Chapter 40 – Emmett
Chapter Forty
EMMETT
I touch her, making sure she’s real and not just in my mind. “Stay with me.” I panic when her face gets paler than it was. “Where is help?” I ask Charlie, who is standing by a bloody and unconscious Sammy. Charlie kicks the knife I didn’t even know Sammy was holding away from him.
“On their way,” Charlie says. “Pops said they are a couple of minutes out.”
I turn back to her, seeing her beautiful face half beaten, and the rage creeps back inside me. “Help is coming, baby.” I bend to kiss her lips, not sure if I should even touch her, but knowing I can’t help myself. “Don’t leave me.” My voice is so desperate, as her eyes close and take even longer to open—until they don’t, and the only thing I can think of is, Don’t fucking leave me. I put my forehead to hers. “Don’t leave me, baby,” I beg. “Please don’t leave me.”
I kiss her lips again, then her cheek, which has a purple bruise, and I get up, seeing black again. I walk toward his body lying on the floor, then lift my leg back and kick him in the side. A soft groan comes out of him, and I do it again.
“Jesus fucking Christ.” I look over and see Brock and Brady rushing in. His hand goes to his mouth while Brady rushes to the bed. “Would you look at this fucking room?” It’s then I stand back and look at it. The whole wall is covered with pictures of Lilah. Pictures he’s taken of her at work and a couple at her place with her sitting on the couch. There is even a couple of her sleeping. “Sick fuck,” Brock says.
“How is she?” Brock asks, looking at Brady.
“Her pulse is steady,” he reports, “but she’s bleeding.” He looks around and then rushes out of the room, coming back with a towel and pressing it to her side.
It feels like an eternity before we hear the sirens. I walk to her side, taking her bloody hand in mine and bringing it to my lips. “Help is here, baby.” I move to the side of her head, talking in her ear. “Help is here, baby. I am going to need you to be stronger for just a little bit longer.” The need to crawl into bed with her fills my body, and I hear the pounding of footsteps coming our way.
The paramedics come in first with a gurney. “What do we have?” One of them looks at me.
“She’s been stabbed at least once,” Brady says of the wound. “I applied pressure.” The paramedic nods at him as he moves away so he can step in there.
“Sir,” the other paramedic says, “I’m going to need to get in there.” I move to the side but not far from her.
“BP is one seventy over one ten,” he says, looking over at the other paramedic. “We better get her out of here before she codes.”
“She codes,” I repeat the words as I watch them lift her onto the gurney. “I’m coming with you,”
I state, running with them as they rush to the front door.
The lights from the police cars now fill the front. I see a couple of the police officers running toward the house while we run away from them. Pops is running down the street when he sees me.
“How is she?” He looks at me and then at the gurney as we stop at the ambulance.
“Alive.” That’s the only thing that really matters.
“Where is Sammy?” he asks when he sees blood on me.
“Also alive.” I motion to the house.
“We’ll meet you at the hospital,” he says. “Her parents are there now. They got here, and I sent them straight to the hospital.”
“Are you coming or staying?” one of the paramedics asks when they get her in while the other one runs to the front to drive.
“I’m coming,” I reply, putting one foot on the back of the ambulance and getting in. I sit on the side of the gurney as he closes the door. “Can I hold her hand?” I ask, and he nods.
I take her hand in mine, bringing it to my lips. I will never not kiss her, never. I look at her lying on the gurney. “I came as soon as I could.” I lean forward to the side of her head. When I kicked in the door, we were met by silence. Both of us looked around the living room, which led into a kitchen and a long, dark hallway to the back of the house. I took two steps in, listening to the silence of the house. The only thing I could hear was the heavy breathing that was coming out of me when I heard her cry for help, and the only thing I could do was follow the sound of her voice to the back of the house. When I first walked into the bedroom, it looked normal, but then I heard her yell from behind the wall. It felt like forever until we pressed on it, and the door opened, then I saw her. Her hair was dyed black, and her face was paler than I’d ever seen her before, with one eye swollen. She also had a cut on her right cheek and a busted lip.
The ambulance stops, and the back door flies open, and I see two nurses and a doctor waiting for us. “We have a female,” the paramedic who was with me says to them as they pull the gurney out of the back and then walks quickly inside the hospital. “Multiple stab wounds.” I hear the words, but the only thing I can do is run to meet her.
