Chapter 35 #2
I take a step forward as a loud bang goes off, the gun smoking and kicking back hard enough to knock him off balance.
He drops to the ground, and for one impossible second, I wait for the pain to hit.
I stand still and feel around my body, expecting blood to be somewhere.
Then I hear a gasp and something drops behind me.
I whip around and watch Avery crumple to the ground, the food scattered around her. The sirens outside pierce the air as they get louder, the sound setting every nerve on fire as I rush over to her and drop to my knees, the force of my fall sending sharp pains up my legs.
I reach over and grab her face in my hands, pain spread all over her face.
“Baby, baby, look at me. Look at me. What is it?”
I panic as I search her face for answers, then tear my eyes from hers and roam her body, searching for what happened, until I see a red splotch start to bloom on the right side of her upper chest.
“Oh my god!” I yell, pressing my hands to the wound.
The move makes her scream out, her eyes glassy and welling with tears.
“It’s okay, baby, it’s okay. I have to put pressure on it,” I tell her, my brain working on overdrive as I try to rationalize what happened. How the bullet somehow hit her.
“I-it hu-rts,” she gasps out, one hand coming up to clutch my shirt, her knuckles white as she grips me like I’m her lifeline.
“It’s okay, baby. It’s okay. Help is almost here,” I stress. “Keep your eyes open for me, pretty girl. Keep those beautiful baby blues on me. You’re going to be okay, do you hear me?”
The sirens are deafening, the sounds of chaos starting up around me, rustling filling my ears.
“Sir, I’m going to need you to step back,” a voice says over me, grasping my shoulder to pull me away.
“No!” I yell, ripping out of their grasp and grabbing Avery’s face with both hands, keeping my eyes on hers, not wanting to look away for even a second.
“Sir, we need to help her, so we need you to step back and let us,” the voice says again.
I’m unable to tear my gaze away from hers. My vision blurs as I try to focus on her, wetness tracking down my cheeks as her eyes start to flutter.
“I can’t leave her,” I say, desperate and hoping they hear me.
“We need to help her, and we can’t do that if you won’t let us.” The person speaks softer now, holding onto my shoulder with one hand, grounding me to the moment.
I feel hands gripping me and pulling me away from her as I fight to get back to her side.
The EMTs swarm her and start to work on her.
I hear something about her blood pressure and a gunshot wound to the chest, a flurry of activity surrounding me.
In the reception area, surrounded by cops, I see three officers haul Mr. Wilde out, him screaming unintelligibly at the top of his lungs, the gash the gun left dripping down his face as he’s hauled outside.
The screaming stops at the close of the doors at his back.
Two officers hold me back as Avery is lifted onto a stretcher, and I fight against them to rush to her. I need to see that she is okay.
“Sir, you need to calm down so they can help her, and we need to get a statement,” one officer says as he grips my shoulders and forces me to stare at him.
“I’m going with her. I’m not leaving her alone,” I plead with the officer, unable to let her out of my sight for a second.
“Let him go,” another officer interrupts, releasing the first officer’s hands from me.
I rush over to where they are wheeling her off into the ambulance parked across the front entryway.
I look around at the dozen cop cars and the flashing lights.
Mr. Wilde is being hauled into the back of a car, shoved inside, the door slammed on him as he screams. They lift the stretcher into the back and look at me, waiting for me to climb in, seeming to accept she isn’t going anywhere without me.
The back of the ambulance is a flurry, the EMTs checking her pulse and trying to keep her awake. Her eyes open and close, but no words make their way out.
“Is she okay?” I ask one of the EMTs, a young guy who looks no older than twenty-five, with deep brown hair and light stubble on his cheeks.
He looks at me, his eyes wary. “She’s stable.
She’s mostly out from the pain, but we got to her in time,” he says, leveling with me.
“We called ahead, and they’re ready for her.
She’ll most likely go right to the OR when we get there.
