The air in my lungs stuttered out. “Good. Good.” I placed a wobbly kiss against Knox’s temple and started limping toward the limo. “Load everyone up in the car, Peg.”

“Why?” Peg called, hurrying to catch up with me.

“Because I need to go to the ER,” I said through gritted teeth as a flame started consuming my leg. “I can’t do that and keep an eye on the young’uns.”

Peg choked. “It bit you?”

I whirled around and leveled him with a stern glare, hoping it conveyed that we needed to keep the kids calm. “I need you to drive.” Spots formed in my line of sight, either from the venom or the adrenaline overdose, and each step turned into agony.

“I can’t drive!” Peg ushered the twins and Raleigh into the limo.

Pressing the back of my hand over my mouth as a wave of nausea rolled through me, I struggled to swallow. Once it passed, I told him, “Just use your left foot like you do on the golf cart.”

Peg didn’t argue. Instead, he helped me into my seat and closed the door. Running in some skipping manner, he rounded the front of the car and got behind the wheel in a flash.

The rear door behind him opened. “We going somewhere?” Boss asked while rubbing his groggy eyes.

“Just to town,” I answered but the words barely held a sound. A cold sweat broke out on every inch of my body as everything started spinning. My eyes slammed shut as a tremor seized me.

“In or out, Boss? Hurry it up!” Peg yelled. The car jostled and then the door shut as Boss mumbled something about Raleigh sliding over. Then the engine revved and sent the car in motion.

The panic must have tripped a switch on Peg’s tongue, because the boy alternated between praying and cursing all the way to the hospital. I was appreciative of his prayers but was in too much pain to get ahold of him for the poor language, not to mention the whiplash we all probably sustained each time he hit the brakes.

“My neck is gonna snap in two if you don’t quit,” Boss complained.

“I can’t help it! My foot keeps gettin’ tangled!” Peg grouched.

They bickered for who knows how long, but my ears were ringing too loudly to catch most of the exchange. One minute I was staring at the bleary road, the next a stark hallway while being pushed in a wheelchair. Another blink I was in an exam room with a doctor poking at my leg as the world closed in on me. The next tattered image was of a hospital room with an empty bed beside mine.

“Head count,” I vaguely remembered mumbling.

“Six,” Peg answered by my side. “I picked up Charlotte.”