CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
Fallon
EVERYTHING HAPPENED ALL AT ONCE AS IF IN HYPERSPEED, only punctuated by brief snapshots of images, sound, and smell. The crack of a bullet. Kye in mid-air, throwing himself at me. Shouts and shots. The scent of blood in the air.
Kye hit the ground in front of me. Blood bloomed on his chest, soaking his gray Haven T-shirt. Haven. He was mine. He always would be.
A scream, more animal than human, left my throat. I threw myself forward, sending the chair I was tied to crashing to the floor with me still in it. I hit the floor with my arm and side, raging against the chair until the zip ties on my wrists snapped.
I hauled myself toward Kye. His eyes were at half-mast. He was fading.
“Pressure on the wound,” Beth shouted as Trace rushed forward, his face deathly pale.
But I was already moving. I pressed my palms to the gaping wound, trying to stop the blood flow, trying to keep it in because Kyler needed that blood. He needed it to live. He needed it to keep breathing.
Sirens sounded outside.
“That’s the EMTs,” Trace croaked, dropping to his knees.
It was then that I realized the blood had pooled. Seeping out of Kye and soaking into the knees of my jeans. I wanted to put it back. Return it to Kye, where it belonged. It was his, not mine.
“Don’t,” I rasped, pressing all my weight against Kye’s chest. “Don’t leave me. You promised.”
More shouts sounded behind me. Some part of me became aware that Evan had been shot, too, blood blooming on his shoulder as officers worked on him.
“Over here,” Trace barked as two EMTs charged in. I knew them. Both of them. Almost all my life. But I couldn’t seem to remember either of their names right now.
I did notice how their faces went carefully blank as they registered the situation and how they moved a little faster.
“Pulse?” the woman asked.
“Faint,” Trace answered.
I realized then that he must’ve been tracking it.
Blood seeped through my fingers as my tears fell, mixing with it, diluting it. “I can’t—I can’t keep it in—it needs to be in him—I—”
“It’s okay,” the male EMT said. “I’m going to take over for you, okay?”
“No, no, no.” I shook my head violently. “I take care of Kyler. Me. Only me.”
“Fal,” Trace rasped. “You gotta let them help. We need to get Kye to the hospital. We—”
“I go where he goes. I protect him. I—”
“Pulse is fading,” the woman barked. “We need to move.”
Everything happened in a flash. Trace dove for me, hauling me into his arms as I screamed with everything I had in me. I screamed for Kyler. Shouted his name over and over as if God could hear the fervor of my battle cry and would have no choice but to listen.
“Someone get a goddamned sedative,” Trace yelled as I twisted and kicked.
I screamed again. Someone grabbed my arm, and I felt a sharp sting. Everything started to feel heavy. “No,” I slurred. “I can’t leave him. I promised …”
I stared straight ahead as a resident who didn’t look old enough to drive swiped at my wrists with a cotton swab.
“I’m sorry if this stings,” he said quietly.
I didn’t say a word because I didn’t feel anything. Not one ounce of pain. Nor any comfort as my mom brushed her hand over my hair.
Maybe it was whatever drug the EMT had dosed me with. I should be grateful there was nothing because all I remembered from before was soul-tearing pain.
The image of Kyler’s blood seeping through my fingers flashed in my mind, and I squeezed my eyes closed, trying to clear it, but I couldn’t. My throat constricted as I tried to keep the scream inside. Because I knew if I started screaming, they’d just jab me again.
Someone pulled the curtain back, and Dr. Alvarez stepped inside the little cubby they’d stuck me in at the end of a row in the ER. The moment my gaze locked with hers, my mouth opened. “My husband?”
My throat was completely raw, and my voice sounded nothing like me—barely audible and like it had been roasted over an open flame.
“How are you feeling?” she asked.
“My husband.” The words were a demand.
Dr. Alvarez crossed to my gurney, her gaze flicking up to my mom in question.
“Tell us,” Mom said softly. “It’ll only make things worse if you don’t.”
Dr. Alvarez turned her gaze back to me, the look in her brown eyes softening. “Kye made it through surgery, but it was touch and go. His heart stopped on the table.”
Tears filled my eyes, making the doctor blurry. “I wasn’t breathing for him.”
“Oh, baby,” Mom croaked, kissing the top of my head as she hugged me.
