝘙𝘦𝘢𝘥 𝘰𝘯 𝘢𝘯𝘺 𝘥𝘦𝘷𝘪𝘤𝘦 𝘰𝘯 𝘨𝘢𝘭𝘯𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭𝘴.𝘤𝘰𝘮
He leaned in, his voice dropping with concern. “Brenna said you told her you were dealing with family issues. She’s been covering for you on shifts. But this isn’t just stress. You’re terrified of something. If someone is hurting you, if you’re in trouble, we can help.”
The accusation hung in the air, a dangerous mix of truth and complete misunderstanding. Her secret marriage, her fear, it was all real, but the cause he’d assigned to it was catastrophically wrong.
She was about to deliver a scathing, career-ending retort that would burn this bridge forever when a sharp noise interrupted. The mundane ringtone of her personal cell phone shattered the tense silence of the corridor.
The sudden noise startled Julian. It caused him to instinctively take a step back, breaking the claustrophobic proximity.
Caroline seized the momentary gap. She shoved hard past his shoulder. She put ten feet of safe distance between them.
She pulled her phone from her scrub pocket. The caller ID flashed “Mom” on the bright screen.
Caroline frowned deeply. Her mother hadn’t called her since the night Jarrod had carried her out of that house. A deep, sickening sense of foreboding washed over her.
She hit the answer button. She kept a wary eye on Julian. She brought the phone to her ear with a cautious “Hello?”
Instead of a greeting, a piercing, agonizing groan erupted from the speaker. It was followed by the horrific, crunching sound of shifting metal, so loud that Julian could hear it clearly from a few feet away.
Caroline’s blood ran instantly cold. She demanded to know what was wrong. Her voice rose in genuine panic.
Her mother’s voice was a jagged mess of shallow, wet gasps. She babbled incoherently about a blinding light, twisted steel, and being trapped.
Caroline’s medical training kicked in immediately. She barked at her mother to breathe. She demanded a location, her tone sharp and commanding.
Through the agonizing breaths, her mother choked out the horrific truth. Her car had been T-boned by a massive semi-truck at an intersection.
Then a stranger’s voice, a paramedic, took over the line. The words “massive trauma,” “crushed pelvis,” and “rapidly dropping vitals” echoed clearly from the phone speaker, hanging heavily in the dead air of the corridor.
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