Maggie's Five ...the first in a LOVE story Read Online Free PDF

and release Jon’s hand to track down
another corridor as he turns in the opposite direction.
    “ Mrs
Cartwright, please stop. Your children are not down there.” This
gets my attention.
    I swing around
sharply and glare at the nurse, striding into her personal space.
I’m about to put my hands on her, to shake the information out of
her if I have to, when I’m scooped into a firm embrace, one strong
arm wrapping securely across my waist, the other over my shoulders.
My face is forced to press into a soft black t-shirt that I
remember from minutes ago, yet it feels like years.
    “ Calm
down Maggie Mae, we’re going to them now,” Luke says reassuringly
by my ear.
    My relief is
instant; I’m going to my family. We’re at the hospital, they’ll get
the treatment they need and everything’s going to be fine. I’m
about to see my husband and my children and everything’s going to
be fine. They’ll get better and we’ll go home and laugh about ‘that Christmas when…’ one day. And everything’s going to be
fine.
    “ I
was asked to find you,” the young woman explains, leading us back
in the direction we just came from and down another sterile white
corridor. “You must have entered through a side door, not the main
Emergency entrance. It’s easy to get lost in this
place.”
    She’s making
small talk? Seriously?
    “ This
way,” she says politely, opening one of two heavy white doors with
a restricted sign painted in red on it. We turn through another
passage, entering another restricted area when I take in the
pandemonium surrounding us.
    “ Normally you wouldn’t be permitted in here, but given the
circumstances …” the nurse trails off, assuming I understand what
she is alluding to.
    We find
ourselves standing in the entrance of a modest size room with a
litter of empty beds save for two. Teams of organised chaos work
frantically over my girls. Machines beep, instructions are directed
and leads run from everywhere.
    It’s once I go
to move forwards that I realise I’m still being held by the same
strong arms and find my body instinctively gravitating in closer,
burrowing in deeper. Jon’s by my other side pressing against me,
his free hand’s running through his choppy dark hair; the same
action Brendon uses when he’s caught in a stressful
situation.
    Cursing coming
from my left captures my attention. “Take the boot off for Christ
sake. We need to find where the bleed is.”
    I attempt to
step in the direction of the frustrated voice, the pink and purple
roller blade teasing me as it lolls abnormally on the edge of the
discoloured mattress.
    It’s
Ella.
    My breath
captures sharply when a lean, athletic figure in blue scrubs cuts
into my vision. I’m morosely hypnotized, watching her back twist
and turn while painstakingly unsnapping the buckles. She stands to
one side and shimmies the boot, careful to cause as little harm as
possible. I should be thanking her for taking care with my
daughter, but at the same time I just want her to hurry the hell up
so I can comfort my little girl.
    The instant the
skate is completely removed, blood starts teeming all over the
floor, pouring out of Ella’s punctured flesh like someone opened
the flood gates to the Hoover Dam. A guttural sob escapes as the
image burns into my pupils, permanently seared to my
memory.
    Desperate to get
to my child’s side, I jerk and rotate my shoulders for escape. She
needs me. She needs her Mummy.
    A stream of
curse words carries over the violent screeching of a machine. I
can’t see clearly through tear-blurred eyes and shamefully give up
my struggles because I’m not strong enough. I’m not
enough.
    A piercing whine
builds from my other side. I turn to see what’s creating the
ear-splitting whine building until a sharp Scottish voice demands
that everyone is, too: “Clear.” Then a jolt’s sent through my
Mattie’s tiny body, sending her undeveloped frame rigidly leaping
off the thin mattress.
    Jon wraps