Page 112 of Catching My Dreams

His vision had started to darken at the edges when his right hand bumped against what he was looking for. His fingers firmly wrapped around the hilt of the knife, and Noah didn’t pause for even a second.

He lifted his arm in an arc, driving the knife into the side of Brett’s neck. The blade disappeared, sinking through skin and muscle tissue. It was disgusting and sickening and the most disturbing thing that Noah had ever seen, let alone done, in his entire life.

It was also one of the best.

Confusion flashed in Brett’s eyes as his fingers loosened from around Noah’s neck, but the emotion only lasted for three seconds at most. Brett’s face slackened, his body slumping forward.

Noah drew in a painful breath that had him coughing before he could draw in another. He shoved the man to the side and off of him, unable to find any remorse within himself for ending his life. Brett never would have stopped if Noah hadn’t stopped him. It was as simple as that.

“Ella?” Noah wheezed, rolling to his knees and staggering onto his feet.

He stumbled to where Chris was kneeling beside Ella. His teammate was pressing his sweatshirt to her abdomen to staunch the bleeding.

“Ella?” he asked again, dropping to his knees on the other side of her. “Can you hear me?”

“Noah?”

Those gorgeous brown eyes he loved so much moved to find his gaze, and Noah let out a choked sound of relief.

“I’m here, baby. I’m right here.”

Noah took her hand in his. He squeezed it gently and tried not to let his expression show how much the shivers wracking her entire body were scaring the hell out of him. He lifted her hand and pressed a kiss to the back of it.

“Help is coming, okay.”

“I’m so tired.” The words were little more than a whisper, and Noah could see the exhaustion weighing down her eyelids.

“I know,” he replied in a broken voice he barely recognized. He brushed her hair behind her ear, his fingers trembling so much he almost didn’t manage it. “But it’s finally over. You don’t need to be scared anymore.”

“He’s gone?” she asked, her tired eyes brightening with relief, only for her eyelids to close over them.

“Yes. He’s gone.”

She opened her eyes, but the sight of her pale face blurred as tears filled his own eyes. Noah couldn’t do this. He couldn’t lose her.

“You have to stay with me, okay? I need you to stay with me because I can’t live without you. You’re my entire fucking world, El. My entire universe. You’re everything.”

“I’m sorry—” Ella tried, her voice weak and barely audible. Her eyelids drooped, her eyelashes fluttering as she struggled to keep her eyes open. “I should’ve known…”

“Ella,” Noah said, the word almost harsh in its desperation. “You have to stay awake, baby. You need to stay with me.”

But Ella’s eyes didn’t open again. Not even when Noah told her he loved her. Not even when the paramedics arrived, guided by Olivia and Drew. Not even when they loaded her into the back of an ambulance.

Noah was with her through it all, and when he was barred from going into the operating room with her and a nurse took him aside so he could get his broken nose and bruised neck treated, he felt like he’d had a limb torn from his body.

Not knowing what was going on or if she was still alive was the worst torture he could imagine. He would gladly go back to having her hate him if it meant she would be okay. He would give up anything, do anything, as long as she survived this.

At some point, Ella’s gran arrived, and Noah found himself sitting in a chair next to her, her fragile and small hand cradled in his blood-covered one.

She didn’t say anything, and neither did he. They only waited, Chris, Olivia, Drew, and eventually Riley and Asher joining their somber silence on Noah’s other side after their offers of coffee and food were turned down.

Noah’s mom entered the waiting room sometime later, followed shortly by his dad and stepmom. He hadn’t called them, hadn’t even thought to do so, but he was glad they were there.

And just when Noah thought he couldn’t take the waiting any longer, a male doctor in scrubs walked into the cold space.

“Are you Ella Montgomery’s family?” he asked the group of them.

Ella’s gran stood up, and Noah stood with her. “I’m her grandmother,” she said.

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