“We’re helping him breathe now,” Dr. Alvarez said. “We got his heart going again. His right lung collapsed, and we had to reinflate it. Now, we just have to wait.”
“I need to see him.” Tears tracked down my cheeks. “I promised him—” My voice cracked. “I promised him I wouldn’t leave. That he wouldn’t be alone. That it would always be him and me.”
“They’re getting him settled in the ICU. I can take you up there as soon as you’re all fixed up,” Dr. Alvarez assured me.
“I’m done, right?” I asked the teenage doctor wrapping my wrists.
He studied me. “Do you feel dizzy? We can get a wheelchair—”
“No. I’m fine. I just want to see Kyler.”
“Okay,” Dr. Alvarez said. “Let’s go. We can take it nice and easy.”
My mom braced me as I turned to get off the gurney. The scrubs they’d given me were scratchy against my skin. They weren’t like my clothes. They weren’t like one of Kye’s worn T-shirts or his fingers trailing over my flesh.
I shoved all that into the space along my sternum, the spot Kyler had etched himself onto and into. I stood, and the world wavered a little.
Mom squeezed my hand. “I think we should get that wheelchair—”
“No. I’m good.”
Still, she held on to me as we made our way down the row of cubicles and then a hall.
My heart stopped as I saw a waiting room.
Chairs and couches were full to bursting with everyone who loved Kye: Bear and Jericho.
Serena and Mateo. Cope, Sutton, and Luca.
Keely and Ellie. Shep and Thea. Linc and Arden.
Rose and Mila. Lolli and Walter. Rhodes and Anson.
Even Dex was there, looking unusually ravaged for someone who barely knew Kye.
And then there were my girls. They were surrounded by countless people who were holding them up. But the moment they saw me, they leapt to their feet and charged toward me. Mom held out a hand to slow them. “Gentle. She got a little banged up.”
But I didn’t want gentle. I hauled all three of them into my arms as we all started to cry.
“Mama Fal,” Gracie croaked. “Kye … he said we could call you Mom and Dad names … even though … you’re not really—”
“Nothing would make me happier than being your mom,” I rasped. “Whatever you want that to be.”
Clem’s head lifted, her eyes rimmed in red. “If—if he doesn’t make it … are you going to put us back in foster care?”
I hugged them all tighter. “You’re mine, and I’m yours. We’re a forever family, okay? No matter what comes our way.”
Tears streamed down Hayden’s face. “You need to go. Dad … he needs you now.”
My tears came harder then, my heart breaking in two. I didn’t want to leave them, but I knew Kyler needed me, too.
My family appeared behind them. Cope’s hands landed on Hayden’s shoulders. Linc hoisted Gracie into his arms as Arden took her hand. And Rhodes and Thea cocooned Clem in a hug.
“We’ve got them,” Rho whispered. “You get Kye.”
I nodded, unable to speak. But with Mom’s help, I somehow managed to follow Dr. Alvarez into an elevator. I let her lead us through a closed door and allowed her to squirt hand sanitizer gel onto my palms.
“There will be a bunch of machines right now, but just know they’re doing the hard work for Kye so he can recover,” Dr. Alvarez informed me.
But I was already moving, heading through the open door and into the room with countless unfamiliar sounds. Beeps and whirs. Puffs and whooshes. Tubes and wires covered the man in the bed. But still … it was my Kyler. My everything.
My legs carried me to the side of the bed, trembling as I lowered myself to the chair. His arms lay on top of the blankets, one with an IV poking out of it and the other, the one closest to me, with one of those oxygen monitors affixed to his finger.
For a moment, it felt like there was no room for me. But this was Kyler. I would always fit with him.
I linked my pinky with his, holding tightly. “I’m here,” I whispered. “I’m not going anywhere. Not until you come back to me. Just like you promised.”
I stared at his face, willing his eyes to open. But they didn’t even flutter. My throat constricted. “I’ll never give up on you,” I choked out. “And neither will the girls. We need you, Kyler. You make this family whole, and none of us is the best version of ourselves without you. Fight. Please.”
My tears fell in earnest then, hitting our joined pinkies and soaking into our skin. I bent my head and pressed my lips to the now-wet spot. “I love you. It’s always been you, and it’ll always be you.”