Chapter Sixteen
Well, that hadn’t been her best decision.
Maeve pressed her fingers to her midsection as she fell to her knees.
Directly below her sternum, blood and murky river water coated the skin as she collapsed.
It was warm. Warmer than she thought it might be, but considering she’d just spent the past hour or so freezing to death, that wasn’t surprising.
“No!” Callen caught her before she hit the ground. Dragging her into his chest, his front pressed against her back, he stretched his legs out on either side of her. His hands pressed into the wound, and a spike of agony drew a brief scream from her throat. “Hang on. Just hang on. You hear me?”
In seconds, his hands were covered in blood specifically meant to stay inside her body. She was all for sharing bodily fluids, but this seemed excessive. She laughed to herself. Callen would’ve liked that joke. If she hadn’t been dying. Another wave of pain cut her inhale short. “Phone.”
She’d dropped her belongings in the dirt before diving in to get to Callen.
She hadn’t had a plan when the rideshare had dropped her off and driven onto their next pickup.
Only an intense need to find him. And she had, his truck’s taillights flickering from the black depths of the Virgin River.
She’d been ready to jump in then, instinctually knowing Callen had been inside, but the current had caught the underside of the truck and flipped it downriver.
Her screams had gone unheard as she raced after it.
It was luck that a lodged tree had kept the truck from being swept away, giving her the slim opportunity to pull him out.
“You’re going to be okay.” Sliding out from underneath her, Callen extracted himself before lunging for her pile of stuff.
She bit back the pain as he reached for her phone.
Bloodied hands swiped across the screen, and the device lit up the terror etched on his face.
In seconds, he was right there by her side and had dragged her back into the protective cradle of his thighs.
It was so…nice. Just like the night he’d crawled into bed behind her to help her through her nightmare.
She supposed this was just a different kind of nightmare.
“I’m at the bank of the Virgin River near River Park.
I have a gunshot victim. Caucasian female, thirty-four years old.
Single entry wound with a 9mm.” Pressure skirted along her spine. “No exit wound.”
“That’s not good.” Maeve gasped for her next breath.
The bullet was still inside, tearing through her soft organs with every shift.
Causing all kinds of damage she couldn’t see or feel.
No wonder it hurt so much. Nausea caught her in its grip.
From the hole in her stomach or from the general blood loss, she didn’t really give a damn.
Because with nausea came tears, and she was pretty sure Alka-Seltzer wasn’t going to help.
Her fingers were numb again. Then her toes.
Callen dropped the phone into the dirt. “They’re coming, Maeve. Just hang on. Open your eyes for me.”
When had she closed them? It took far more energy than she wanted to expend to pry her eyelids open.
“There you are. Stay with me.” Callused knuckles skimmed across her forehead, drawing her hair out of her face. The concern rippling off him heated through her drenched clothing.
Dang it, he was handsome. She wasn’t far gone enough not to take notice, but she felt the loosening slide of her thoughts.
Instead of sticking where they were supposed to for long enough to give each one consideration, they seemed to filter in, then out.
And she was just tired. She imagined that had something to do with blood loss, too.
She should probably be more worried about the bullet in her gut, but the gentleness in which he was handling her triggered a need to hope she didn’t want to feed. “You need to go.”
His brows drew together as he studied her face from above. His dark hair had always curled at the nape of his neck when it was wet like this, and she was suddenly aware of how close she’d come to losing him. Again. “What are you talking about? I’m not going anywhere.”
“The shooter… He’s getting away.” She hadn’t caught any distinguishing features through the black mask he’d worn, but he was clearly skilled enough to shoot a moving target and held a grudge against Callen.
If she was right, the shooter had been the one to ambush them at the storage facility and zip-tie Callen’s wrists to the steering wheel before driving the truck into the river.
And the chances that the man who’d shot her was tied to the disappearances of Iliana Meyer and Lauren?
Very high. See? She was fine. Her brain was still putting pieces together.
Maeve tried to shrug his hand off her shoulder.
“The ambulance is on its way. The…police will be here soon. Go. He can’t have gotten far. ”
Ugh. Why was it so hard to talk? Her heart rate ticked up a notch, and the pool of blood beneath her hand expanded.
Too bad. She’d really liked this shirt, and it was one of the few she’d packed.
A drugging sleepiness stretched through her, making her body heavier.
She sank against his chest, counting off the beat of his heart. Strong, steady, grounding.
“Don’t you dare close those eyes, Maeve.
” An intensity she’d never heard before graveled Callen’s voice as he shook her awake.
“I already lost you once. I’m not giving up on you again, and I’m sure as hell not going anywhere.
So you’re going to stay awake, and you’re going to tell me what the hell you were thinking taking that bullet for me. ”
She caught her head tipping forward, like those times she’d fallen asleep during a federal briefing she had no business sitting in on or when she hadn’t gotten enough sleep the night before a boring lecture in college. “I saved you from the river. Couldn’t…have my efforts wasted.”
