“I love you, Annabel.”
I shook my head. “Don’t you dare act like you’re saying good-bye. You’re going to marry me, remember? We’re a team—you and me against the world.” Tears streamed down my cheeks and fell onto his face.
One of the agents dropped down beside us and started working on compressing Rev’s wound. “Ambulance is on the way,” he said to me.
“You hear that, Rev? The ambulance is coming, so you have to hold on until it gets here.”
With a weak smile, he reached up to cup my cheek. “My beautiful Annabel Lee.” Then he closed his eyes.
“Rev, stay with me. Please . . . please stay with me.” I buried my face against his, unable to stop the sobs that overtook me.
TWENTY-SIX
REV
A pulsing white light filled with peaceful energy enveloped me from head to toe. As I gazed around, I realized the light was filling me up and healing me. I no longer felt any pain from the gunshot wound. I brought my hands up to pat around on my gut. No blood. No wound.
“What the . . .” I muttered.
In the distance, a figure began walking toward me. As it got closer, I blinked several times to make sure I was seeing clearly. When I still saw the person in front of me, I decided I must be hallucinating because it simply couldn’t be possible. “Pop?” I questioned.
Preacher Man smiled at me. “Hello, son.”
“What are you . . .? What am I . . .?” I questioned lamely.
“I’m here to tell you that it isn’t your time, and you have to go back.”
I frowned in confusion as everything floated along in this trippy consciousness. “Are you trying to say this is heaven?” I swallowed hard. “Like I’m dead or something?”
“Maybe it is or maybe you’re just hallucinating this from a temporary lack of oxygen,” Preacher Man suggested with a sly smile. He reached out and placed his hand on my shoulder. “Just know I’m proud of you, son. Regardless of what happened to you, it never broke you; it only made you stronger.” He squeezed my arm. “You’re the man I wish I could have been.”
Although breaking down was the most unmanly thing I could do, I let the tears flow freely. “Thank you, Pop.”
“No—thank you, son.”
As he faded away, a jolt of electricity rocketed through my body, sucking me out of the white light and slamming me back onto a stretcher in the back of an ambulance. A paramedic held the crash cart paddles in his hands and I heard him say, “He’s back. We have sinus rhythm.”
I gulped in the oxygen from the mask on my face, trying to still my out-of-control heart rate. I started to bring my hand to my gut to see if my wound was real again, but the other paramedic grabbed my arm. “Easy there.”
Once he released me, I moved my hand up to my face. At the feel of moisture on my cheeks, the world grew dark around me again.
When I came to, I was in a bed at the hospital. Blinking my eyes, I took in my surroundings. Machines beeped on and off, but I was grateful to find I just had an oxygen mask, rather than a breathing tube. It felt like there was some sort of cool sheeting on my back—it must’ve been something to deal with my burns. They must’ve been giving me some good drugs because I wasn’t in any pain.
As I looked around the room again, I saw that one entire wall was covered with balloons, flowers, and cards. Jesus, how long had I been out of it? Turning my head, I saw something that made my heartbeat speed up on the monitor. Annabel slept in one of the uncomfortable chairs next to my bed. Her disheveled hair and the dark circles under her eyes told me she hadn’t left my side. Not that there was any doubt about my feelings for her, but her true devotion made me fall in love with her all over again.
I eased the mask off my face. “Annabel?” I croaked.
At the sound of my voice, she shot upright and almost fell out of the chair. “Rev! Rev, you’re awake!” she cried as she dove for the bedside. She bent over to bestow kisses on my cheeks and then my lips. Just when I could barely catch my breath, she pulled away, tears flowing. “I love you. I love you so, so much.”
Smiling up at her, I replied, “I love you, too.”
She pushed my hair back from my face. “I thought I had lost you. You came so close to dying.”
An uneasy feeling prickled over my skin. “I did?”
Annabel nodded. “They said you crashed in the ambulance on the way here. You went into emergency surgery as soon as you got here. The doctor said you were lucky to be alive.”
Slowly, I began to remember the bright light and seeing Preacher Man. I didn’t like thinking how close I had come to leaving Annabel and my brothers and Mama Beth.
“It wasn’t my time,” I murmured.
“What?”
Realizing I had said Preacher Man’s words, I shook my head. “It’s nothing.”
“Deacon and Bishop have taken turns staying the nights with me.”
“Nights?”
“You’ve been unconscious for five days. Well, most of them you were kept in a medically induced coma to let your burns heal.”
“Holy shit.”
Annabel laughed. “The doctor said you would come around when you were ready. Of course, that didn’t mean that your mother and I didn’t worry to death about when that might be. But thankfully, there’s no lasting internal damage. You might have some scarring from your burns.”
My mind went back to Mendoza and his sadistic use of a blowtorch. Then a sobering thought hit me. “What happened with Mendoza after he shot me?”
“The ATF took him in. I’ve been assured he won’t get out of prison.”
“He won’t,” I said adamantly.
Annabel’s expression became unreadable at my words and tone. Gazing down at the blanket, she hesitated before asking, “Does that mean you’ll have him taken care of in prison?”
I reached forward to grab her hand. “He won’t be coming out alive, you can rest assured of that. But before it’s done, he’ll suffer.”
A tremor ran through Annabel’s body. “I suppose the thought of you having him tortured should disgust me, but it doesn’t. I think of what he did to me and then what he did to you. . . He deserves everything he gets.”
Squeezing her hand, I said, “That’s an old lady talking right there.” She shook her head, but then smiled in spite of herself. As I stared into her eyes, I thought of what she had gone through to save me. “You were so strong and so brave. I’m so very proud of you, Annabel. Proud and honored to call you my future wife.”
Tears once again shimmered in her eyes. “It was my love for you that gave me the strength.” She bent down again to kiss me. I brought my hand up to tangle through the strands of her long auburn hair. When she pulled away, she smiled. “I’d better call your mother and Deacon. They’ll want to see you.”
“They can wait. Why don’t you lie down with me for a while? I want to feel you close to me.”
She narrowed her green eyes at me. “Nathaniel Malloy, I certainly hope you’re not trying to get fresh with me just a few minutes after regaining consciousness. I’m sure the doctor will be in here any moment.”
I laughed. “No, Annabel Percy, I merely want to hold the woman I love close to me since there was a brief moment when I didn’t think I would ever get the chance again.”
Annabel’s expression softened. “We have to be careful, though.”
Sliding my body over in the bed caused more pain than I had anticipated. At my sharp intake of breath, Annabel started to move away from the bed. “Oh no, you don’t,” I muttered through gritted teeth.
Gently, she eased up onto the mattress and stayed practically hanging off the edge to ensure that she didn’t hurt me. I took her hand in mine and brought it to my cheek, enjoying the softness of her skin and the warmth of her touch.
Somehow two broken people had found their other half that completed them and made them whole. The worst of circumstances had brought us together, but some of the greatest loves in the world were born of tragedy.