Chapter Nineteen
Nineteen
As Barney started to speak, Newt leapt towards him, and at the same time shoved River sideways.
The gun went off as he knocked Barney to the floor.
Oh fuck. Please don’t let that have hit River.
But he couldn’t risk checking, he had to disarm this idiot.
He wrapped his hands around Barney’s wrist and twisted, trying to make him drop the gun and at the same time keep it pointing away from him and River.
Barney slammed his fist into Newt’s head, over and over but Newt didn’t let go.
“River, stay back!” Newt called.
Barney was stronger than him but if Newt didn’t get the weapon out of his hand, both he and River were dead.
“Get the fuck off me!” Barney yelled.
Newt pressed a knee low into Barney’s belly and although he cried out, he didn’t release the gun. Newt wrapped his fingers around the barrel, trying to push it up and away from his body.
“River! Are you all right?” Newt yelled.
He was too quiet. Newt’s heart stuttered. If River was all right, he’d have interfered by now regardless of what Newt had said.
Barney laughed. “He’s not getting up again.”
What? Fury fuelled Newt then. He made one final desperate effort to get the gun out of Barney’s hand, and it went off between their bodies.
Newt felt as if he’d been punched in the chest. Oh fuck.
Am I shot? For a few seconds, he couldn’t move.
His chest hurt, his ears were ringing and he could smell gunpowder… and blood.
He rolled off Barney who wasn’t moving. Newt brushed his hand down his blood-soaked chest. He hadn’t been shot, Barney had.
Not dead but… Newt scrambled for River and took the gun with him.
When he reached River’s side, he howled.
River was covered in blood and unconscious.
Newt fumbled his phone from his pocket and called 9-9-9.
“Police and ambulance,” he blurted. “Two gunshot victims.” As he gave the address, he grabbed tea towels from the drawer and pressed them against River’s side.
He could hear Barney moaning, but he could go fuck himself.
Newt slipped the gun into the drawer he’d opened, closed it, and stroked River’s head.
“Wake up,” he whispered. “River, River! Oh fuck. Wake up!”
Newt’s heart was racing. How could this have happened?
It didn’t feel real. But it was. All Newt could do was try to stop River bleeding until help arrived.
Then he spotted blood under River’s head and his world fell apart.
Another head injury? Oh Christ. He pushed to his feet and glanced over at Barney.
He hadn’t moved and his eyes were closed. Fucking bastard.
He needed to open the gates and the door so the paramedics could get in.
Newt didn’t want to leave River, even for a moment, but he had no choice.
He was quick and nothing had changed when he got back.
He knelt by River’s side. He wanted to know the extent of the injury to his head but the blood wasn’t pouring out and he figured it was safer to keep River still.
He put his hand over the tea towel and pressed down on his side.
Don’t die, don’t die, don’t die.
Newt watched River’s chest rise and fall.
Willed him to keep breathing. He talked to him, told him to hang on, that help was coming, that he’d be all right.
He’d hardly had the chance to come to terms with Phelan dying in his arms. He’d rather think about his brother than consider the worst-case scenario with River.
When he’d lain down next to Phelan, he’d felt only love.
Bright, fierce love. All that had happened in the past was no longer a concern at that moment.
Because Phelan was leaving this world and Newt would never see him again. That couldn’t happen again. Not again.
Please don’t let River die too.
“Don’t you dare die,” Newt whispered. “Keep breathing. I’m going to be so pissed off if you don’t open your eyes and tell me to shut up.” He knew he was babbling but he couldn’t stop talking. While he was talking, River would stay alive. “You’re going to be fine. I’m here. Keep breathing.
When he finally heard vehicles pulling onto the drive, he exhaled shakily. “In here,” he shouted. “In here! Help!”
Armed police came in first and Newt’s adrenaline spiked as his mind ricocheted back to when he was seventeen.
“Hands in the air,” someone shouted.
Newt stayed on his knees but put up his hands.
“Are you injured?”
“No. The blood’s not mine.”
“Where’s the gun?”
Newt didn’t think. He reached for the drawer and found himself hauled away and thrown down.
“Help him! Help him!” He kept saying it over and over. He was pushed face down on the floor and a foot on his back kept him there. But paramedics had come in now and they were looking after River. That was all that mattered.
