Then Downy barked, “Fuck!”
I blinked and turned to him, half standing.
“Sit!” He growled.
I sat.
“What is it?” I asked.
He ignored me and got on his mic.
“She doesn’t want to talk to anyone but Bennett, or she says she’ll shoot Lennox again,” Downy relayed.
I leaned over taking in deep gulps of air.
“Oh God,” I whispered. “Please.”
I prayed.
I could do nothing less.
Then I heard a gunshot, and my stomach plummeted.
Followed by another, and another.
The phone rang and Downy answered it.
“Give him the phone!” A woman roared.
Downy handed me the phone, and it took everything I had to keep the dinner I’d had only an hour before in my stomach where it belonged.
“Corrinne,” I said brokenly once the phone was in my hand and pressed to my ear.
“I can fucking see you sitting there, acting like your heart is broken. You want to know what broken is? When your parents disown you and kick you out before you’re seventeen. When you’re raped repeatedly on the streets because that’s the only way they’ll let you live. That’s what broken hearted is. Then I caught a break, got into college, lived in the dorm with this stupid cunt, and met Buck. But then this stupid bitch,” she shrieked. “Tried to take that all away from me. Lucky for me, though, that Buck was a dumbass and didn’t take what she’d said to heart. I was living a good life, too, until you fucked everything up by taking all my money!”
My head dropped, and my stomach continued to roil.
I felt it at the base of my throat, threatening to come up with each inhalation.
Swallowing convulsively, I said the only thing I could say. “I’m sorry.”
She laughed humorlessly. “Fuck sorry.”
***
Lennox
I flinched as, once again, she aimed the gun at me, and shot wide.
Bullet holes were spread out along my outstretched body, only inches away from my flesh.
My breath sucked in and I prayed for the four hundred and seventy fifth time.
Not for myself, though. For Bennett.
I didn’t want him to come in here and see me like this.
Because, if I was being honest, I was fairly sure I was about to die.
There was no way she’d let me leave.
Not alive.
And not with how hate filled she was.
Spewing venom was all she’d been doing for the last hour.
How much she hated me. How much she hated Bennett. How that ‘fucking brat’ had ruined her life.
On and on and on.
I felt horrible for her as she relayed what had happened to her to warrant her being the way she was now, but that didn’t give her the right to go around shooting people.
Ears ringing once again, I opened my eyes to see her staring out the window once again.
She wasn’t paying the least bit of attention to the door, which was why when I saw the black plastic tube fit underneath the door frame, I realized that just maybe I’d be getting out of this soon.
Turning my head as if not to draw attention to it, I closed my eyes and prayed that they’d be quick.
And they were.
My guess that it was a camera was proven right in the next moment when the door was kicked in, and black clad figures swarmed the room.
I sighed in relief, thanking God that they’d come.
Who I didn’t see, though, was Bennett.
There were seven figures.
Blue tag. Red tag. Green tag. Purple tag. Orange Tag. Yellow tag. Brown Tag. But no pink tag.
Bennett wasn’t there, and I didn’t know whether to be happy or sad about that.
“Get down on the ground!” A muffled roar sounded once they entered the room.
“Drop the gun!” From another.
“Down!”
“Get down and drop the gun!”
They all had their guns trained on Corrinne, and Corrinne, unsurprisingly, lifted her gun, took aim, and died.
Because every single man in the room shot her.
I closed my eyes, really not wanting to see her face explode.
It was hard enough to see her body jerk.
I didn’t want to keep my eyes open for the rest.
A hand touched my face, and I opened my eyes to see one of the black clad men leaning over me.
“You’ll be okay,” Nico said.
His voice, slightly hinted with a Spanish accent, poured through me, loosening my taught limbs.
I breathed deeper, surprised when the movement didn’t hurt as much as it had been previously.
“I’m going into shock,” I told him. “It doesn’t hurt anymore.”
“Fuck,” he said. “I NEED A MEDIC!”
I watched, as if in a haze, as the room exploded in activity.
All of the men found a job to do, but four of them, as many as they could fit, dropped down to their knees telling me that I’d be okay.
“I’m going to die,” I told them.
“No you are not!” Michael emphasized forcefully. “Do you really want to leave Bennett? Do you know what you leaving will do to him?”
I was so tired.
“I’m tired,” I said simply.
“No. You will stay with me. Think of Reagan and Bennett. They love you. Where will that leave them if you go?”
“He doesn’t want me,” I whispered as fiercely as I could, which happened to be not that much.
There was a commotion and Luke and Downy moved.
When had they taken off their masks?
Then Bennett was there, and he was bending down over me, placing both hands on my face.
His beautiful eyes were filled with tears, and if there was one thing I could make happen for the rest of my life, it would be to never see that happen again.
He’d done enough, gone through enough, throughout his life. He didn’t deserve to be sad.
“Don’t cry,” I rasped, bringing my hand up.
But it never made it to his face, his beautiful beard, where I’d intended it to go.
It got about three inches off the floor before it fell back down with a small thump.
He took my hand, and placed it on his face for me and said, “I do want you. I want you more than my next breath.”
My eyes closed, and I smiled. “I fucking love you, Bennett. I’ll miss you.”
Then my eyes closed and I was done.
I was so tired, and that white light was trying to take me.
Chapter 20
I have mixed drinks about feelings.
-T-shirt
Bennett
My eyes opened as I heard the sound of tennis shoes on the tiled floor.
Payton was running towards me with Max close on her heels.
And behind them was Lennox’s parents. Both running as well with their white hospital coats flapping behind them.
They reached me at the same time, and I made myself stand and explained what happened.
“Corrinne held her hostage,” I said without preamble. “She shot her in the belly, and they took her straight to surgery. She’s lost a lot of blood, and she coded in the back of the ambulance twice before they got some fluids into her.”
I’d ridden to the hospital, never so thankful in my life that Tai, one of my other good friends with the Fire Department and a paramedic, had been the one to work on her.
I just sat in the front seat and prayed. I’d never prayed so hard in my life.
Tai, never one to bullshit, was the first person to tell me that she was bad. One of the worse cases he’d seen in a very long time.
“Who’s the doctor?” Brock asked.
I shook my head. “I don’t know. They got her in so fast that they,” I was interrupted by another set of running feet.
This time it was Paxton, followed shortly by Melissa.
“What happened?” Paxton yelled.
I held my hand up for silence as everybody tried to speak at once.