A Heartbeat Away Read Online Free Page A

battered and bruised, she has some cracked ribs and a broken leg. Our real worry, though, is her head injury. If she doesn’t stabilize soon, we may have to operate.”
    Ben felt as though someone had hit him hard in the pit of his stomach, and his arm dropped to his side.
    â€œI’m sorry,” she murmured, edging away from him. “Now, I have to go and get the doctor.”
    Just behind them, the door swished open again and the man appeared. He dismissed her with a glance, and as she scurried away, he turned to Ben, jaw clenched, eyes half closed.
    â€œThere really is no reason for you to hang around here,” he remarked in a cold, flat voice. “They say that she’ll…”
    Behind him, the bleep of the monitor faltered. He hesitated, glancing back. When its regular bleeping became a single high-pitched tone, Ben pushed past him and burst through the swinging doors.
    Her face was deathly pale against the pillow, blue-lidded eyes closed against her cheeks, thick dark lashes lying upon her translucent skin like two small, perfect fans. And beside the bed, a single green line across the monitor and that awful, final, single tone as her life ebbed.
    Ben stood frozen for a moment as the whole ward came alive with the urgent buzz of controlled panic. Firm hands bustled him out into the corridor. He heard the thumping sounds as the doctors struggled to shock her failing heart back to life again, then a desperate voice.
    â€œIt’s no good. She’s gone.”
    And he started to run, down the endless, faceless corridors, anywhere away from this place that already haunted his dreams.

CHAPTER 3
    T hey say that your life flashes in front of your eyes in the moments before you die. Mine didn’t. And as the hard gray pavement rose up to meet me, I clung to that one stupid thought, knowing that I didn’t want to die like this, here among strangers on the cold, wet street.
    I was beyond feeling, beyond anything but an acute and horrified awareness of the violent events that had overtaken my body, hurling it onto the road like a helpless doll. I knew I was broken before I felt the crack—the pressure was just too strong for flesh and blood to bear. And in the instant that I felt my bones give way, there even came a kind of relief that the terrible pressure was released, that my life wasn’t flashing in front of my eyes. So I couldn’t be dead…could I?
    Far, far away I could hear the squeal of brakes. Someone was calling, but I knew I had to go. I wasn’t dead, was I? I just needed some time out, needed to let myself slip away from the violent events that had overtaken me…needed to find Daniel. Was he out there somewhere, searching for me?
    I felt a hand, soft against my cheek, stroking the hair back from my brow. He was here. Daniel was here. I tried to open my eyes, but my body refused to obey the distant commands from my brain, and as I felt myself beginning to slip away, a deep, trembling voice rang out inside my head, begging me to stay. I wanted to stay so much, but the darkness clawed at me with comforting fingers. Then the voice began to fade and a glorious blaze of light exploded inside my head, bursting out again in myriad colors to hover way above me, beckoning with the promise of peace. And when the dark fingers wrapped themselves more closely around me, I let myself go.
    They say that your life flashes in front of your eyes in the moments before you die. Mine just flowed, on and on and on in an endless river of memories, long forgotten and eagerly relived. And they all began and ended with Daniel Brown.

CHAPTER 4
    M y feet felt cold in my scuffed red shoes and my hand, in the tight clasp of my mother’s, was gradually going numb, yet still I refused to put one foot in front of the other.
    â€œLucy!”
    My mother’s voice was loud and angry, but I just made my legs very straight when she attempted to drag me forward, frowning up at her