Hot Driver - S01 E82

Story 3 days ago

Hot Driver - S01 E82

Read Story: SEASON 1 EPISODE 82

Hamilton General Hospital – Canada – Afternoon

The private jet had barely touched down before an ambulance was already waiting on the tarmac, and Duane was rushed straight into Hamilton General’s emergency wing, machines and IV lines trailing alongside the gurney as nurses called out vitals in clipped, urgent tones.

Mr. and Mrs. Hale followed close behind, both of them pale and silent, watching through the glass as a fresh team of doctors converged around their son.

“The twins are on their way,” Mrs. Hale said, checking her phone for the third time in as many minutes. “Our driver picked them up from the estate the moment we landed.”

Mr. Hale said nothing, his jaw tight, eyes fixed on the small window into the trauma bay where Duane lay motionless beneath the harsh overhead lights.

The doors of the waiting area swung open twenty minutes later, and two figures hurried through — a young man and woman, unmistakably twins despite their different personalities but the facial similarities os on another level, both moving with the same urgent, long-legged stride.

“Mom!” The young man reached her first, panic written plainly across his face. “Is it true? What they said on the news — is it actually true?”

“Ariel.” Mrs. Hale pulled him into a tight embrace before turning to do the same to his sister. “Arielle. Yes. It’s true. We’ll explain everything, I promise, but right now—”

“Right now he needs blood,” Mr. Hale cut in, voice tight. “Yours specifically. Both of you match his type. We need you prepped immediately.”

The twins exchanged one startled glance before nodding in unison, and a nurse ushered them quickly toward a side room to begin the donation process.

The transfusion took the better part of an hour, and by the time the twins emerged, bandaged at the elbow and visibly shaken, a doctor was waiting to speak with the family in the small consultation room down the hall.

“The transfusion was successful,” he said, folding his hands atop a thin manila folder. “But I want to be honest with you about the severity of what we’re dealing with. The bullet that struck his left chest caused significant internal damage. In my experience — and I’ve been doing this a long time — very few people survive a wound like that at all, let alone remain breathing on their own days later.”

“But he is breathing,” Mrs. Hale said, gripping the folder’s edge like it might steady her.

“He is,” the doctor confirmed. “Which tells me he’s stronger than the statistics suggest. I won’t lie to you and say his prognosis is certain. It’s going to take time — possibly a great deal of it — before we know whether or how fully he’ll recover. But he’s still here. That matters.”

The family absorbed the words in heavy silence, and once the doctor excused himself, Mrs. Hale turned to the twins, drawing in a slow breath before beginning the fuller explanation they were owed.

She told them everything — Alice, the hospital switch twenty-eight years ago, the search through Hope Orphanage, Celeste, the woman who’d raised him with nothing and given him everything anyway.

“And there’s someone else,” Mrs. Hale added quietly, her voice softening. “A young woman. Ivory Bennett. They’re — I believe they’re deeply in love. She was there when it happened. I’ve never seen anyone break the way she did.”

Arielle’s teasing expression had faded somewhere partway through the story, tears standing bright in her eyes by the end of it. Ariel simply stared at the floor, working his jaw.

“I feel so bad for her,” Arielle said finally, wiping at her cheeks. “Watching someone you love get shot right in front of you—” She shook her head, unable to finish the sentence.

A beat of heavy silence passed before she visibly forced herself to lighten it, the way she always did when things got too much to sit with directly.

“Well,” she said, sniffling, a small, watery smile tugging at her mouth, “when he wakes up, I’m dragging him shopping. At least he won’t embarrass me the way Ariel does. That one has zero taste.”

“Excuse me?” Ariel shot her a look. “You know nothing except shopping, Arielle. That’s your entire personality.”

“At least I scored higher than you on the last exam,” she shot back instantly, chin lifting.

“That was ONE exam—”

“Enough, you two,” Mrs. Hale said sharply, though something in her tightened chest eased slightly at the familiar bickering, a small piece of normal in the middle of everything else. “This isn’t the time.”

The twins fell quiet, chastened, though Arielle reached over and squeezed her brother’s hand once, quietly, an old habit neither of them commented on.

—