Page 35 of Inside the Maelstrom: Part Two
Then Sampson was there, hurdling bodies. He dropped to his knees. “Otto, are you okay? Talk to me, brother.” His hands were checking me over, like he was expecting to find a part of me that was flat like a pancake.
“I’m fine. Hit my head but that's it. Missed me.”
He hissed out a relieved sound. “Let’s go. Can you stand?” I nodded, though it hurt.
We made it three steps before my mother was there. “Otto!” My father’s strong hands gripped me, and my mother was white as a sheet. “Where are you injured? Show me, Otto!” Her voice was more panicked than I’d ever heard it.
“I’m fine, Mom. Are you guys okay?”
“We’re fine. We were on the other side of the building when we heard the screams. The others?” Dad asked, searching the crowd.
“Safe,” Sampson answered, and I breathed fully for the first time. “I think Aviva might have broken her arm when she fell, but they are alive.”
Assured that we were alive and well, my mother now looked over at the carnage with calmer eyes. “I have to triage.” The burden of being a frontline worker.
“Go, Mom. We’ll go straight to the hospital and then home. There are people who need you more right now.”
“I don’t give a fuck about other people. You’re my baby.” But she was already moving away toward a woman who looked entirely too mangled, my father right behind her.
He looked over his shoulder at me with a worried expression. “Call us as soon as you’re home. I mean it, son.” I nodded, and he ran over to assist Mom.
I looked away. I couldn’t watch, couldn’t see the lifeless bodies and pools of blood. I ran as well as I could toward Aviva and Hendrick, Evan standing guard over them with one hand on his gun. I fell to my knees between them, wrapping them both in my arms.
“Thank god,” I breathed.
“We have to get out of here,” Evan growled, his eyes taking in the chaos with cool efficiency. He picked up Aviva, carrying her toward the Escalade. Our driver was out of his seat, watching the surrounding buildings. Ex-Marine, Evan had told us when he’d introduced him.
Evan stuffed Aviva, and then Hendrick and I in the car, followed by Sampson. He climbed into the driver's seat, murmuring something quickly to our driver, who disappeared into the crowd.
I saw courthouse security surrounding the car that had plowed through everyone, pulling out a little old man from behind the wheel. He had blood running from his head, and must have been about ninety. Holy shit.
“Muntz will tell the cops where we are if they want to see us. Aviva needs a hospital. That’s a fracture,” Evan said in a cool monotone. I realized he was actually just as fucking panicked as the rest of us, but instead of the hysteria threatening to burst my seams, his military training had turned him into an automaton. It was one of those times I envied him, because it felt like my heart was about to pound out of my chest.
Aviva whimpered, and Sampson dragged her onto his lap, holding her so tight that he’d probably fracture her ribs too. She was holding her arm close to her chest, and I gripped Hendrick’s hand in my own. That had been too fucking close.
Sampson looked over at Evan. “Does anyone think it's coincidental that we almost died in front of the courthouse, the one place your father knew we would all be together?”
Ice flooded my brain. Itwasa bit too much of a coincidence.
Hendrick frowned. “The guy behind the wheel was like a hundred. Bit old for an assassin, don’t you think? And all those bystanders…” He trailed off, and I knew why. Because I’d also seen the broken bodies and heard the screams, and they continued to play whenever I closed my eyes.
“I don’t believe in coincidences,” Evan spat. “Especially when it comes to that piece of shit.”
We were all silent except for Aviva’s hisses of pain whenever we went over a bump. Quicker than I’d thought possible in city traffic, we were at the emergency room, and Sampson immediately started throwing his weight around—or rather, the weight of his reputation.
I held Aviva close to me, gently kissing her head. “I’ve never been so fucking scared in my whole life,” she whispered against my chest, the tears in her voice killing me slowly. “I thought we’d die. That we wouldn’t get that happily ever after I promised Hendrick.” Her palpable fear was an echo of mine.
I kissed her again, not making any promises I wasn’t sure I could keep. Because when she’d entwined her life with ours, she’d stepped out of the predictable and mundane into an insane world where money and power were worth more than human life.
Not for the first time, I felt guilty about not cutting ties completely.
Sampson reappeared. “Let’s go.” I let Viva step out of my arms, even though I desperately wanted to cling to her. She walked toward a nurse who was holding open swinging doors, and Sampson whistled at me. “You too, Otto. I don’t like that gash on the back of your head at all. You need to get checked out for a concussion.”
His face was more serious than I’d ever seen it. I nodded softly, because my brains felt kind of scrambled. On the way past, I grabbed his hand and squeezed. “I’m fine, Sam, but I’ll go and get checked.”
“Like you have a choice. I’d deadlift your ass onto the hospital bed and hold you down until you got a clean bill of health.”
I snorted, but followed through the swinging doors behind Aviva and the nurse. The guys stayed in the waiting room, which made sense. They were too big for us all to fit in the small emergency room cubicles.
