“Make that two ambulances,” he says to his partner.
“Help is here, Sparrow. You just have to hold on, okay? Just hold on.”
She gives me a soft smile, but I see the life begin to drain out of her.
“No, no, no! Fuck! C’mon, Ari, baby. Stay with me. Don’t leave me.”
One of the cops rushes inside with a first aid kit, pulling out rolls of gauze that I quickly put against her before applying pressure once more. She’s lost too much blood. She doesn’t need gauze, she needs a doctor.
Thankfully, the sound of sirens rings out before four paramedics rush inside, two coming over to Arianna and two to Kelly. Carefully, they lift Arianna onto a stretcher, taking over holding her wound as they rush her off. I try to follow her when a cop stops me with a hand on my chest. I look down at his hand, pure fury running rampant inside me.
“Get your fucking hands off me.”
“We have some questions, sir.”
“Then ask them on the way to the hospital, that’s my fucking fiancée!”
I don’t care what Arianna says when she makes it out of this. She agreed to marry me, she’s locked in now. She has to live because she promised. She has to be okay because we have a whole life to live.
The cops agree, thankfully. One stays behind while the other jumps into the car with me, immediately asking questions about what happened. I give him every shred of detail I can while my mind stays laser focused on the ambulance carrying my whole world in front of us.
When we get to the hospital, it feels like it takes forever to get to the nurse’s station.
“Arianna Fulton, where is she?”
“Are you family?” she asks.
“Yes,” I answer immediately.
Her fingers move across the keyboard, not fast enough if you ask me, before she looks at me.
“It looks like they took her up to surgery.”
“She’s alive?” I ask, like I need to hear the words.
“I can get someone to come out with an update if you’d like.”
“Please,” I rasp as I dig my hands into my hair and walk towards the wall, slumping down to the floor.
For hours I pray to God. I bargain, I threaten, I beg. I’ve never been a religious man, but in this moment, I’ll say as many Hail Marys, do as many good deeds, promise anything in the whole fucking world if I can have Arianna back.
Chapter Thirty Four
Arianna
Blinking my eyes open, I have a pounding headache and my stomach hurts. It takes me a second to understand where I am. A hospital. I’m in the hospital? Then, as if watching a movie trailer of a horror film, pieces begin flashing inside my mind. My mom with the bottle, with a knife. So much blood, so much bleeding, and then…nothing.
“Sparrow?” a panicked voice asks before I look to my side and see Logan beside me.
“Oh my god,” he gasps, his shoulders shaking as he cries. I’ve never seen him cry before. Frowning, I reach my hand out to him, rubbing his back slightly as his head is pressed against my other hand resting on the bed.
“What’s wrong? Are you okay?”
His head whips up, his rich brown eyes hidden behind a thick layer of tears.
“AmIokay? Ari, I thought I lost you.”
My frown deepens. “Am I okay now?”