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“Clint, I’ve got something,” one of the EMT’s announced to his partner, Evan, as they began working on Roslyn. “I’ve got a weak pulse and shallow breathing; we need to bag her and get her to BMH right away.” Clint and Evan rapidly carried out the necessary procedures in order to safely transport Roslyn to the near by Baptist Memorial Hospital, not listening or giving any regard to the crowd of people who were under the impression that Roslyn was dead.

As they loaded her fragile body into the ambulance, Kaci walked away from the crowd who had huddled underneath the overhang of the building seeking protection from the rain and tentatively approached Clint, tears still fresh in her eyes.

“Where are you taking her?” she asked, her voice cracking midway through the sentence. “I’m her cousin,” she quickly added, noticing the hesitation the EMT’s had at giving her the information.

“Baptist Memorial, m’am,” Clint responded in a sweet, southern drawl. Kaci swallowed hard, finding the next question she had to ask even more difficult to articulate.

“And how l-long until sh-she, I mean w-we can, umm, well, th-the morgue—“

“The morgue?” Clint asked, completely confused and a little impatient. “We aren’t taking her to the morgue; we’re taking her to the ER. Excuse me, we really have to go.” He didn’t wait for her to respond, he just hopped in the back of the ambulance, closing the doors tightly before the sirens and lights started back up again and the vehicle pulled quickly out of the parking lot.

Kaci stood there, awestruck by what she had just been told. Had they thought wrong? Was Roslyn not dead? She tried to piece together in her mind the knowledge she had been given with some sort of logic.

If she was dead, they wouldn’t take her to ER, would they? I mean, a doctor would have to pronounce her officially dead, but would they do that in emergency room? And Marcus said he didn’t feel a pulse, but was he wrong? She was so confused, her heart was mourning, but she was unwilling to let go of that glimmer of new hope that had entered her thoughts.

She felt a pair of hands on her shoulders, and she turned around quickly, ready to spread the hope around. “Alex, I don’t think she is dead.”

“Kaci, don’t do this to yourself,” he said softly. “Marcus couldn’t feel a pulse.”

“Since when is Marcus a trained medical professional?” she retorted, tears of frustration replacing her tears of sadness. “She had a breathing bag over her mouth when they put her in the ambulance! Why would they put a breathing bag over a dead person’s mouth? And he said they aren’t taking her to the morgue they are taking her to ER!” Kaci was yelling by this point, desperate for Alex to believe her, but even more desperate for what she was saying to be true.

Alex stood silent for a moment, trying to determine if what Kaci was saying held any merit, or if was simply just a grief-stricken woman’s last ditch attempt at holding on. “I guess there is only one way to find out,” he finally replied, realizing that he wanted it to be true just as much as she did. It hurt Kaci immensely when her aunt and uncle were killed, and to add her best friend to that list would change her forever; he needed Roslyn to be alive, not only for himself, but for Kaci…and Nick.

Kaci gave him a slight smile as a few new tears slipped out of her eyes. “They took her to BMH,” she said softly as she dug her car keys out of her purse. “What do we tell everyone else?” she asked, looking over at the bodyguards, Nick and Serena.

“We tell them the truth,” replied Alex simply as he walked back over towards everyone else. “We should get over to the hospital right away; we may have been wrong about Roslyn.”

As soon as what came out of his mouth was processed by Nick’s brain, his face lit up with anticipation and desperation. At seeing this, Alex immediately doubted whether he should have said anything. He didn’t know how Nick would be able to handle a second blow if they weren’t wrong.

“What do you mean?” Nick asked, his voice slightly excited and his breathing becoming rapid. “Wrong?”

“Based on what the paramedics said and what Kaci saw as she was talking to them, it didn’t seem like Ros was…dead,” Alex responded, finding the last word very difficult to say. “We just don’t know, so we want to get over to the hospital now so we can get confirmation either way.”

Trying to explain all this to everyone staring at him seemed surreal; he felt like he was having an out of body experience. Never in his life had he gone through something like this, nor had anyone else involved, and the toll it was taking on all of them was unbelievable.

Twenty minutes later the group was assembled in the waiting room outside the Emergency unit, doing exactly what the room implied—waiting. They had learned that Roslyn was alive, but no more than that. After ten minutes, Big Mike, Trey and Marcus got up, causing everyone else to break free of the zone they were in and look at them questioningly.

“I think it would be best for us to keep working on this Rob thing,” Trey said gingerly, feeling like he was intruding by sitting in the waiting room with Roslyn’s family and friends. He didn’t know her, other than that he was here to protect her, which so far he had failed to do, and it was weighing on him heavily.

“I agree too,” said Marcus, finding it hard to look anyone in the eye. Nick picked up on it and felt like he needed to set things right.

“Hey man,” he whispered, nudging Marcus in the side gently. “You’re a bodyguard, not a doctor; you couldn’t have known, and no one blames you.” Marcus just shook his head, knowing Nick was right, but he couldn’t help feeling like he had caused everyone so much unwanted pain.

“I’m sorry guys, for being wrong, but I will fix it. We’ll find Rob and whether it be through us or the court system, justice will be served…I’m just not sure by which one yet,” he vowed forcefully. Big Mike and Trey nodded their heads in agreement, and then the three men were gone, hell-bent on giving Roslyn and everyone else some piece of mind.

Over an hour later, a young Latino looking doctor that reminded everyone a lot of Howie came walking down the corridor. “Family of Roslyn Bushman?” Everyone nodded, and the doctor smiled warmly at them. “I’m Doctor Filpano. When Ms. Bushman was brought in, she had a deep laceration on her side just under the rib cage and another laceration, not quite as severe, on her upper left arm near her shoulder. These wounds had bled out heavily before her arrival here and she was about a quart low on blood, but we were able to successfully complete a blood transfusion to replenish what she had lost.”

He paused for a moment, making sure everyone was following him, and then he continued.

“Her body temperature was also quite a bit lower than normal, which wasn’t surprising since she was soaked to the bone and had obviously been in the rain for a while, but we were able to raise that safely as well. We stitched the two lacerations and she is resting comfortably right now, we are just waiting on the X-rays and a few other test results to come back,”

“Can we see her?” Kaci asked, an enormous sadness being lifted from her instantaneously.

“We gave her some pain medication and she is pretty out of it, so she may be incoherent, but I am sure she would welcome some familiar faces. She seemed very frightened when she regained consciousness.” Dr. Filpano directed them towards her room and then left after reassuring them that when any more information was available, he would let them know. They were about to walk into Roslyn’s cubicle when Officer Meeks came running up behind them, breathless and insistent.

“Kaci, Serena” she stammered, trying to catch her breath, “what do you know about Jerome Johnson?”

“He works for Rob’s company and they’ve been best friends since high school,” responded Serena, a little puzzled as to what Jerome had to do with this. He was a nice guy, unlike Rob, and she hadn’t even objected when Roslyn tried to set them up. They went on a few dates, and seemed to hit it off, but the sparks had never been there and both decided it would be better just being friends. “Why What does he have to do with this?”

“I think he’s helping Rob, hiding him I mean. Who else would Rob go to for help besides his best friend? I am going to head over there and check it out, but I was hoping those big guys would come with, where did they go?”

“They are out trying to dig up some information; I’ll call Marcus and tell him to meet you….where?” said AJ, feeling like maybe this was the break they needed. She shouted the address to Jerome’s house behind her as she ran down the corridor and disappeared into the darkness outside.