“You sure it had nothing to do with my good looks?” His laugh rumbled through her and shook something loose as he drew his knees up, until all she could see and feel and smell was Callen.
She’d missed that sound, missed the way he’d always been quick to smile when she walked through the door at the end of a long, sometimes bloody workday when they lived together.
No matter how hard his day had been or how high the tension between him and his brother had escalated, Callen had always been the one to draw her into his arms and hold her until the bad didn’t seem so bad anymore.
She saw a little bit of the man she’d known now as he tried to keep her in one piece.
“He killed Lauren. They were… They were her remains we found at Kolob Arch.”
“I’m…sorry.” And she was. More than he would ever know.
Not just for his loss, but also because Maeve hadn’t been able to follow through on her promise to bring Lauren home.
To make this right. She’d given the Russells hope, given them every reason to believe this was fixable—that her mistake in losing that notebook didn’t actually hinge on their daughter’s return—and she’d failed.
That drugging darkness pulled harder and harder.
Her hand slipped down Callen’s chest of its own accord as her entire body went lax.
“Maeve.” His voice hitched. She had some sense of his hand pressed against her face, but she couldn’t be sure. There were too many competing sensations in her body she couldn’t put into words. “Maeve, open your eyes, damn it.”
She wanted to. She really did, but her body had stopped listening to her brain’s commands.
And honestly, it felt so good to just…stop.
To be. To sleep. She’d been fighting for so long—her grief over losing her best friend, the self-imposed shame for losing key evidence in the investigation, the derailment of her career and facing the disappointment of the only family she had left, her anger over losing Callen and an entire future she’d never dreamed of having after losing her dad so violently—but right now, none of that seemed to matter.
She was free. She didn’t have to keep fighting or try to live up to the promises she’d made herself.
She didn’t have to keep burning through her inheritance or face grieving families on the worst days of their lives.
She didn’t have to wonder where she would be if she hadn’t lost Lauren’s notebook or dream about what her wedding would’ve looked like had she and Callen stayed together. She could finally just…drift.
“No, no, no, no. Don’t do this to me.” Something gripped her chin. His hand? It was hard to tell with her senses dulling second by second. “Open your eyes. You’re not leaving me again.”
Again? Well, now she knew she was dying.
Because she hadn’t been the one to leave.
He’d shoved her out of his life without a moment’s hesitation, but the truth was, she’d let him.
She’d left her engagement ring on his nightstand, moved her stuff out while he’d been at work and disappeared as effectively as his sister had to save him an ounce more of anguish.
She’d taken the easy way out when she should’ve fought.
And wasn’t that what hurt the most? Not his rejection, not even the fact that Callen had questioned her abilities as an agent and a future wife, but that she’d let him cut her loose?
She should’ve clawed and screamed and protested.
She should’ve refused to give up and done something—anything—to stay.
She’d found a new family, one that didn’t replace the one she’d lost but that cared about her, and she’d thrown it all away out of shame and guilt.
Two emotions that’d been running her life for far too long, and she wished she’d been stronger than that.
That she and Callen hadn’t been drawn back into each other’s lives under the current circumstances, that it hadn’t taken another woman going missing for them to simply talk after an entire year of gritting through the pain.
She wished she’d been honest with him about working Lauren’s investigation and reached out to him before showing up at that scene.
And she wished things between them weren’t so volatile.
Because even though she’d somehow survived without Helen and Tommy Russell, and hell, even Cieron, in her life, she’d found a home in Callen.
She’d found safety and reliance and assurance that everything would be okay.
That she had someone on her side, for once, fighting for her.
He’d given her that, and she’d let it slip out of her fingers.
Warmth shuddered up and down her arms like someone was trying to start a fire. It took her a few seconds too long to realize it was Callen forcing heat into her limbs, but that wasn’t the problem. She was bleeding out, and there was a damn good chance the EMTs wouldn’t reach her in time to stop it.
“S’okay.” Maeve wasn’t sure if she was forgiving him for all the harsh words, the unanswered messages and phone calls and the breakup, or if she meant right now.
Hell, she wasn’t even sure if she’d actually spoke.
Things were too jumbled up in her head. She just didn’t want him to hurt anymore.
It was why she’d put herself between him and the gunman.
Callen had suffered enough—from her choices—and she couldn’t take responsibility for another reason why he’d disconnected from the world.
A blip of a high-pitched siren pierced through the haze thickening in her skull. At least, she thought that was the source of the ringing in her ears. What did she know? She couldn’t even feel her body anymore.
“They’re here, Maeve. Just hold on a little longer.” Callen was still here, still trying to hold her together, but his voice sounded too far away. “Please.”
It was the please that broke her heart.
Because it was too late.