Thoughtful(194)

I couldn’t finish, and Denny didn’t let me. “I’m not leaving her side.”

Seeing the blood stain growing on my shirt, I yelled, “Yes, you fucking are! You will get hauled off and locked away, and your career will be over! Is that what you fucking want? Is that what you think Kiera would fucking want?” I spat a wad of blood from my mouth to emphasize my point. “Now quit arguing with me and get the fuck out of here!”

Denny seemed to notice for the first time that he’d beaten me to a bloody pulp. He stared at me, then looked at his hands. “Jesus…what did I do…?”

I let out a calming breath. I needed to keep my cool if I was going to get him to leave. “You didn’t do anything. You weren’t even here. You understand me?” I raised my eyebrows. It hurt. Everything hurt. Carefully reaching into my back pocket with my good hand, I grabbed my wallet and tossed it at Denny. He seemed confused by that, so I quickly explained as I returned my hand to Kiera’s makeshift compress. “Run. I’ll tell them we got mugged and things turned nasty. I’ll tell them Kiera tried to protect me…and…and she…” I sighed, then implored, “Get out of here, Denny, before it’s too late!”

His gaze never leaving Kiera, Denny slowly stood up. “You’ll get her help…you’ll stay with her?”

I nodded, then indicated the road. “Yes. Now, please…leave…before someone comes out here.”

Denny looked back at me. He seemed torn, like he wanted to go, but he also wanted to stay and confess. Fuck that. I wasn’t letting him throw his life away because I had pushed him to the breaking point. This was my fault, not his. “Kiera would want you to go,” I said, my voice firm. “She wouldn’t want you punished for this. Not like that.” My voice softened. “We punished you enough.”

Denny glanced back down at Kiera on my lap, then nodded. Tears running down his cheeks, he looked up at me and whispered, “I’m sorry. Tell her I’m sorry.” With one final pained expression, he ran off.

Relieved that he wouldn’t be tied up in some legal mess because of this, I closed my eyes. Then I gathered my strength and yelled, “Somebody help me!” I kept screaming it, until finally a group of people opened the gate to the beer garden and peeked their heads out to see what all the fuss was about. When they spotted my bloody, beat-up ass and Kiera’s stone-still body, they sprang into action. A half dozen men and women ran toward me, three of them pulling out cell phones as they did. I nearly sobbed with relief. They would help her. They would fix her. They had to.

“What happened?” was the first thing they asked when they reached me.

The lie rolled effortlessly off my tongue. Someone brought a wet towel for her head, and I removed my ruined shirt from her scalp. Someone else asked me if I was all right. I heard myself murmuring that I thought my arm was broken, but I felt numb inside. Hollow. What if she didn’t make it? What if she didn’t survive this? I couldn’t…No…it couldn’t end this way. It just couldn’t.

When the ambulances arrived, a group of paramedics descended on us. They tried to remove Kiera from my arms and I stubbornly held on to her. She is alive right now. If I let her go…who knows what could happen?

An older man with a kind face knelt beside me. “Sir, you need to let go of her so we can help her. We’re here to help her.”

Woodenly, I nodded. Yes, help her. “Will she be okay?” I asked, knowing they couldn’t possibly know the answer.

A younger man started looking over my wounds while Kiera was pulled away. “She’s in good hands. Let’s just see how you’re doing.”

Kiera was put on a stretcher, and a mask was put over her mouth. I watched the mask fog with her breath. Thank God…she’s still alive. She was shoved into an ambulance, and the doors were slammed shut behind her. I tried to stand. “Wait, I want to go with her. Let me go with her.”

A firm hand held me down. “Stay still, sir. You’re injured too. We’re going to get you on a stretcher and put you in the other ambulance. But you’ll be right behind her, I promise.”

I suddenly felt extremely tired. I nodded, but there was no strength behind it, just a dead sort of flopping up and down. Dropping my heavy head, I stared at the smeared pool of blood Kiera had left behind. Lying near the edge of it was the necklace I had given her as a goodbye. It was touching the blood, and the pool was starting to creep around the sides of the pendant, surrounding it. With my good hand, I weakly scraped my fingers against the rough concrete.