Happy Wednesday y’all!
Since the fellow romantics already got a nice chunk of excerpt on Monday, I made this regular excerpt extra long!
Hope you like it and see you in the comments 😉
Sigrid
Louise hurried downstairs and made her way to the lobby of the presidential residence. She looked around but didn’t see Stucky anywhere. She did find Hobbs arguing with Eleanor and Woodward when she stepped into the lobby, though.
“Be reasonable. The roads should be clear by noon,” Woodward said, sounding exasperated.
“Says who?” Hobbs asked.
Eleanor answered, raising her hands in the air. “Our weather system!”
“Yeah, I don’t trust your system,” Hobbs said.
Louise stopped by his side. “Good morning.”
Eleanor’s eyes immediately focused on her. “Be sensible,” she pleaded. “We can leave once the storm has passed. You’ll still have most of the day.”
Louise shook her head. “We can’t afford to wait,” she said firmly.
Eleanor turned abruptly and walked over to the corner of the hallway. She touched the wall and a screen lit up. Louise and Hobbs exchanged a look. They hadn’t seen this before.
It was the first time Louise saw Eleanor use a terminal, she realized. She walked over out of curiosity. Hobbs followed. The technology seemed state of the art. But why on earth was it built into the wall? Why not have a portable terminal?
“This is the projected path of the storm,” Eleanor said and pointed at an animation on the screen.
The storm wasn’t big, but did look like it might cause some flooding. Louise hoped she could still find a way to ask about Stucky.
“I’m not going to have this discussion again. We’re leaving. Now,” Hobbs said.
Eleanor sighed in frustration. “We don’t have a weather radar in the car. We’ll be sitting ducks if the storm changes course!”
“We can use our devices,” Louise suggested.
Eleanor shook her head. “You won’t have a signal.”
“You don’t know that,” Hobbs replied.
“Yes, we do. We jammed your signals,” Woodward reminded them.
Hobbs spun around. “Then unjam them!” he said.
“It’s not that simple,” Eleanor said as she walked over to Woodward.
“What? Did the off button get stuck?” Hobbs replied sarcastically.
Louise thought she heard the sound of nails on the marble floor in the distance. She perked up and looked at the door just in time to see Stucky race into the lobby. He had a cute, pink elephant toy in his mouth.
“What the fuck,” Hobbs said, taking two steps back. If Louise didn’t know any better, she would think he was scared.
Hobbs’s response caught Stucky’s attention too, of course, and he scrambled to turn in Hobbs’s direction with even more enthusiasm.
“Stucky! No!” Eleanor said firmly.
But Stucky didn’t listen. Louise watched it all happen in slow motion. She didn’t do anything to try to stop it because she simply couldn’t believe what she was seeing.
Stucky clumsily ran up to Hobbs, his paws slipping on the smooth floor tiles. He somehow managed to jump up and put his paws squarely on Hobbs’s chest.
Hobbs cursed, frantically trying to push Stucky away. He had been caught by surprise, though, and when he took another step back, he lost his footing. The next moment, Hobbs hit the floor hard, landing on his side.
He immediately grabbed his ribs. “Fuck!”
Eleanor pulled Stucky away from Hobbs, desperately urging the dog to calm down. “Stucky, come on, stop it. Sit!”
But Stucky was stronger than she was. He broke free and scrambled back towards Hobbs, his tongue lolling out of his mouth and his tail wagging.
Hobbs hissed between ragged breaths. “Get that dog away from me!!”
Stucky wasn’t after Hobbs this time, though. The dog grabbed the pink elephant he had dropped. Then, he raced out of the hallway and back to wherever he had come from.
Eleanor ran her hands through her hair. “Shit,” she said, walking over to Hobbs. “I’m so sorry. He’s not used to being locked up inside.”
Louise suppressed a smile. Stucky’s youthful energy had cheered her up. She wished she could go outside and play with him. She reluctantly pushed the thought away and focused on the situation at hand.
Hobbs was still lying on the floor, breathing heavily. His face was pale and beads of sweat were already shimmering on his forehead. He was still holding his side. She quickly walked over and knelt down. “What’s wrong?”
Eleanor too squatted down, causing Hobbs to glare at her while he blew out a ragged breath. “Pain in my left side,” he said, his voice sounding genuinely strained.
“Can you try to breathe calmly?” Louise asked, trying to assess the situation.
He scowled, then flinched.
“We need to get him up and in a sitting position,” Eleanor said.
Hobbs groaned and shook his head. “No,” he managed to say.
Louise turned to Eleanor. “Do you have any technology to scan his injuries?”
“Yes, there’s always a team on call here.”
More pained protest from Hobbs followed. Louise gave him a stern look. “I know. Not ideal. But you need help.”
Woodward walked back into the room at that moment. Louise hadn’t even noticed he had left. Behind him, a man and a woman in a white uniform rushed into the hallway. They had brought a scoop stretcher.
“Here they are,” Eleanor said and got up. Louise gave Hobbs a reassuring nod. “Just let them take a look, okay?”
His eyes were closed now, but he nodded.
Louise made some room for the paramedics to do their job. She watched as they scanned Hobbs with a portable machine that looked very similar to what the teams back home used.
“Lungs intact too,” she heard the woman say to her co-worker. The other medic nodded. “Let’s load him up.”
Hobbs let himself be manoeuvered onto the stretcher. He had stopped protesting entirely, which surprised Louise. “He must be in a lot of pain,” she thought.
“We need to do another scan, but probably a rib injury,” the female paramedic said.
They picked up Hobbs and made their way to the door with surprising ease. Louise was a little unsure if she should stay with Hobbs and follow them.
“Give them an hour,” Eleanor said, touching Louise’s elbow.
“The rain will be here by then,” Woodward commented.
“How about we reassess things in my office,” Eleanor suggested.
Louise blew out a breath. “Okay.”
“Rick, can you find Stucky and make sure he doesn’t attack anyone else?” Eleanor asked.
“Sure,” he said with just a hint of a grin.
“Okay, this way,” Eleanor told Louise, gesturing towards a door on the right.
Louise met her gaze. The butterflies that had been dormant this morning now stirred.
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