Chapter Three #3
With trembling hands, Scarlett tried to push her father into a sitting position, but his body was heavy and uncooperative. She pressed her hand into his shoulder, willing him to wake up.
“Dad!” she shouted. Then she burst into tears.
The side of his head was bloodied, but her eyes slid over it, not wanting to see how badly her father had been hurt. She took off her blazer, thinking numbly that she could use it to put pressure on the wound.
The screams and shouts around them continued outside, but Scarlett blocked it all out.
Nothing existed outside of her father. She took his hand and squeezed it as she held her blazer to the side of his head.
His big hand was warm in hers even though he was slumped forward and still.
She sobbed as she buried her face in his arm.
Why had they been fighting over stupid things?
Alastair, going abroad—who cared about any of it, if he would only live?
The tightness in her chest made it hard to breathe.
They sped through the streets until the car halted, and then Scarlett finally lifted her head.
A flock of people in scrubs and white coats and numerous soldiers in fatigues surrounded the car.
Arms pulled her away from her father, and two men carefully lifted him from the vehicle.
Scarlett scooted out after him, desperate for someone around them to step in and save him.
Her bloodied white blazer fell to the ground as he was moved onto the stretcher, and she let out a gasp that became a sob as she took in her father’s gaping head wound.
The staff’s urgency evaporated as soon as they got a good look at him.
The way they stopped rushing. The careful, defeated way they lowered their hands.
Scarlett knew before anyone said a word.
Her world spun on its axis, her very sense of self crumbling as a hollow void opened up in her chest. She’d spoken her last words to him and not known it. Her dad was dead.
She didn’t even feel it as she collapsed to the ground, breathing raggedly.
“Shit—is she hurt? Get her onto a stretcher!”
Arms lifted her. She opened her eyes enough to see she was being wheeled in behind her father. Two nurses stood off to the side crying as the stretchers were pushed into the hospital. Scarlett closed her eyes, not wanting to see any more. Unable to take in any more.
When she opened her eyes again, she was in a curtained-off space somewhere inside the hospital. Where did they take Dad? She sobbed and took a couple of jerky breaths.
“Lady Heroux, I know this is hard, but you need to take some deeper breaths,” said a stern female voice. “Can you breathe with me? In for one, two, three, four… We need oxygen here, please—she’s gonna pass out…”
When Scarlett came to, her head felt heavy.
As she stirred, something on her arm pricked at her skin.
She forced her eyelids open to find she’d been hooked up to an IV.
She was in a different room—a private one—filled with beeping monitors.
For a moment, she hoped it had all been the most realistic nightmare she’d ever had in her life.
But then she looked down at herself. Someone had put a blanket over her legs.
She lifted it and saw her skirt still had blood on it. She began to wail.
Her father’s body.
The blazer falling away.
The gaping hole in his head.
Her body shook as she cried. Someone had murdered him.
She hadn’t even been looking at him when he was shot.
She’d wasted the last moment she’d had with her father resenting him for pushing her to talk to Alastair.
She wished she could go back and tell him she loved him one last time. Her sobs grew louder.
A nurse entered the room, followed closely by Laylani.
“Lady Heroux, are you in pain?”
“N-no. I mean, I don’t know…” Her body wasn’t in pain, but everything was horribly wrong. Scarlett couldn’t be Lady Heroux yet. It was too soon.
“Your stepmother just arrived. Would you like some water? We gave you a relaxant after you passed out. You should feel calmer now,” said the kindly nurse.
Scarlett shook her head before turning to Laylani. “Where’s my dad?” Her voice wobbled.
Laylani’s elegant face was blank. “He’s in the hospital morgue. He was dead on arrival. You’re Lady Heroux now.”
Scarlett’s vision blurred as fresh tears spilled over onto her cheeks, the massive well of pain inside flooding through her once more. She glared at Laylani through her tears. How could she be so cold?
“Pull yourself together, please,” her stepmother hissed. “My husband is dead, and you don’t see me collapsing on the floor wailing as if the world is ending.”
Scarlett sniffed and shuddered, finding Laylani’s lack of distress inhuman. “Is Beni here?”
“He’s at home. Where we should be. Get up, and let’s go.”
The nurse, who’d been clicking away on the computer in the corner, returned to Scarlett’s bedside. “Lady Heroux collapsed and lost consciousness. The doctor would like to keep her for a couple more hours to monitor her.”
“Is that what you want, Scarlett—to stay and be monitored? Or do you want to go home to your brother and your grandmother?” asked Laylani. “Makes no difference to me.”
Scarlett pushed herself up. She needed her brother and her grandmother. She needed Brayden. “I want to go home.”