Page 103 of Bleeding Hearts Duet

I vaguely heard the sound of glass shattering and the crunch of metal. I was jerked around on the most violent of rollercoasters before everything went black around me.

***

My senses came back to me slowly, and not all at once.

The first thing I felt was a searing pain in my leg, followed by the gentle lapping of water around my ankles. Smoke filled my nostrils and stung my eyes, but I couldn’t quite make sense of it.

I blinked several times, and my head felt like it was underwater. My ears rang painfully before my hearing came back.

I heard Brayden’s voice. But he was no longer beside me. He sounded further away. Too far away.

“What’s the matter?” he taunted. “Can’t do it? You’ve finally got your chance, so take it, you fucking coward.”

I didn’t understand the venom in his tone. I didn’t understand what he was saying. But it all became clear when Ryland spoke.

“Shut the fuck up!”

Brayden grunted, and a strange sort of laughter bubbled up from his chest.

“It’s not as satisfying as you thought, is it?” Brayden sneered. “At least I had the guts to look you in the eye, but you had to hire someone to do your dirty work for you. Now you’ve got me right where you want me, and you can’t even pull the trigger. So fucking typical.”

“Shut the fuck up!” Ryland growled.

“You have to finish this,” Brayden continued. “You know you do. Because if you don’t, I will. Just promise me that when you get home tonight and give Brighton a kiss, you won’t rub it in her face. Let Norma break the news to her.”

I didn’t understand why Brayden was saying these things. But as the fragments of our earlier conversation replayed through my mind, it all started to make sense.

He’d been right all along. Ryland really did plan this. And he was here to kill Brayden. My flesh and blood. But Brayden was trying to protect me because they must not know I was in the car.

As I looked around me, I could understand why. I was crushed into a tiny pocket of metal, with no way out. And judging by the pain, I was in bad shape.

I couldn’t get to Brayden. I couldn’t stop Ryland from whatever he was about to do. A sob escaped from my chest as I tried to push the metal away. It groaned but didn’t move.

“What was that?” another man’s voice spoke.

Brayden cursed, followed by the sound of sploshing beside me. We must have been partially submerged, but I wasn’t sure. I couldn’t see my feet, but I felt the water.

A knife tore through the airbag followed by the face of a man I didn’t recognize.

“There’s a girl in here,” he said in confusion. “Shit, and she’s bleeding all over the place.”

When I looked back down at my leg, I realized he was right. I clutched the wound and tried to stem the bleeding, but it wasn’t any use. There was too much, and I was too weak.

The last thing I heard before the darkness swallowed me again was the sound of Ryland shouting my name.

***

I woke to the steady drone of beeping, and the brightness of fluorescent lights above me.

The smell of disinfectant told me I was in a hospital. I had tubes and wires attached to my body, and I felt like I’d been flattened by a steam roller. But it wasn’t like the movies. I didn’t have the luxury of temporary amnesia or confusion. I remembered exactly why I was there.

So when I caught a glimpse of Ryland’s face beside me, the first thing I did was try to scream.

“Get out!”

It came out like dry sand, scratchy and indecipherable.

“Brighton?” he tried to clutch my hand, and I pulled it away, searching desperately for the call button.

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