By the time the hospital entrance looms ahead, red lights reflecting in violent streaks across the glass façade, his hands are numb on the steering wheel. He does not feel the leather beneath his palms or the tremor in his fingers. He is gripping hard enough that his knuckles should ache, but the sensation does not register. His jaw is locked so tightly that pain hums behind his ears, yet he barely notices.
The ambulance ahead of him swings sharply into the emergency bay, its rear lights flashing in frantic bursts of red and white. The world has narrowed to those lights. They are the only thing he sees. The only thing he follows.
Just a few minutes.
The phrase loops through him like punishment. He does not realize how close he is until the ambulance brakes hard—suddenly, violently—its rear doors shuddering as it jerks to a stop beneath the emergency canopy.
Zane is still accelerating.
The realization hits too late.
