Chapter 47
Liv
I don’t know how long I sit there. It could be seconds.
It could be minutes. Time doesn’t feel real anymore, like it might snap if I move too fast. The gunfire outside fades first. Not all at once but in pieces.
A shot here. Another there. Then shouted commands and boots hitting pavement. Until… silence.
My ears ring and my hands won’t stop shaking no matter how hard I squeeze them together. I stare at him. At the man on the floor beside me who used to feel… unstoppable.
Now it’s just still, heavy, and empty.
The syringe is still on the floor somewhere, wherever it dropped.
I’m not going to try to find it yet because I don’t dare look away from him.
I can’t. I’m still not entirely convinced that the omnipotent threat that’s been overshadowing my life and controlling the city for so long is down. Is dead.
And that I did it.
“Police!” a voice shouts from outside. “If anyone’s inside, make yourself known!”
My throat tightens. I can’t answer. I’m not ready for the world outside this ambulance, not ready for what comes after this.
Footsteps approach, closer now and slower. “Clear the front!”
Another voice, “watch your angles.”
The back doors jerk open making flashlight light flood in.
I flinch hard, my body reacting before my brain can catch up.
A uniformed officer appears in the doorway, weapon raised, and scanning the back end of the rig quickly. His eyes land on me. Then flick to the body on the floor. Then back to me.
There’s a moment, a long one, then his posture shifts, softening some at the knowledge that the threat is down.
“You’re okay,” he tells me, voice steady. “You’re safe now.” Safe. The word feels foreign.
My voice comes out rough. “He’s…”
“I see him,” the officer says quickly, glancing down again. “We’ve got it from here.”
Another officer appears behind him, peering in.
“Scene’s secure,” he adds.
“You can come out,” the first officer states gently.
I don’t move.
My legs feel like they don’t belong to me. My hands are still shaking. My chest is tight, like I forgot how to breathe properly.
“Ma’am,” he tries again, softer now. “Let’s get you out of there.”
I nod. At least, I think I do. It takes effort to move at all, even more to push myself up off the bench. My muscles protest like I’ve run a marathon.
I step carefully around the body. Don’t look down. Don’t…
I look anyway.
His eyes are still open, frozen, and wide.
I turn away fast and step out of the ambulance. The night hits me all at once. Lights and voices, movement everywhere. Police. More EMTs have arrived. The street is littered with vehicles making the area seem alive.
And then I see him.
Alex.
Relief hits so hard it almost knocks me off my feet. He’s standing near one of the squad cars, another officer right up against his back.
Alive. Alex is alive.
Then I see the blood.
My stomach drops.
He’s holding his shoulder, his shirt dark and soaked through. No. No, no.
“Alex!”
I’m moving before I realize it, pushing past an officer, ignoring someone calling after me. My legs feel unsteady, but I don’t slow down. I won’t stop.
He’s bleeding.
Alex is bleeding.
He turns at the sound of my voice. And for a second, just a second, everything else disappears.
He looks at me like I’m the only thing in the world.
“Hey,” he breathes out, like this is normal. Like he’s not bleeding through his shirt.
“What the hell happened to you?” I demand, already grabbing his arm, my eyes scanning the wound. Entry wound in his upper shoulder. Bleeding, but not arterial. No immediate spurting. That’s good. That’s good.
“I got a little distracted,” he claims like it’s that simple.
“A little?” I press harder against the wound without thinking.
He winces. “Liv-”
“You’re shot,” I snap. “That’s not ‘a little distracted,’ that’s- hold still.”
“I am holding still,” he groans, raising his other hand slightly.
“You’re bleeding through your shirt!”
“I’ve been told that happens when you get shot.”
I glare at him.
He actually has the nerve to look mildly amused.
“Alex.”
“I’m fine.”
“You are not fine.”
“It’s a through-and-through,” he says simply, voice calmer now, more serious. “Missed anything important.”
“You can’t know that just from looking.” I pause. Reassessing the angle, position, and blood loss. Actually, he might be right. Damn it. But that doesn’t stop the adrenaline. Or the fear clawing its way up my chest.
“You need pressure and-”
“I’ve got pressure,” he asserts, nodding toward the officer who’s holding gauze against the backside his shoulder. “See? Professional help.”
I exhale sharply, somewhere between a laugh and a shaky breath.
Behind him, movement catches my eye. Alice and Jett rush past with a gurney and a loaded patient.
Scott.
My heart lurches. What feels like an eternity ago, when all this bullshit had just started, he’d been shot too. Now he looks pale, too pale. But his eyes are open.
“Scott!”
He turns his head slightly, spotting me. Even now, even now, he manages a crooked grin.
“Nah, it’s cool,” he calls out, voice weak but unmistakably sarcastic. “I’ll be fine. Just your partner over here bleeding out. No biggie.”
I stare at him, half horrified and half furious.
Alice rolls her eyes. “You know it’s not that serious, Scott,” she says, adjusting the IV line. “We already got the bleeding under control.”
“Wow,” Scott mutters. “Way to ruin my dramatic moment. Thanks, Alice.”
Despite everything, a short, disbelieving laugh escapes me.
He gives me a thumbs-up, barely, then they’re moving again, loading him into another rig.
Gone.
I swallow hard. But this time, it’s not panic. He’s alive. They’re both alive.
I turn back to Alex. He’s watching me. Not my hands. Not the scene. Me.
His expression shifts slightly. Something softer. Something… quieter.
“You okay?” he asks.
The question is heavier than anything else tonight.
Am I? I… I killed my own father. My father who’d been running a trafficking ring that was assaulting and violating women in horrible and disgusting ways.
My father who’d apparently raped my mother, resulting in me, and left her unable to explain that to a little girl so she resorted to just saying that she didn’t know who my father was.
And on top of that, Alex and Scott were both shot because of that bastard.
My hands are still shaking. My chest is still tight. My body is still buzzing with leftover adrenaline. But underneath all of it, there’s something else.
“I…” I start, then stop. Try again. “I’m here.”
His gaze hardens slightly, like he understands exactly what I mean.
A few seconds pass between us.
And suddenly, I’m back there. That first night, in the gunfire and chaos, and finding Alex in the middle of it.
Only this time, I’m not the same person as I was that night. I’ve been hurt, affected, and had my trust violated. And he knows it. I see it in the way he looks at me now. Not like someone who needs saving but like someone who just did the saving.
“You did that,” he says quietly. Not a question, so I don’t answer. I don’t need to.
His brown eyes flick briefly toward my rig, then back to me. “You’re incredible.”
I shake my head slightly. Not rejecting it. Just… grounding myself. Because I simultaneously feel it and don’t.
“I did what I had to,” I reply.
His mouth curves faintly. “Yeah. You did.”
For the first time since this started, since all of it started, I feel it.
Not the fear or the adrenaline but the weight.
Of what I did. Of what it means. And the fact that I’m still standing.
Someone who saves lives but was forced to take one.
Not an innocent life but the life of someone who took lives from innocents.
Sirens continue in the distance. Officers move around us. The scene shifts into something manageable and controlled as the shooters are taken into custody or their bodies are covered and dealt with.