Page 126 of My Turn

“Alana,” I repeated firmly. “We need to go back upstairs.”

She was a disaster. We needed to go back upstairs and figure all of this out. If I threw her over my shoulder, I didn’t know if it would make things worse. Maybe I could sedate her. There was a syringe in the cabinet behind her. I didn’t want to rush her and make her afraid of me right now.

Moving forward, I tentatively reached out. When she didn’t stop me, I cupped her face.

“Everything’s okay. Let’s figure this out together.”

Her brow furrowed. “She’ll be terrified of me.”

“No. She won’t even know you pulled the trigger.”

“I don’t want to scare her. I want…”

“What do you want, baby? Talk to me.”

“To be with you.”

The statement made me smile. “You are with me. We’ll always be together. I promise.”

Finally, her face relaxed a little. The change in her eyes made me feel better. She broke for a moment, but she was going to be okay. I’d put her back together. That was always the plan.

Steps on the stairs made me turn. They didn’t sound like Alicia’s- they were too heavy. When I heard more of them, my heart began to race. Alana backed up toward the wall, the fear evident on her face as she clutched the gun to her chest tightly.

I held my hand up. “It’s okay, Alana.”

Men with guns raised appeared in the doorway. I swore and took a step to the side to shield Alana.

“Drop the weapon!” they demanded.

Fuck. I turned to Alana with pleading eyes. “Hey, let’s do what they said, okay? Hand it to me.”

When I tried to pry it away, she wouldn’t budge and the struggle just made them yell louder. They repeated the order, but she didn’t move. She must’ve been in shock after everything. I kept a hand raised to tell the officers to wait. They adjusted their aim instead.

“No,” I shouted. “It’s okay. She’s not gonna do anything. There aren’t any bullets in it.”

“Drop the fucking gun!”

Tears streamed down her face. Her breaths had become panicked and the acceptance I’d seen in her eyes earlier hadmorphed back into something that was too dangerous for our current situation.

“Alana…” I ventured as I got closer.

As if she’d just noticed me, she jerked and drew the gun away from her chest. I lunged forward to take it just before a shot went off behind me. Pain erupted in my shoulder and made me stumble. I managed to grab the gun from her and tossed it to the side.

“It’s fine,” I told the officers. “She wasn’t going to fucking do anything. God damnit.”

I watched one of them take the gun from the floor. With that out of the way, I turned back to Alana.

“No,” I breathed.

She slid down the wall, holding her hand against her neck. Everything stopped in that moment. All I could see was the blood and the look on her face. Her eyes were wide with terror and pain. When she pulled her hand away, more blood poured from the wound.

“No, no, no,” I said, pulling her closer. I tried to stop the bleeding with my hand, but it just kept coming. Even slowed as it tore through my shoulder, the bullet had done so much damage. “Baby, look at me. Hey. It’s okay. It’s okay.”

Her head shook the slightest amount. When she met my eyes, she was no longer crying.

“I…” She choked and blood spilled out of her mouth. “I don’t want to… die.”

“I know. I know. You just have to breathe, okay? Someone will be here soon and they’ll fix it. They’re gonna fix it, baby.”

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