Chapter 2
Chapter Two
Kara kept her eyes on Angelo, one hand on his abdomen where he’d been stabbed, trying to keep pressure on it. Blood oozed between her fingers and her vision swam. She had never been good with blood.
Angelo’s eyes fluttered briefly as he struggled to stay conscious. Her stomach knotted with a panic so intense that she almost passed out. He couldn’t die. Not on Christmas… not for her. She wasn’t worth dying for.
The dispatcher’s voice cut through her spiraling panic. “Ma’am? Are you still there?”
Kara felt him breathing even though his eyes were open but glassy. “Yes. His eyes are open… and his breathing seems even.” But hers sure wasn’t. She was shaking all over.
“Where is he injured?”
“Lower abdomen?” That sounded about right.
“Is the blood dark or bright red?”
“Uh… Bright red.”
“Good. Can you put your phone on speaker, and keep pressure on his wounds? If any of his organs are showing, do not touch them or try to put them back inside.”
His organs?
Kara flinched at the thought of Angelo’s organs falling out, but she couldn’t see anything except his blood soaking his sweater, thank God. She couldn’t have handled that.
“Can you tell me what you see on the wound?”
“I think the man just stabbed him, like puncturing him rather than slicing,” she clarified. She replayed the moment over in her mind, positive that was what she’d seen.
The dispatcher gave her more instructions, which she followed. The squeamish part of her that had panicked about touching his wound had turned off. She went into autopilot to do what had to be done, while the rest of her stayed focused on Angelo’s face.
He stared up at her, concern and confusion present in his expression. His gorgeous honey brown eyes would be her undoing.
“Stay… with me?” he asked, his voice so soft she almost thought she’d imagined it.
“I’m here…” she said breathlessly. “I’m here, Angelo. I’m not going to leave you.” The words caught in her throat. She’d been left alone when her mother died… she wasn’t going to leave him.
Church bells rang in the distance, their beautiful sound contrasting the bloody scene in the alleyway.
Sirens could be heard in the distance and in a matter of minutes an ambulance pulled up in front of the alley.
Two paramedics rushed toward Angelo, and she fell back on the snowy ground to give them room to work on him.
They spoke quickly to each other and to Angelo.
She started to shake so violently that she couldn’t focus on what they were saying.
“No…” Angelo murmured in response to something one of them had asked.
“Just hold on. We’re going to move you to a stretcher,” one of them said.
They returned to the ambulance and pulled the stretcher out. It took less than a minute for them to lift Angelo onto the stretcher and strap him in. Then they raised it up, ready to roll it to the ambulance. One of them turned to her as if suddenly remembering she was in the alley with them.
“Ma’am, are you hurt?”
She studied her scraped palms. She was a bit banged up, but she was fine. “No, I’m okay.”
The EMT nodded. “If you’re family, you can ride with us to the hospital.”
Kara began to shake her head—but then stopped. She wanted to make sure Angelo would be all right, but couldn’t lie about being his family.
“Or you can wait here for the police,” the EMT said.
“The p—police?” She choked on the word.
“Yeah. They’ll be here soon to document everything and take your statement.”
Panic flooded her again. She couldn’t face the police. She had to leave. If the police looked into who she was… She needed to vanish. Hide. It was everything her mother had taught her about staying alive.
In the distance, her ears now heard police sirens. Her skin prickled with foreboding. She had to leave now. She was all set to smile and nod at the EMT, assure him she would wait for the police, then flee the moment the ambulance pulled away.
But she made a mistake. She glanced at Angelo once more, his pale face twisted in pain, his eyes peering at her with fear, finding her.
“Stay… with me?” She’d promised not to leave him. She’d promised.
His breathless plea stuck in her chest, stilling her feet and burrowing so deeply into her heart that she couldn’t get it out.
She couldn’t leave him. She had to make sure, for herself, that he was looked after.
She had to keep her promise to him—to stay with him, so he wouldn’t be alone after saving her.
He was a hero—her hero—and she couldn’t let him face whatever was coming alone.
“Ma’am?” The paramedic pressed. “We have to go now.” He started moving Angelo’s stretcher to the ambulance.
“Wait! I’m his fiancée!”
