CHAPTER 45
She closes her eyes, and her chest stops moving.
“No!” The sound that rips from my throat isn’t human. It’s raw, and it’s desperate, and it’s fucking broken. “Don’t leave me. Don’t you fucking leave me!”
“Knox,” Someone touches my shoulder, but I shove them away.
“She’s not dead. She’s not fucking dead!”
I get to my knees by her side and begin compressions, the sound of her ribs breaking shattering something even further inside of me. But the violence is necessary.
“Please,” Tears drop onto her pretty dress, joining the splatters of blood covering her. “Please, Elena. Please.”
Tilting her head back, I squeeze her nose, tilt her chin and blow two breaths into her before I begin the compressions again. Desperation fuels me.
She’s too still, too quiet. Her skin is the wrong color, her lips paling too. No. No. No.
Behind me, I hear more people enter the room, and hands grab me, yanking me so hard and heavily, I’ve no choice but to be dragged back. My spine hits the floor as two people I don’t recognize swoop in on my woman. They pull out machines and paddles, cut down her dress, and stick things to her skin.
“Clear!” Someone yells, and then her body jolts while hands keep me down and away from her.
They do it again and again, a monitor hooked up to Elena providing a steady, long beep that echoes inside of my skull.
I feel my own heart shatter inside my chest.
“Elena!” Her name roars from me, the hands losing grip, and I lunge forward right as that monitor stops screaming and a heartbeat sounds.
“Let’s stabilize and move! We don’t have long before we lose her again.” Someone says, and all I can do is watch. Hands are back, and I realize it’s Caden, holding me up, watching silently as Elena fights for her life.
Three hours of surgery and an induced coma later, I sit at the side of Elena’s bed, elbows on my knees, fists balled beneath my chin to hold the weight of my head as I watch her.
I can’t stop staring at her chest and the way it moves, her breaths steady, the monitor beeping to match, but all I see is the stillness of it, the way her breaths stopped coming.
She died.
She took a bullet for me, and she fucking died.
She’s breathing on her own, and the coma is just to help her body heal. The doctors explained they’ll wake her up in a few days, and she’s stable now, so it’s just a waiting game. One I’ll play sat right here at her bedside.
Anton is dead. Cade shot him, twice in the chest, once in the head, and the house has been taken back, protected now by Blackwood’s men, ready for her when she returns.
“You and me are going to have a chat when you wake up, darlin’,” I rasp, voice raw and full of gravel. “Because you’re never going to do that again, you hear me? There is no life without you in it. You let them take me, never you.”
The only thing I get in response is the steady beat of her heart monitor.
Someone drops me off a bag of clothes, taken from the ranch nonetheless, but I can’t tell you who did it and the nurses allow me use of the showers. They even brought in one of those recliner seats so I can sleep here with her. Not that I’ve slept much. Every time I close my eyes, I watch her die.
On the fourth day, they withdraw the medication keeping her in her coma and tell me it could take a little bit of time before she wakes up. So I settle in, and I wait.
The sun has long since set on the city, the mountains miles away with the ranch and our home. Exhaustion is weighing on me; the lack of sleep is taking its toll on my body, making me feel heavy. I keep watch for as long as I can, but eventually, sleep takes over.
I don’t know how much time passes, enough that the light has completely gone from the room when I wake, leaving only a dim, white light to illuminate the room. I groan, stretching out my body in the stiff recliner chair but freeze at the sound of her voice.
“Hey cowboy,” Elena rasps, her voice far too small in that hospital bed.
I move quickly, at her side in a blink with my hands cradling her face, skin still too pale. “You’re awake.”
“Am I?” She teases. “Thought I was still dreaming.”
“Fuck, Hellion,” My forehead presses to hers, “I thought I lost you.”
“You think you can get rid of me that easily?” She continues with the jokes. “Please.”
“You fucking died!”
Her brows draw low over her stormy grey eyes. “Exactly, so why are you mad at me!?”
The way this woman raises my blood pressure, “If you ever do that –”
“Kiss me,” She interrupts me, “Please.”
A heavy sigh leaves me, but I can’t deny her. I press my mouth to hers, gently, easy and I feel her body physically relax even though the monitor speeds up, her reaction to me a physical, audible thing for us all to witness.
I break the kiss. “Elena, I thought I lost you.”
“It was worth it.” She presses her mouth to the corner of mine. “And I would do it again.”
“Why?” I groan.
“Because I can’t live without you.” She whispers.
“And I can’t live without you.”