Nuclear Heat (Firework Girls #4) Read Online Free PDF

text. I’m staying in touch with Sam’s mom the same way. She lives in Nevada and we haven’t decided if she needs to come or not. She doesn’t have the money for a ticket, of course, but I’ll fly her out myself if it comes to that.
    Please, God, don’t let it come to that.
    The doctors are now describing Sam’s condition as “critical, but stable” and are “cautiously optimistic” the antibiotics are working. I’m trying to follow the girls’ lead and focus on words like “stable” and “optimistic,” but the word “critical” is weighing in my chest and I can’t get it to leave. The doctor hasn’t given us an updated “percent chance” of recovery. I’m afraid to ask him for one.
    We’re told only two of us can go back to see her at a time, so Isabella and I go first. A petite nurse with shoes that squeak on the linoleum leads us down the broad, sterile hallway and into an ICU room packed with equipment and beeping monitors. The bed’s in the middle and Sam’s sleeping, as she’s apparently been doing since her surgery. There’s IVs attached to her right hand and a little oxygen tube hooked under her nose and behind her ears. She’s so pale and frail-looking it almost doesn’t seem like her. Except that it is her. My heart flips over and my chest starts to hurt.
    “Aww, poor thing,” Isabella whispers as I go around to the side of the bed. Sam’s left hand is lying by her side. I take it automatically. It’s tiny and warm and limp, and the sensation of holding it travels up my arm and to my chest and makes me hurt even more. I’m leaning over the bed slightly, looking at the face I know so well. I want to stroke her cheek and kiss her forehead, do something to comfort her, but we’ve been told to be careful not to wake her. I can only hover here, feeling lost and helpless.
    “Here, honey,” Isabella says quietly. She’s brought over a plastic chair from the side of the room. “Sit down.”
    I do as I’m told, but I’m still holding Sam’s hand and resting my arm on the hospital bed’s side rails, looking at her face.
    Come on, Sam. Fight this. You’ve got this.
    Isabella pulls another chair up next to me. She puts her hand on Sam’s forearm and leans against my shoulder. “She doesn’t look too bad, all things considered.”
    I don’t respond to this. She looks like hell. She looks like she’s had the shit knocked out of her.
    “She’ll be okay, Jack. She’s strong. The doctor said she’s stable.”
    Critical but stable.
    I nod to appease her.
    We sit mostly in silence, but sometimes talking quietly about the inconsequential stuff people talk about in situations like this. Just stuff to pass the time and to avoid talking about the thing that is of consequence. The entire time my heart is beating soundly. Looking at Sam’s face only makes it worse.
    But I can’t look away.
     

     
    A few hours later, we’re told Sam’s improving. They hope to move her out of the ICU sometime tomorrow. Since there’s only two, short slots for visiting hours in the ICU each day, and since we’ve all been up all night, the girls decide to go home, saying they’ll be back for evening visiting hours. Chloe tells me I should go home too, and get some rest. I say I will.
    Instead, after they leave I find the ICU nurse and persuade her to let me sit in Sam’s room. It’s most definitely against the rules, but I pull out all my best tricks to get what I want, because I can’t bear the thought of Sam being in there alone.
    Over the next several hours, I get good at sleeping while sitting in that hard plastic chair, but sleeping lightly enough that I’m still kind of keeping an eye on her. I’m careful to get out of the way every time a nurse comes in and almost get kicked out twice by people who aren’t too thrilled about my presence.
    But I manage to stay. Every time Sam opens her eyes, even if it’s only for a moment before falling back asleep, I’m there.
     

     
    By the time