They take her behind two doors that shut by the time I get there, and a nurse steps in front of me. “You need to wait here.”
“I need to be with her,” I say.
“You are going to get in the way,” she replies sternly. “Now, I promise you I will come out and let you know what is going on.” She turns. “You have my word.”
I watch her walk into the doors, and they close behind her, and all I can do is stay here waiting. Charlie comes in with something white in his hand. “I think you should change.” He motions to my shirt, and I look down, and it has blood on it. “Her parents are on their way, and so is everyone else, including Lucy.” I grab the shirt from him. “Maybe go wash your hands and shit.” He motions toward the hallway where the bathroom is. I walk to the bathroom, pull open the door, and step inside.
The light is already on, but flickers every couple of seconds. I walk to the sink, putting the shirt on top of the paper towel dispenser before turning the water on and washing my hands. My eyes watch the water turn pink from his blood. I feel the rage come up in me again. “Push it down,” I tell myself, quickly washing my hands and then drying them before replacing my bloody T-shirt with the new one, tossing the bloody one in the trash. I walk out, heading straight to Charlie, and then stopping when two people run into the hospital, looking around to see Lilah’s parents.
They’ve visited a couple of times over the years, but I’ve never met them. “Hi,” I say when I get close to them.
“Hi,” her father says. “Who are you?”
“I’m the man who is going to marry your daughter.” I hold out my hand, a shocked gasp coming from the woman who has tears running down her face. “I’m Emmett.”
“I’m Patrick,” her father says, shaking my hand, “and this is my wife, Carole.”
“How is she?” her mother asks, not bothering to shake my hand.
“They just took her in,” I share, and I’m about to say something else when the door opens, and I look to see Lucy running in with Brock behind her.
Her face is streaked with tears as she looks around, her eyes finding mine. “Daddy,” she cries, and my knees give out as she crashes into me, almost knocking me back. She wraps her arms around my neck. “Where is Lilah?”
“I’m sorry,” Brock says, “she wanted to come.” I just nod at him.
“She’s going to be fine,” I assure Lucy. I'm not even sure, but I'm not willing to think of the other option.
“Can I see her?” she asks, and I look at her.
“Not yet, sweetheart,” I say, wiping her tears away. “As soon as we can, we’ll make it happen.” I stand, looking at her parents, who smile at Lucy.
“You must be the famous Lucy,” Carole says. “She told me all about you and Rosy.”
“That’s my horse,” Lucy says, using the back of her hand to wipe the tears away. “I want to ride horses as good as Lilah.”
“She said you are way better than she was.” Her mother smiles through tears when Lucy gasps. “Let’s go sit and wait for news.”
She takes her hand, but Lucy grabs mine instead. “I’m going to stay with my dad.”
“That’s a good idea,” she agrees, and I look up when the door opens and another gurney comes in, this time followed by two police officers. Pops and Casey following them.
“Let’s wait over there.” I point at the waiting room in the corner. Patrick sees my face and then looks at the gurney. His hands ball into fists beside him as I walk into the waiting room, and Lucy goes to sit down next to Carole.
“You did that?” he asks when he walks into the room, pointing over his shoulder.
“Yeah,” I say, folding my arms over my chest.
“Welcome to the family,” he declares, slapping my shoulder and going to sit by his wife.
Charlie comes into the room with Brock and Pops. “All good?” I ask them, and Brock tries to hide his smirk.
“He’s alive, so I would say we are all good,” Charlie reports.
“From what they found,” Pops starts, “and what we found, he’ll be going away for a long, long time.”
I look over when the nurse who stopped me from going to her steps into the room. She looks at me. “She’s going to surgery now.” I nod. “She was stabbed in the right side next to her hip and in the back.”
“Lock it down,” Brock advises when I start to growl.
“I’ll come and get you when she’s out.” She nods at me and walks out, leaving me trying to lock it down and not go in there and kill the man who put his hands on her. The man who took her from me because I was too stupid to admit how much I loved her. Knowing that from this moment on, for the rest of my life, I’m going to show her every single day how much she is loved. I just hope it’s not too late. I hope she can forgive me. If she doesn’t, that will be my penance and I’ll live with it, without her, and it’ll be the greatest regret of my life.