He Didn’t Kidnap Me. Not Exactly novel Chapter 189

Chapter 189

(Daisy’s POV)

The word gunshots seemed to linger in the room long after DeLuca said it.

For several seconds, I simply stared at him, trying to reconcile the word with our current situation. Gunshots belonged in action movies

and crime documentaries. They did not belong inside hospitals, which were specifically designed to keep people alive rather than serve as

convenient locations for people to shoot one another.

Then panic hit me.

Not because DeLuca sounded uncertain. If anything, his certainty made it worse. The moment he identified the sound, a realization

crashed into me with enough force to tighten every muscle in my body.

I couldn’t run.

Normally, if danger appeared, I at least had the option of fleeing. It wasn’t particularly brave and certainly wasn’t heroic, but it was an option. Now I was lying in a hospital bed after being shot, recovering from surgery, and struggling to sit upright without my body

immediately reminding me of its objections.

If armed men entered this room, I couldn’t run from them. I couldn’t hide from them. Realistically, I couldn’t do much of anything.

My gaze immediately snapped toward DeLuca.

“What do we do?”

The question escaped before I could stop it.

He didn’t answer.

That somehow made everything worse.

Around us, the room had already begun reacting. Nurses moved quickly between phones and doorways while distant shouting drifted through the hall. One nurse rushed out completely, and another followed moments later, but DeLuca remained exactly where he was.

He wasn’t relaxed.

He wasn’t unconcerned.

He was focused.

His eyes stayed fixed on the doorway even though there was nothing there. No movement. No gunman. No visible threat of any kind. Yet he continued staring with a concentration that made me feel as though he wasn’t looking at the doorway at all.

The longer I watched him, the more it seemed as though he was listening to the building itself, tracking sounds that nobody else could hear and piecing together information from them.

“We need to do something,” I said again, my voice tighter than before. “I just had a near-death experience and I’ve decided I don’t actually like death.”

He still didn’t respond immediately. Instead, his attention shifted toward the remaining nurses.

“Unplug her.”

The nearest nurse froze.

“What?”

“Unplug her.”

Horror spread across her face.

“We can’t do that.”

DeLuca’s expression didn’t change.

“Why?”

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