42. Noah #3
“NO! Don’t take me away from him! Please don’t take me away!” I scream and cry, kicking my feet and trying to break free from his grasp.
“It’s okay! It’s okay. I’m not taking you away, but they need room to help him,” Ricky tells me as he tries to calm me down.
“Why did it take you so long…” I weep, losing my strength and feeling my body turn numb. I know it most likely all happened pretty fast, but at this moment, it feels like it’s been hours.
“The explosion caused a fire and spread to the stairwell. We couldn’t make it past the 18th floor. Luckily, it wasn’t too big, and they’re shutting it down as we speak, but we can’t stay here any longer. We need to go.”
He brings me over to the couch, taking a throw blanket and wrapping it around my body as he looks over my cuts quickly to make sure they aren’t deep. He then lifts me back into his arms and carries me toward the elevator.
Marcos stands as the paramedics take over, controlling the situation as best as possible and getting Noah on the stretcher. He goes over to Agent Callahan, who kneels beside Victor’s dead body, confirming he is in fact dead.
He then steps up to Gabe slowly, who still isn’t moving. Marcos whispers something to him, and instantly, Gabriel snaps back to life, blinking a few times then turning to look at me.
The paramedics run back to the elevators with the stretcher and Noah’s now unconscious body strapped to it. “I want to go with him! Please, I can’t leave him!” I cry, pushing against Ricky to get down, but he tightens his hold, stopping any attempt I throw at him.
“No, they need room to work. I understand this is scary, but we’ll follow them to the hospital, okay? He’s in good hands. If you want him to live, then let them do what they need to do.”
I don’t want to agree with him, but I know he’s right. “Okay…” I say in a small voice, praying this won’t be the last time I see my lover.
He has to live. Noah has to live. Because I’m not ready to say goodbye to my Casanova.
Ricky waits a few seconds, then calls the elevator back up as Marcos and Gabe reach us. Agent Callahan says something about coming to the hospital later when they’ve taken care of everything at the penthouse. But I’m not sure; I’m having a hard time focusing on anything but Noah.
We go to step into the elevator, but a thought occurs to me. “Wait! Blubber! We have to take Blubber,” I rush out. “I… I haven’t seen him since… I don’t know where he is. We can’t leave him here.”
“We’ll go find him,” Gabe tells me, cupping my cheek quickly then heading back into the penthouse with Marcos.
It doesn’t even take them two minutes, and they return with a confused little bald cat wearing a striped red and white sweater over his body. He’s currently sitting in his carrier with his heating pad and a blanket.
“He was hiding in our room under the covers,” Gabe says, lifting the carrier to let me see Blubber up close.
I reach out with a hand to pet him through the caging, but when I spot my blood-tainted skin, another wail leaves my lips, and I quickly cover my mouth, not caring that I’m getting it all over me.
It was like my brain momentarily forgot what had just happened, but now seeing the evidence, everything is crashing back into me at once.
Every image, every smell, every noise, every feeling. And it’s suffocating me.
From there, everything is foggy. I don’t remember the elevator ride down or getting into a car. I don’t remember driving to the hospital or entering it. I don’t remember getting placed on an examination bed while a nurse looks over the cuts on my neck and makes sure there aren’t any others.
She keeps asking if I’m bleeding somewhere else and where all the blood came from, but I don’t answer her.
All I do is sit on the edge of the bed, looking down at my hands that are still covered in my lover’s blood, then down to my bare feet that are soaked in the devil’s. The man responsible for all of this.
I didn’t even remember that I was barefoot. I didn’t remember that all I’m wearing is one of Noah’s shirts that barely covers my ass. I guess that explains why Ricky put the throw blanket around me at the penthouse and carried me around everywhere we went, like I couldn’t walk on my own.
But the truth is, I don’t think I could walk if I tried. Everything feels numb, and I feel weak. Like if I tried to stand, I would collapse.
I hear the nurse tell someone that it’s normal I’m not responsive or talking, that I’m still in shock. Maybe she’s right, maybe I am in shock, but I also don’t want to talk. Because every time I try, every time I go to speak, all that comes out are screams as reality crashes back into me.
Talking makes it real. And if I stay quiet long enough, my mind goes to this vacant place where I can’t feel the pain ripping at me from the inside. Where I don’t remember the look on my Casanova’s face as he told me he loved me like it would be the last time.
She cleans my cut and places a bandage over it, then takes my hands and begins to wipe at them with some sort of disinfectant and a cloth before doing the same to my feet. I look down at my palms, at my nails, seeing all the missed spots, the pink tint still engraved in my skin.
“I’ll go try and find her some slippers and clothes to wear.
You can bring her back to the waiting room for now,” the nurse says calmly as she stands and pulls the curtain open to leave.
Leaving me alone on this bed, and suddenly that’s all I feel—alone.
Because that monster took something away from me, half of something I don’t know how to live without. Half.
“Gabriel… Where’s… where’s Gabriel?” I whisper, needing to feel seen, needing to feel like I’m not alone in this chaos. Needing to know that my other half is still here, with me.
“I need Gabriel!” I shout, growing frantic by the second as I begin to look around the tiny enclosure, hands shaking and desperate to grasp onto some semblance of hope.
“I’m right here, baby!” He steps out from behind Ricky and wraps his arms around my back as I clutch onto his shirt like he’s my lifeline, and right now, he is. “I’m right here,” he whispers into my hair.
“Please don’t leave me, too… please,” I cry into his shirt, body racking with desperation.
“I’m not going anywhere, I promise. And neither is Noah. He’s going to pull through this, I know he will.” He kisses my head repeatedly, trying to soothe my pain.
I only wish I could believe his words…