The bullet is still lodged somewhere in her,” he adds, and my stomach bottoms out, the fluorescent lights of the cab harsh on the gleaming surfaces.
I grasp her hand tighter and try to keep her anchored to me.
Her hand is small in mine, still warm as I hold her, hoping that the tighter I grip her, the more I can keep her here with me.
After what feels like an eternity, the ambulance stops, the sirens still blaring, the sounds finally coming back to me as the doors are wrenched open and the space is filled with people.
They’re lowering the bed with my life on it, nurses rushing to her and talking at once, all the medical jargon going right over my head.
I jump down and go after her before I’m stopped with a hand on my chest, a male nurse standing in front of me as we enter the emergency room bay.
“Sir, you can’t go with her. You can wait here, and I will have someone come out and talk to you when we can,” he says, trying to reason with me. “Are you family?”
“She’s my wife…” I say, broken, knowing that if she comes out of this, I’m never letting her go again. “Please help her…”
“She’s in good hands, sir. Let us do our jobs,” he says. “Let me show you the waiting area.”
He pulls me through a couple hallways until we enter a big room with a couple dozen chairs, a few TVs hanging on the walls. There are only three other people here, all seemingly lost in their own worlds. The only sound is the TV’s low volume.
“There’s a bathroom through there to wash up, and I will have someone come update you as soon as we can,” he says, then turns to walk out, his steps eating up the distance between us.
I stare down at my hands, stained red from the blood I didn’t even notice was on them. My silver rings covered in her.
I walk myself to the bathroom and watch as the red washes down the drain, the mixture of soap and blood swirling like my thoughts. The anxiety makes me spiral as I imagine every bad thing that could be happening right now. The urge to throw every door open until I can lay my eyes on her is strong.
I stumble out of the bathroom, my thoughts jumbled and my heart shredded in two as I reach for my phone and call Marcus, the tears streaming down my face as I tell him where I am, that Avery was hurt.
“On my way,” he replies without hesitation and hangs up.
I sit down and place my head in my hands, trying to calm my breathing. In for four and out for four. The rising panic inside me threatens to drown me, the pain in my chest constricting. My breathing comes out strangled while I fight for every next breath.
I’m not sure how long I sit there before suddenly I’m surrounded by arms—six to be exact.
Morgan, Marcus, and Grayson surround me as I break down, the tears streaming down my face and the breaths not coming in fast enough.
Panic drowns me as I think of Avery, so far away from me.
The look on her face when I turned around and she was there, on the ground.
The way I was unable to protect her. The guilt is drowning me until I can no longer see through the tears pouring from my eyes.
When I finally pull back and stare at my family, matching tears shine in all our eyes, no words exchanged as we sit there together.
After several hours, some stilted conversation, and a few more tears, the same nurse walks through the door and I stand up before his eyes meet mine.
“She’s out of surgery,” he announces, instant relief going through my body at those words.
“Can I see her?” I ask.
“She’s still asleep from the anesthesia. The surgery went well, and the bullet was removed without any permanent damage,” he explains, the words soothing me. He looks at me and takes in my disheveled state. He places a hand on my forearm and squeezes, seeming to convey so much with no words.
I let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding.
“Only one person at a time for now,” he says, looking at our makeshift family, taking in our tear-stained faces.
I look at our friends and over to Morgan. “Go, go see your girl,” she says with a small smile on her face, eyes full of fresh tears. Her face is free of makeup and her eyes puffy, a mirror of my own. She’s wearing two mismatched shoes, and her shirt is zipped and crooked.
I nod at her and my brothers and take off after the nurse, trepidation coursing through me with every hallway we turn down as the hospital bustles around me.
The nonstop beeping of machines follows me around every corner, the med-surge floor gleaming at me.
He brings me to a closed door, number three hundred and twenty-nine staring back at me, and opens it slowly, letting the harshness of the machines sink into my system.
The beeping of the heart monitor is music to my ears because she’s okay.
She’s breathing.