Chapter 12: The Race to Ellsworth
The county hospital in Ellsworth was twenty-two miles away across winding roads glazed with freezing rain.
Nora drove the Subaru, her knuckles white on the steering wheel, her face set in grim determination as the wipers struggled against the downpour of sleet.
In the back seat, Dante held Elena in his arms. He had wrapped her in two wool blankets, holding her pressed against his chest to transfer his own body heat to her shivering frame. Elena’s eyes were squeezed shut, her teeth clattering against her lips as contraction after contraction rolled through her abdomen in sharp, irregular waves.
"Dante... don't let them die," she sobbed into his collar, her fingers digging into the dark rose ink on his throat. "Please... don't let them take them..."
"They aren't dying, Ellie," Dante whispered fiercely, his cheek pressed against her wet hair, his tears falling into her blonde curls. "Listen to my voice. Focus on my chest. Breathe with me. One, two, three... push the air out. I have you. I am not letting go."
He pulled his own gloves off, taking her ice-cold hands and placing them inside his shirt, pressing her fingers against his bare skin right over his pounding heart.
"Feel that?" he choked out. "That heart beats for you. For both of them. You fought through four months of winter alone, Elena. You're the strongest thing that ever lived. Stay with me."
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Elena locked her eyes onto his. In the dim light of the passing streetlamps, she saw none of the polished, guarded executive she had left in Manhattan. She saw only the boy who had held her hand on the Brooklyn Bridge, stripped of his armor, offering his very soul to keep her anchored to the earth.
When the truck slid into the emergency ambulance bay in Ellsworth, Dante kicked the door open before the tires had stopped rolling, carrying her through the automatic doors into the bright, sterile warmth of the trauma center.
