Page 126 of Heartstruck at Dawn
I FELL ON MY KNEES, and the only one standing up was Aaron. He was already making a call and checking on William when I came out of my daze. Thomas was lying on the floor beside me—a bullet hole in his forehead and another in his chest. I recoiled away from him and saw Caleb on his knees, holding his left shoulder with his right hand, staring into nothing.
“Caleb!” I got up and knelt in front of him, cupping his cheek with my good hand.
“Hey, it’s okay,” he said faintly. “I’ll be okay. It’s just my shoulder.” His mouth twitched into a smile, but his ragged breathing was more than evident, and I didn’t like it one bit.
And all I wanted to do was scream, scream, scream, but I couldn’t. I didn’t even know where to focus my attention. Caleb was shot. William was shotandpassed out on the floor, Thomas was dead,and then my legs were missing, my arms dissolved, and my heart was one big splat on the floor.Wake up!
“He’s alive, but his pulse is weak,” Aaron said, checking William’s vitals. “The ambulance is on its way.” Aaron tried to reassure me. But all I wanted was to wake up from this nightmare. “They’re both going to be okay, Miss Murphy.”
David and five DSS agents arrived on the scene. Aaron instructed them to carry William and Caleb down to the lobby. I was frozen on the floor, looking at all the blood on me and around me. I couldn’t stand up—because again—paralyzed, and the pain in my right wrist had become unbearable.
Aaron instructed two of the agents to stay and wait for the police to arrive as he lifted me from the floor to carry me down to the lobby.
By the time we moved out of the building, paramedics were already carting William away on a wheeled stretcher into the ambulance. “Let me ride with him!” I cried out with desperation, trying to free myself from Aaron. But the paramedics closed the doors, and the ambulance vanished into the night.
William!
I begged Aaron to put me down, and my knees threatened to buckle on me when he did. “Where’s the other ambulance? Caleb needs an ambulance too,” I urged. Caleb was sitting on the sidewalk, leaning against the building, hissing as David applied pressure to his wound, trying to stop the bleeding.
I heard the sound of a siren approaching.Thank God!
Caleb was rushed inside the ambulance, and Aaron helped me step inside with him. I wasn’t going to ask for anyone’s permission this time. Aaron, David and the other three agents followed us on the SUV.
I immediately grabbed Caleb’s cold hand and squeezed it as one of the paramedics placed an oxygen mask on his face. The other one kept to his wound.
The paramedics talked amongst themselves as the ambulance flew to the hospital. But I couldn’t hear them. My entire attention was focused on Caleb. On how his lips were turning white, and his breathing was getting shallow.
I couldn’t deal with this, knowing William was wounded too. Wondering if he was still breathing—still alive. It was all because of me. It was my fault they were hurt.
“Red,” he said in a breath. “I—” His eyes blinked erratically.
“Caleb, stay with me,” I said sternly. “What’s happening?” I looked at the paramedics for answers.
“He’s losing blood. The bullet must’ve somehow punctured the apex of the—”
No. I stopped listening. I was in denial. Not that I would understand much of whatever medical terms they were throwing at me. “Caleb.” I squeezed his hand. “Caleb, listen to me. You’re going to be okay.”
“I-I’m—sorry, Red.”
“No, there’s nothing to be sorry about. I need you to stay with me, okay? You promised, remember?”
Caleb closed his eyes as the hospital staff opened the ambulance doors from the outside and took Caleb away into the emergency room. I lost my balance and almost tripped when getting off the ambulance. I tried running behind them, but Aaron was already waiting for me. He placed his arms around my waist and stopped me.
“You won’t be allowed inside,” he said, embracing me. “They’ll take care of them. They’re in good hands now. We need to get your wrist fixed, too.”
“He closed his eyes, Aaron!” I tried slowing my breath, but I couldn’t.
Breathebreathebreathe.
“He’s going to be okay,” Aaron reassured me, his deep blue eyes staring into mine.
In the middle of all the chaos, I’d forgotten about Mimi. “Thomas said that Nicholas drugged Mimi to get the keys—they took her keys. You have to—”
“We’ll send someone over immediately,” Aaron said, tightening his embrace around me. He nodded at the agent beside him, who immediately took his phone out and made a call. David was arguing with the hospital staff in the distance about God knows what. Probably about wanting to park right outside the emergency room.
Please,not again,not again.The scene was familiar. Shots had been fired. People were wounded. Aaron was hugging me—telling me that everything was going to be okay when it wasn’t.
Please!
