“You okay, baby girl? Are you hurt anywhere?” I whisper breathlessly as I shift off Lindsey.
“I’m scared, Daddy. But I’m not hurt bad.” Hearing Charlotte’s tiny voice fills me with some relief and I scan the area for the shooter. Anger boils inside. He’s nowhere in sight.
I scoop Lindsey into my arms as gently as possible and roll her onto her back. Charlotte clings to my side, her fingers digging into my skin. I pull her out and hold her shoulders, eyeing her up and down. A few scratches mark her forehead, a graze on her forearm, but nothing too bad stands out.
While I silently rejoice the air still coursing through Charlotte’s body, I watch the life in Lindsey’s slowly fade away.
She groans. My gaze is drawn to her shaky hand on her side where blood oozes through her clothing. My stomach drops and my breath catches in my throat when her eyes roll into the back of her head.
“Stay with me. Come on, Lindsey.” Ripping my jacket off in one hurried movement, I bunch it into a ball and apply it to the wound. Blood soaks the jumper within seconds as I stare into Lindsey’s dulling eyes. She’s still here.
I cup the back of her neck into my free hand, keeping the other firmly on the wound. I pull her slightly up and shift her in closer to me. Squeezing gently, wishing and praying my hands held enough power to breathe life back into her. Stabbing pain obliterates my heart, destroying my happiness, my love, shred by shred.
Leaning her forehead against mine, I close my eyes, and just feel. I breathe in her scent like it’s my last breath and let it soothe my aching soul. I run my nose the length of hers and as a tear trails from her eye, my cheek catches it and it sears my skin; the burn a feeling which will scar me forever.
I pull her tighter against me as close as I can without hurting her, even though my muscles are cramping. “Not leaving me now I’ve got you, Linds. You always try to be so strong even when you don’t have to be. Well now you have to, sweetheart, be strong. Fight this, because I’m not prepared to lose you.”
My words barely come out as they cut above the pain, they are all but a whisper of hot breath on Lindsey’s cheek.
“Sir, are you all right? Have you been shot?”
A firm hand grasps my shoulder and the concerned face of a paramedic comes into view. I cough, swallowing past the pain traveling up my throat and climb off Lindsey without moving my hand from the soaked material covering the bloody area of her body.
“I’m fine. Here, it’s Lindsey. Quick,” I race out.
Paramedics bend down to attend to her, to take over from where I’m applying pressure and as I let go, I grab for Charlotte with my other hand and pull her into me. “Gunshot wound grazed her ribs, it looks clean. She’s still breathing but she’s lost a lot of blood and she’s barely conscious. I had to move her. My daughter was underneath her.”
I barely hear my own voice over the violent pounding of my heart.
It felt like hours had passed, but in reality, it’s hardly a minute before Lindsey lay on a stretcher in the back of an ambulance and is on her way to the hospital.
The sirens blast in my ears and my fingers tingle with the itch to help, to do something more than sit here fucking watching. But small cries and wetness soaking my shirt reminds me that my baby girl needs me too.
Time is dissolving into a pool of ruination as shapeless as rainfall; it is indefinable. Hope is sinking, along with the rest of me.
Lindsey
Monotonous beeping sounds fill my ears. The coolness of the room sends a shiver over my body and I move deeper under the warmth on top of me. The smell of antiseptic wafts through the air and I use all the strength I can muster to open my heavy lidded eyes. Brightness seeps through the slits of my vision and I squint, adjusting to the light. The haze before me starts to clear and I realize I’m flat on my back and everything hurts. Every muscle aches, my head throbs, and my limbs feel impossibly heavy. I attempt to sit up but shift too fast. The movement causes an explosion of pain in my side, one so strong it sends me backward to my horizontal position with my eyes closed to shut out the pain. Warmth tightens around my left hand just as voices creep into earshot.
“Nurse.” A male voice, deep and smooth, breaks through the silence in the room and even half out of it, I’d recognize it anywhere. Oliver.
“She’s waking up. She will be weak. Please remember, the calmer you can be, the easier this will be on Lindsey.” The professional tone of the voice speaking must be the nurse I heard Olly call for.
“Is she waking up?” Charlotte whispers not so quietly, and hearing her hopeful little voice has my lips upturning and my mind easing. Thank God, she’s okay.
“Yeah, baby. I think so.”
My heart does somersaults. The beeping becomes louder. For a moment, I never thought I’d hear his voice again. Fireworks ignite enough strength within me to open my eyes and push past the pain.
“Argh,” I croak out. “Everything hurts.”
My eyes slowly open and my soul warms when I lay eyes on Mason.
He smiles. His eyes shine and his posture slumps with relief. “’Bout time you woke up, sweetheart.”
Joy, sorrow, gratitude, it all overtakes me and I’m rendered speechless as I stare at the man who’s standing by my bedside even after I nearly got his daughter shot.
Shit. Did he know who the shooter was?
My free hand is slipped into another’s. I twist my neck and the faces of Olly and Ali stare back at me. Their features override my worry about the shooter. With Olly glaring like he’s ready to murder someone, and Ali, the fear in her eyes I’ve only seen one other time before, it guts me. The knife just keeps twisting, deeper and deeper until I can’t take it anymore. I look away, breathe in deeply, and muffle the sob threatening to rip from my throat.
Olly reaches out and tucks a loose strand of my hair behind my ear, a smile playing at his lips. “Welcome back, babe. Gave us quite a scare.”
“Lindsey, you saved me.” Charlotte leans in, eyes widening as she pushes in front of her father so she can get closer to the bed.
I smile and as I pull my arms free of both the men in my life, I squeeze Charlotte in a light hug.
Her words, our hug, the moment triggers my memory and it all comes crashing back, the squeak of the swing moving back and forth, Charlotte tipping her head back in laughter. The shiver that shot up my spine a second later prompting me to look up. Jeremy. My breath caught in my throat. My feet moved on their own accord. I didn’t think. I ran.
I threw myself around Charlotte, pushing us to the ground but before we face-planted the concrete, the wind was knocked out of me, a heavy weight trapping us in. I search my mind for what comes next, but I can’t put my finger on it. It’s all a blur. I can’t see it, hear it and I can’t feel it. I try harder. If I just close my eyes and think.
Emptiness. My mind is completely blank, nothing comes back to me.
Reopening my eyes, frustrated, I look down my body. It twinges in pain where a needle is stuck into the top of my hand attached to a drip. Little sticky patches are placed on my body along with thick bandaging around my rib cage. Shit, I copped the bullet Jeremy shot off. My blood runs cold.
I clutch my throat and feel my skin clamming up. I turn to Mase. “Jeremy? Did you catch him?”
He nods, shoving his hands in his pockets. His eyebrows bunch in and the frown causes little creases to appear in the middle of his forehead. “In a holding cell at the precinct until he gets transferred to Riker’s Island where he’ll stay until sentencing.”
“He’s going back to prison, Linds,” Olly adds, squeezing the hand he’s still holding.