The EMT turned back to her when she blurted this out, his eyes automatically going down to her gloved hands before returning to her face.
She continued, “I want to ride in the ambulance with him, please.”
The EMT nodded. “Okay, hop in.”
The man helped her into the ambulance, then slammed the doors shut while the other EMT got into the driver’s seat, hit the switch for the sirens and lights, and pulled out into the street.
She watched them put a mask over Angelo’s face to give him oxygen and his eyes closed.
“Can I hold his hand?” she asked.
“Yes.” The man continued to keep pressure on Angelo’s wound, and all Kara could do was curl her fingers around Angelo’s. They were cold, and she hoped her touch could help warm them a little. She thought she felt his fingers twitch in response, and tightened her hold a bit more.
I’m here… Angelo. I’m here. You helped me… I hope I can help you.
She held onto his hand as though that would keep his spirit tethered to her, to the world of the living.
She kept seeing the scene in the alley in her head as the ambulance flew down the dark, snowy streets.
He’d stepped in between her and that man to save her without a moment’s hesitation.
He didn’t even know her other than her name, yet he’d risked his life for her stupid purse.
She stared at Angelo’s face. Who was this gentle, brave hero?
Angelo Vertucci stared up at the horizontal lights that flashed past his vision.
Everything was bright, glaring, white, and disorienting.
Where was he? Voices shouted over his head in a confusing swarm of faces all around him.
He was moving, rolling, but then occasionally he would jerk to a stop before he started rolling again.
Everything was cold.
Something sharp pricked his arm.
“We have to get him into surgery, ma’am. We’ll have a doctor come see you in the waiting room with news. Take his clothing and his personal items.” Someone was saying right near his head.
A vision of a beauty appeared above him. Hair as wavy as the sea, but the color of a fiery dawn. Her big, blue eyes were haunted with sorrow.
I know those eyes… How do I know those eyes?
He tried to move, to reach out to the woman, but her face vanished and his head swirled with pain. His vision went dark.
He faded into that unwelcome void, and when a faint light appeared in the distance he swam toward it.
Then he was falling into a dark alley, snow swirling around him.
He saw himself lying on the ground, bleeding.
It was as though he was standing over his own body watching it happen.
The flame-haired woman was crouched over him, her face strained with tears as she called 911.
Church bells rang in the distance, a sound he usually liked but at this moment held a note of doom.
All he could do was stare at the melancholy scene before him. Was he dying? She there with him, holding his hand and weeping for him.
Who are you?
Kara… her name drifted through his pain fogged mind. He knew her name… but nothing else.
He tried to speak, but his words echoed only in the encroaching darkness as he fell into the black abyss again… only this time with no light to guide him home.
Kara stood just inside the waiting room entrance, holding a clear, plastic bag containing Angelo’s sweater, wallet and keys.
They’d partially stripped him out of his clothes and put his wallet and other items from his pockets into a clear bag which they’d given to Kara.
She’d been warned that the police might need to take any or all of the items into evidence.
She’d flinched at the mention of the police, but she couldn’t run now. She had to know Angelo was okay.
I have to keep my promise. I won’t leave him.
A nurse guided her to the waiting room and spoke to the attendant before rushing back the way she’d come.
The emergency room desk attendant held out a clipboard of paperwork. “Here honey, fill this out for me.” The woman offered Kara a kind, sympathetic smile.
Hands still covered with streaks of dried blood, she accepted the clipboard. The assistant didn’t bat an eyelash at the state of Kara’s clothes, which suggested just how much she saw in this waiting room.
Numb, Kara sank onto a chair and stared at the form.
After a moment, she started to fill out the information in the boxes of the form.
She had Angelo’s wallet, so she could use his driver’s license to fill in some of the information.
She didn’t know his Social Security number or his medical history, of course, but she filled what she could based on his license and health insurance card.
When she reached the relationship box and her contact info, she used her temporary apartment and listed herself as his fiancée. Then returned the forms and sat back down in a chair to wait.
She stared at the doors she’d come through, the doors that led to the hallway where she’d come in through the emergency entrance with the stretcher and the EMTs. All she could do was replay the entire terrifying encounter over and over again.
I was careful. So careful. Why did this happen? Why…