“He’s recovering from a head injury,” Newt called out to the pair next to River. “Please be careful with him.”
Newt was pulled into a sitting position.
“What happened?” asked one of the policemen.
Oh God. Where to start?
A paramedic came over. “Are you injured?”
Newt looked at the blood all over his T-shirt and jeans. “No. It’s his blood.” Newt glanced towards Barney, but he couldn’t see him. Paramedics were in the way.
“What’s your name?” asked a policeman.
“Newt Jones. This is River Lawson. The other guy is Barney.” He couldn’t remember his other name. “River’s stuntman.”
“What happened?”
“I was trying to get the gun off Barney. He’d fired at River as I leapt at him and we were struggling and the gun went off. He’d broken in. River and I had just got back. Barney was in the house and he confronted us. He’s tried to kill River before.”
River was taken out of the room on a stretcher.
“Please don’t put them in the same ambulance,” Newt said. “Barney tried to kill him.”
The policeman started to read Newt his rights and as handcuffs were put on, his mind sort of froze and he shut down.
Newt was in a stark room inside a police station.
The last hour had seemed like some horrible dream but it had gradually sunk in how much trouble he was in.
They had his clothes, even his underwear, and he was wearing paper coveralls.
His fingerprints had been taken along with his photograph.
They’d swabbed his mouth and his skin, and through it all, he’d not said a word.
He’d tried, he’d tried really hard, but nothing had come out of his mouth.
He’d done nothing wrong but he knew that didn’t matter.
They’d think what they wanted to think. All he’d done was try to save River’s life.
If he hadn’t…If River was dead… No! He couldn’t let himself think that.
Nor could he stay silent with the police.
He had to make words come out of his mouth.
Once the police understood what had happened, then they’d let him go.
Wouldn’t they? Barney had brought the gun to the house.
He’d broken in. He’d threatened both of them.
He’d shot River. Newt had acted in self-defence.
When the questioning started, the police were fine with him, settling him down, making sure he was comfortable, offering him a drink, asking if he was cold.
Not like they’d been when he was arrested before, but then, after one of them went out for a moment, something changed when he came back.
Newt found himself being spoken to and looked at differently.
A coldness to their tone, a slight snap in their voices… It unnerved him.
Why hadn’t he tried to help Barney? Who was the more severely injured?
Newt knew better than to say what he wanted to.
Why should he try to help someone who’d wanted to kill him and River?
If River hadn’t been injured, then yes, Newt would have done something but in a choice between the two, River came first. Newt mumbled something about seeing that Barney looked too badly injured to save but River didn’t.
Did he intend to shoot Barney?
Of course he didn’t. He knew nothing about guns and safeties… But he caught the exchange of looks and guessed that the policeman who’d left the room had been told his real name. They knew he had a record and so believed him to be someone he wasn’t.
Their questions continued but no one would tell him anything. He constantly asked, “Is River alive?” and got no answer. Newt could feel himself falling apart, crumbling to pieces.
Then, his PO turned up. Mike’s first words were, “You’ve broken the terms of your licence.”
He probably had. But it wasn’t as if he’d had any choice. “Was I supposed to stand there and let Barney shoot us?”
“You’re a flight risk. A passport in your name was found in River Lawson’s postbox.”
Shit!
“You know you can’t leave the country without permission. You said nothing to me about going abroad.”
“I hadn’t planned to.”
“Then why apply for a passport?”
“In case the chance came up. Then I’d have asked for permission.”
He could see he wasn’t believed. Just thinking he’d have the chance to go one day was a thought that had condemned him.
When he was formally arrested and charged, he wasn’t even shocked.
Following a video link to the magistrates’ court, the case was transferred to the crown court for a committal hearing.
In the meantime, because he was on licence, he was remanded in custody and would be transported to prison the next day to wait for the case to be heard. It might take days or weeks.
As his probation officer got up to leave, Newt asked, “Is he alive?”
Mike looked across to the policeman who was in the room with them. He shook his head.
Oh fuck. Newt felt as though the ground was falling away beneath him and he unravelled like beads falling from a necklace.
What was the point in anything? He’d failed to save River. He’d done his best and it wasn’t good enough.