Danger to life - Chapter 30

Elizabeth was getting paler and paler, her fever was very high, Charlote and Nathan were wetting cloths and applying them to her arms, legs and face. Carson came in after resting for a while, and on examining her said that they would need a blood transfusion for her. The doubt was who the donor could be, because according to Carson, one wrong blood and she could go into shock and die.

Lucas, who was leaning against the bedroom doorframe and heard the whole conversation, said:

— I know how to help, get her purse, a kind of fanny pack that's been around her waist the whole time. He threw the contents on the sofa and then he saw the secret part inside the bag where she kept some small things hidden, under the false bottom he removed the letter under Jack Junior where it had instructions if anything happened to her along with money and her and Jack Thorton's wedding ring, a letter to be given to her son, a photo of her and Jack at the wedding, a photo of her with Nathan and Alien and little Jack where she wrote behind my family, this photo Nathan recognized as having been taken two years ago...his eyes welled up with tears when he saw the inscription on the photo. Together Lucas found the two poisons, Jack's dagger and finally a piece of paper. Henry took the paper and began to read it, saying that it was nothing important, laughing, he said that it was just schoolwork and that she must have been keeping it as a souvenir for her students. Wynn and Bill found something strange in this story and came up to Henry and began to read the schoolwork.

— Wait... look at this, Bill! Wynn said and showed him...look at this, this is a list of all of us and who donated to whom, look at the small print on both sides, she made a map of blood donors one by one from each of us and others from Hope Valle, here it says that for her the donors would be Willian Thatcher, Julia, Jack Thorton, Tom and Nathan. Smiling with the information in hand, Wynn entered the room without even knocking on the door, scaring everyone, and told Carson that they had found the list and that they were her donors. At that moment Carson remembered that almost two years ago she had given this assignment at the school and had called him in to help. That was how she had discovered the blood type of practically the entire town of Hope Valle, especially those who had children at the school. Nathan and Tom sat down next to her and started donating blood straight into her arm. Tom had always loved Lizzie as his sister, she had always saved him from a lot of trouble and now they were going to have the same blood.

Henry, who could hear and see everything from the door, asked:

— But how did she find out about the others like Lucas, me, Lee, Wynn, Edward, Frankson and even Bill, after all we don't have children at school?

— Carson laughed and said:

— She asked me a lot of questions day after day, she's very insistent, then she'd talk about Ned's case, what it would be like, then I'd get his chart, I wouldn't show it to her, but I'd show her his blood type, then she'd ask if he could donate to Lucas and then I'd have to check Lucas' blood type to see if it was okay or not, well she wrote everything down in her head, like a survey, I just didn't know she was putting the list together.

Frankison appeared and said:

— It was like that with us, well she threatened Edward, that if he didn't look and tell her my blood type, our father's, his own and Bill's, plus Charlote and Tom's blood type were on Jack Thorton's file and that she would disown him as her brother. She can be very stubborn and threatening when she wants to be.

Tom couldn't accept what she was going through and commented:

— Nathan, she did a field survey, which many doctors don't know how to do even more so of so many people, just to find out the blood type of all of us, she had been worried about all of us for over a year. She organized herself, thought up escape routes for herself and a child and still tried to protect us in every way from her family. I can't forgive myself for abandoning those two, my brother Jack must be disappointed in me for not protecting his family. And with his head hidden by his hands, he cried silently, mulling over his remorse.

Nathan was the one who brought Tom out of his grief-stricken reverie and explained:

— Look, I spoke to your mother a little while ago, I never imagined seeing the woman I love, bleeding like she was, howling in pain, full of bruises, running more than half the country running away from madmen like William Thacther and Charles, you know you're not to blame for anything, nobody is, she's even less to blame, because she drove us away thinking it was better, now this Charles and Willian and their family are to blame for causing her so much fear and physical pain. She used our weak points to force us all to abandon her. But now I've warned you, I'm her husband and Jack's father and I won't let anyone hurt them ever again. And another thing I told your mother and now you, I'm not taking your brother's place, he'll always be little Jack's father and her first love, but I'm going to be the man who loves them more than life itself.

Tom knew of their love, and today, for the first time, he saw in Nathan's eyes the same look Jack had for her. It was a look of love and concern for Lizzie, a look that only those who love have. Now he knew that she would be loved and protected for the rest of her life.