Jade had never prayed more intensely in her life. Several workers had been called into Dez’s hospital room, and Jade was forced to wait outside. Nobody knew what drug the man had injected into her daughter’s IV, but it was making her heart rate drop dangerously low.
Jade turned her back to Dez’s window. The curtains were drawn, and it was too painful to try to strain her eyes in hopes of making out what was going on.
Please, Lord. You didn’t deliver her out of those woods just to let her die here. I’m not ready to lose her.
Jade’s whole body was trembling. How much suffering was one little girl supposed to endure before God decided it was enough?
She thought back over every sin, every time she’d lost her temper or yelled at her daughter. Was God punishing her for those things? Had he decided that Jade was an unfit mother, so now he was going to take Dez away?
You know I can’t live without her, she prayed. Maybe that means she’s become an idol to me, but I can’t help that. If you want her with you in heaven, you may as well take me too, because that child is my only reason for living and breathing.
She thought back over all her former plans — college, law school, advancing social justice. Remembering how upset she’d been that her pregnancy derailed each and every one of her goals, she was ashamed now to think she would ever have preferred her education or career over being the mother of this precious, precocious baby girl.
If you want to take her home, Lord, you’re going to have to fight me for her.
Even as she prayed the words, Jade knew how stupid they sounded, but she couldn’t help herself. If God’s only plan was to take Dez away from her, he should have let Sapphire kill them both back at the cabin.
She became aware by degrees of a figure standing next to her. “Is this seat taken?” Ben held out a cup of coffee.
She shook her head.
“I heard about what happened. Do you know what’s going on in there?”
She shook her head once more, not trusting her voice to hold.
“The good news is security apprehended the suspect.”
She didn’t respond. What did it matter, unless the man was willing to tell the doctors what he put in her daughter’s IV?
“Want your coffee?” Ben asked.
No.
He sat beside her quietly, and it wasn’t until Jade let out a heavy sigh she realized she’d been holding in her breath.
“Should we pray?” Ben finally asked.
Pray? Right now? Did he actually think she’d been doing anything else?
She turned to face him and croaked, “Okay.”