Page 153 of Inside the Wicked

I’m numb, ready to follow her wherever she decides to go. This life, another. There’s no me without her.

CHAPTER 49

Rhett

At the hospital I’m filled with adrenaline and more aware, so I’m able to lift Ana out of the car and carry her. I need every single second before I’ll have to let her go.

“Still with me?” I ask.

“We shouldn’t ... you shouldn’t have brought me here. You need to leave,” she says.

I can’t take the chance she’ll need equipment we don’t have at the Den if the gunshot hit anything major.

“It’s going to be okay, baby.”

The others are dealing with the staff, and I do nothing but hold her, watching her beautiful tired face.

“You need to leave,” she insists.

“I’m not going anywhere. They’re going to take you from me, but I’ll be right fucking here, so you stay wake for me.”

Ana whimpers when I have no choice but to lay her on the gurney they bring. I’m working on autopilot, following in hot pursuit as they roll her away. The frantic crowding of doctors and nurses around her is a slam of reality at the gravity of it all.

Ana was shot.

Sarah was shot.

No. I can’t keep thinking that way. Anahasto make it, andfuck, I’m never taking a day, a minute, a fucking second for granted with her. She’ll find me insufferable eventually for it, but she’ll be alive and with me, always.

“You can’t come in here, sir,” a nurse says, holding a hand up to stop me from following them into the room where they start attaching things to her and cut open her shirt. There’s so much blood I nearly collapse to my knees.

“What are they doing?” I ask, hollow.

“Assessing the wound and prepping for surgery. The bullet is still inside.”

The nurse leaves me, and Ana isn’t in that room for long before they’re wheeling her out again. I follow, untethered to gravity as I watch my worst nightmare unfolding. Until I reach another barrier they’ll stop me from going past.

Then silence.

Cold, terrible, haunting silence as I’m left staring through the double doors they took Ana through, not knowing if she’ll come out.

My back meets the wall and I sink down it. My hands thread into my hair, elbows propped on my knees.

“Sir, there’s a waiting room just along the hall,” a male nurse says behind a desk.

I’m not fucking moving.

I don’t know how much time passes. It feels endless, mocking. Like I’ll be in this unknowing circle of nothingness forever.

Footsteps pad up to me. Several of them.

“Oh, Rhett.” Allie’s hands are on me. I think she's sitting beside me, but I can’t feel her warmth. “She’ll pull through.”

“You can’t say that,” I say. I’m harsh and icy, but I don’t care. “None of you can fucking promise that.”

I know she’s not the only one here, but I don’t look up to check.

“The police are about to arrive, man. You should get the hell out of here,” Rix says.

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