I welcomed the smell, prayed it could somehow clear my airways of the smell of blood…Of death. I wished for it to clear my mind…
It couldn’t. It wouldn’t, and I deserved no less punishment.
This was my fault. I knew it was.
I may not have been the one to pull the trigger, but those bullets had been entrenched in their bodies because of my ignorance, because of my inability to protect them… This was all on me.
I was the one who’d brought Rachel into our lives. I was the one who chose to ignore the signs. I was to blame.
And now, all I was left with, was a deep seeded feeling of guilt, remorse and unbearable pain.
“How long have they been in there with her?” Derek asked, and I cringed.
“Forty five minutes,” I whispered.
Seven hours of surgery, and forty-five minutes of waiting, since they’d pushed her body through that door, and told us nothing.
Leaning forward, I rested my elbows on my knees and pressed my thumbs into my eyes.
I couldn’t look at Derek.
“Did you call her father?” I croaked out. “Did you…”
I stopped to catch my breath. “Did you tell him she’s dead?”
“I contacted both of them,” he said in a hoarse voice, and I felt his body shudder. “I called Linda, too, told her what happened…She said Hope is fine and she’ll keep her, for as long as you need her to.”
I exhaled heavily. “Thank you.”
“Why did she do it, Kyle?” Derek asked, his voice cracking as his emotions spilled out. “How the fuck could she do that to them?”
“I don’t know.”
“I want to know, I need to know, Kyle. I need to fucking know. She fucking butchered them. Look at me, will you?”
I lifted my head and looked into the tear-stained face of my best friend.
“I’m sorry.”
Derek shook his head. “Why are you sorry? This isn’t your fault, Kyle.”
The door of the hospital room swung open and we both stood quickly.
“Is she okay?” I demanded.
My legs shook with every step I took towards that door.
“There were complications,” the doctor said, gesturing for one of us to come in.
“Which one of you, is her next of kin?”
Derek nodded at me to go ahead, and I stepped forward.
“I am.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Kyle
I couldn’t remember the last time I blinked, let alone slept.
I knew it had to have been more than a few days since I slept, less than a week? I wasn’t sure.
Time meant nothing to me anymore.
There was a fear inside of me, a deep rooted, panic stricken fear, that if I closed my eyes for too long, she would disappear.
I kept my eyes focused on the machine next her bed that was monitoring her heart rate, and comforted myself with the knowledge, that in spite of the oxygen machine that was pumping air into her lungs, her heart was still beating.
My beautiful princess…
Lee’s pale, withdrawn face, her lifeless body, lay in a hospital bed, rigged up to more wires and machines than I’d ever seen.
And Cam…Oh, god, she was lying on a slab in the morgue, with a hole in the back of her head.
I had to sit here; I needed to be with Lee. There was no other place I could contemplate going.
I hadn’t eaten, I didn’t care.
I had no doubt that if Lee didn’t pull through this, then I would want to be with her.
I didn’t think I could live with the guilt, or live without her.
I wasn’t going to live without her. It was that simple.
“Mr. Carter, you should go home and get some rest,” one of the nurses said.
I didn’t know which one; my eyes were glued to that machine.
“I’m not leaving,” I said, or at least, I think I said it.
I didn’t know if I spoke the words or thought them.
She didn’t understand, none of them understood.
How they expected me to walk out of this room, and eat, sleep and live like the world was still turning, was beyond me.
Because my world wasn’t turning, my world was dying in that hospital bed.
How the fuck did they not understand that?
Tightening my hold on Lee’s lifeless hand, I turned my gaze on her.
“Baby, it’s me. I’m here, I haven’t left, and I’ll never leave you again.”
The skin on my cheeks felt dry and brittle from dried in tears.
“You need to wake up, Lee. I need you to wake up and get better. I can’t do this without you.”
I kissed her hand and lowered my head to her bed, resting my forehead on our joined hands.
“The baby needs you. I need you. I can’t…I won’t survive without you. I don’t want to be here without you. I don’t want a life without you.”