Page 150 of Driftwood Daffodil 3

At this point, I agreed that Simon needed to be punished, but punishment wasn’t what Gio or Atlee had in mind.

“Gio,” I looked up at him. “You can’t kill him.”

He did not like my request. “Are you fucking kidding me? This is the second time he’s tried to shoot you.”

“Second time?” Memphis chimed in.

“It wasn’t that bad.” They were all overreacting. “Everybody’s fine. There’s no need to be killing anybody.”

That was when I realized someone was missing.

I looked around. “Where’s Chuck?”

Then we heard it.

A soft gargled cough almost drowned out by the rain.

Concentrating, I focused on movement I could see through the storm. Someone was lying on the ground a few feet behind Memphis.

My eyes widened.

Chuck!

He was the one who pushed me out of the way, and he was not okay.

Memphis and I rushed over, but neither one of us knew what to do. There was so much blood. I couldn’t tell where it was coming from. My hand reached out but I couldn’t tell where it was safe to touch him.

“Oh my God, Nova,” Memphis wildly looked around scanning Chuck’s body. “I don’t know what to do. What do we do, Nova? Help me.”

“I don’t know what to do.”

There was red everywhere. It was soaking his shirt, pooling around him, and spraying out every time Chuck coughed. And his eyes… When he looked at me it wasn’t with panic, it was acceptance. He knew he wasn’t going to make it.

“Chuck…”

He reached out and squeezed my hand, “don’t.”

I watched horrified as his body jerked and blood gargled from his mouth.

“No, no, no,” Memphis cradled Chuck’s head and tried to wipe the blood off his face. “You are not allowed to leave me. We are supposed to go to college and get married, remember? We’re going to have one boy and two girls.”

My heart was breaking for both of them. Chuck couldn’t do this. He needed to stay.

I squeezed Chuck’s hand and looked him in the eyes. “Don’t you give up.”

He was not allowed to do that. So many people loved and needed him. Memphis needed him. Hell, I needed him. Chuck was my friend. I never realized how much he cared, and he couldn’t go now. Not for me. I wasn’t worth it.

I held onto Chuck’s hand trying to will all of my determination into him. “He is going to make it through this.”

I didn’t know I’d said that out loud until Chuck whispered, “no I’m not.”

His eyes locked on mine and I didn’t know what to say. How did make this better? There was always a work around. Always.

“It’s okay.” Chuck said to me then rolled his eyes up to Memphis, “I love you, Memphis.” He sucked in a shallow breath, whispered, “don’t let this break you,” then went limp.

We sat there staring down at Chuck while the rain poured down around us. It was eerily quiet. Not even the howling storm could break through the dark silence that settled over us.

“Chuck?” Memphis tried, but he got no response. “Come on baby, say something.”

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