Chapter Eighteen
No! God, please no.
Even weak, I float to him so effortlessly, placing his head in my lap as I see him struggle to catch his breath, a large piece of shrapnel sticking out of his chest, inches from his heart.
“Baby, please. Wake up. You gotta wake up.”
He groans, but I can see him weakening, his eyes struggling to hang on. There are tears pricking the corners of his eyes that I can’t wipe away, and he gasps for breaths he can barely take.
“Blake, you gotta stay with me. Please, hang on.”
“It’s no use,” the ghost biker says from over my shoulder. “He’s going to die.”
“He can’t die like this. I won’t let him.”
But then I hear his voice from behind me. It’s faint and weak, and makes my soul ache in a way that feels crippling.
“Isn’t this what you wanted?” Blake questions, curiously staring at his body still gasping for breath in my arms. “For me to die, so we can be together?”
My head swivels to look at him, but he’s just standing there lost and hollow, his soul detaching because he’s teetering between life and death.
“Not like this!” I whisper, still clutching his body the best I can. “I want you to want to be with me.”
He crosses his arms, blankly staring at a darkness that offers him no light. He doesn’t say anything but, “Isn’t this what you wanted? For me to die, so we can be together?”
It’s a repeated sentence, one that breaks me in two.
“Blake, you have to fight this. Goddamn it, fight to live, you fucking bastard!”
“Isn’t this what you wanted? For me to die, so we can be together?” His words come out choppy and broken.
“No!” I scream, clutching his lost soul even tighter. “This is not what I wanted. I want you to live! I want you to find peace.”
Then he blinks, not the lost soul standing behind me stuttering through the same sentence over and over, but the man I gave my heart to as a child. The man whose eyes sew together every crack and break inside me.
He takes a stuttering breath, eyes fluttering as he fights the horrific pain. His eyes dilate, then focus on me like they’re looking right at me. He lifts his hand, so it’s somewhat cupping my face, and whispers, “My Eve.”
Then, like a silent whisper, his eyes close, leaving me in mourning.
The heart monitor cruelly beats with every broken heartbeat he has, barely hanging on, receiving the brunt most of them didn’t.
They’re all banged up, bruised, and broken, but they’re alive… moving… able to take breaths without waiting for a lung to collapse.
That’s where the shrapnel hit. Not near his heart like I thought, but in his right lung, puncturing it until it deflated. The paramedics barely got to him in time, and if it wasn’t for Krampus’ swift thinking, he’d probably be dead.
I still can’t shake the compressions that man did on Blake’s chest, refusing to pull out the shard of metal, but making sure he stayed alive just long enough for the real heroes to get there.
Now they’re all sitting around his hospital room in silence, heads bowed, each of them wondering what they could’ve done differently. It’s their fault he’s even in this position.
Drac called for war—a war they weren’t ready to fight.
Arturo was two steps ahead of them, and now they’ve gone under again, leaving the Elm Street Riders in shambles.
Krampus lets out a soft groan as he cradles his shoulder. “Fuck, this wasn’t how shit was supposed to go. What happened? How the fuck did they know we were going to be there?”
Drac hangs his head. He knows. I know he knows.
“Hyde,” he grumbles.
“Hyde?” Voorhees exclaims, his head shooting up in surprise.
“I was using him as bait,” Drac admits. “I wanted to see if my gut was right about who the rat in the club was… I just didn’t expect this. If I had known—” He hangs his head in shame.
“Good, you should be kicking yourself. Blake’s in this position because of your stupid leadership!”
“Hey, Prez, don’t beat yourself up over this. We didn’t know that the Misfits had bombs in their arsenal,” Pinhead exclaims.
“She was there, Drac. Poppy was there and I couldn’t save her,” Voorhees mumbles from the corner.
Krampus moves to his side, and places a hand on his shoulder. “We’ll get her out, Voor. I promise you that, Brother.”
Drac sighs. “Maybe we should leave Fernley? This would’ve never happened if I had just listened to Moseley and left when I had the chance.”
“No!” Blake shouts, groaning loudly, startling everyone.
“Phantom!” Drac is to his side within seconds. “We thought we fucking lost you, Brother.”
“You aren’t that lucky,” Blake jokes, groaning more when his laugh hurts his chest.
“Hey, take it easy. That piece of shrapnel pierced your lung. You’re fucking lucky to be alive right now.”
“I know. But we can’t leave Fernley. Not after that. We can’t let them win.”
His voice is so lost. All he has left is the club. And now even that is almost gone. “We gotta take out the rat,” Blake growls.
“Hyde?” Krampus questions.
Drac pats his shoulder. “You should calm down, Phantom. We don’t need you stressing yourself out too much. Once you’re better, we’ll take care of him. Right now, it’s best if we let him believe that we don’t know.
But they don’t understand Blake like I do. He’s hurting, not because of his lung or the metal piece that poked through it. He’s hurting because Autumn hasn’t returned his calls. Not even after she found out that he got hurt.
I’ve never seen him look this sad before, like he’s ready to die just to end his misery.
“Isn’t that what you wanted?” Krueger asks, suddenly appearing.
“Jesus, Krueger, I didn’t realize you could leave the clubhouse.”
He chuckles. “I can go wherever the club goes. I didn’t die in the clubhouse like Damien; I died out on the streets. So, wherever my club and son goes, I can follow.” His one good eye stares at me with intent. “What you did the other day wasn’t okay, Eve.”
“I know, but it was the only way to get her to leave.”
His jaw tightens as his teeth clench. “And now that she’s gone, your boy is lost and broken. Just like you. Just like all of us. He’s going to get himself killed, Eve. But when he crosses over, he won’t be here waiting for you like you are.”
“What do you mean?”
“Haven’t you realized it yet?”
“Realized what?”
Krueger shakes his head disappointedly, tsking me with his tongue. “One day you’ll see, Eve. And when you do, it might just be too late for him.”