Chapter 2 - The Emergency Room LightsThe ambulance sirens wailed into the cold night air, cutting through the heavy traffic outside the airport. Behind them, a sleek black Maybach followed at a steady distance. Inside the car, the silence was broken only by the soft, ragged breathing of six-year-old Hope.
She sat in the plush leather passenger seat, wrapped in Cameron West’s expensive wool overcoat, which swallowed her small frame. Her legs dangled off the edge of the seat. Her dark eyes stared unblinkingly out the window at the flashing red and blue lights reflecting off wet asphalt.
“She’s going to be okay, Hope,” Cameron said quietly, his voice carrying a steady, anchored calm that he didn't entirely feel.
“The doctors on the phone said she was working too hard,” Hope whispered, her small fingers clutching the lapels of his coat. “She cleans the offices downtown at night, and she packs groceries on the weekends. She always tells me we’re saving for a home with a real yard. But her hands were shaking this morning, Mr. Cameron.”
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Cameron gripped the steering wheel, his knuckles turning white. A forty-million-dollar tech deal in Tokyo had slipped through his fingers twenty minutes earlier, and yet, sitting here in a car with a terrified child, that boardroom felt like a lifetime away.
When they pulled into the emergency bay of Mercy General, the paramedics were already wheeling the unconscious woman through automatic sliding glass doors. Cameron scooped Hope up into his arms—she was startlingly light, like a bird made of paper and courage—and hurried inside.
