Page 138 of Falling Too Late

“Did she. . .” He couldn’t say it. “How long was she. . .?”

“Too long.”

Mario turned back to Jon’s body, where it floated on the surface before he looked back at me.

“Alex, you’re bleeding.”

I looked down at my left shoulder. That’s when the pain registered, but I ignored it. “It’s just a graze.”

He was on his phone then, calling in for an ambulance.

I managed to scoop her up in my arms and carried her around the house, Mario following. “I’m going to meet them at the main road.”

“Mario,” I paused, looking over my shoulder at Jon’s dead body.

I was a felon, and I’d just killed another man. It didn’t matter that it was in self-defense. I knew what that meant.

Mario pushed me to get me to keep walking. “Just get her tothe road. She slipped off the dock and fell into the water. That’s all you tell them.”He turned and headed back around the house.

CHAPTER 50

ALEX

The monitors beeped,showing me proof that she was still alive. I watched her heart line like it was my own. She was breathing, but she wasn’t awake. I maneuvered my hands around the tubes and wires they had her hooked up to. Her face was pale, but her lips had color again.

We don’t know the cognitive damage she might have due to her being down so long. Only time will tell.

The doctor's words echoed in my head.

I could feel the spiral pulling me under. It was the same thing over again. I failed her. I didn’t keep my promise. I should have dealt with Jon sooner. I never should have waited.

I failed her.

I failed heragain.

“Alex, I can watch her. You should get some?—”

“No.”

Mario sighed, moved to the other side of her. She had a blanket pulled up under her arms. Her hands laid on top of the blanket, palms up. He reached for her hand, squeezing it.

“Come on, kid, come back.”

A part of me hated Mario. He had trained her. Showed her how to defend herself. He had been there for her when I couldn’t be.

I was jealous.

He had a relationship with her like I did when we first met.

I wasn’t the only one anymore.

But then there was the part of me that was grateful to him. Grateful that she hadn’t only had Jon. That she had others there to care for her.

Troy, Gavin, and Riley had been here earlier. I had called them from her phone to ask them to check in on King and Queen. They were here an hour later, dropping off a change of clothes for the both of us.

“For when she’s ready to come home,” Gavin said with tears in his eyes.

Riley cried at her bedside, and the guys finally took her away.I only left Wren’s side to change my shirt in the bathroom. I had managed to pass the blood on my clothes off as the blood from Wren’s cut.

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