Chapter 122

Lake POV

We reached a set of double doors marked “PEDIATRIC ICU - AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY,” and the doctor who’d been kind to me put a gentle hand on my arm.

“This is where you need to stop,” she said. “We’re going to take him in now, get him stabilized, run some tests. It’s probably going to take a while. There’s a waiting area just down that hall where you can—”

“No,” I said, still holding Ollie’s hand as they tried to wheel him through the doors. “No, I can’t leave him. He needs me. He’ll be scared if he wakes up and I’m not there—”

“Sir, I promise you, we will take excellent care of him. But right now, the best thing you can do for your son is let us work.”

Let us work. Like it was that simple. Like I could just release Ollie’s hand and trust that strangers would save him.

But they were doctors. They knew what they were doing. And I was just—I was just me. Traumatized and hurt and useless.

I leaned down and kissed Ollie’s forehe