Page 1 of Captivated

Prologue

Cash

“What the fuck was that?” My head pivots on my neck as the sound of a gunshot echoes outside of Piper’s apartment, muffled by the walls of the room I’m inside—but I would recognize that sound anywhere. Being a sheriff deputy lends my ears to knowing what I’ve heard, and I definitely knowthatwas a bullet leaving the barrel of a gun.

I react on instinct, running for the door and bursting through the opening, frantically searching for the origin of the sound and the woman who owns me. The cold chill of the winter night hits my face as soon as I exit the building and twist my body around, searching for my blonde beauty. Ice crunches beneath my shoes from the snow that hit Emerson Falls just two days ago as I step into the night.

“Piper? Piper!” I yell just as movement on the asphalt in the parking lot of her apartment complex draws my attention to the right, accompanied by furious footsteps moving away from her. I faintly make out a figure running from the scene as I hear the splash of feet on wet pavement, but then my eyes fixate on something else.

Blood. And lots of it, so dark that it looks black from the night sky surrounding us and the dim street lamps lighting up the parking lot. But the red hits leftover snow and I know instantly something is wrong.

“Fuck! Piper!” I race towards her as her body lies still, curled up on her side, her blonde hair falling over her face. As I reach her, I drop to my knees and brush her locks from her eyes while panic sets in. My heart beat is wild, my entire body shaking from the adrenaline running through my veins, and I don’t know where to touch her first.

“Piper, baby… where are you hurt? What happened?” My hands are everywhere, yet I feel frozen, incapable of processing the image in front of me.

This woman I never knew I wanted or needed in my life is lying on the asphalt, bleeding more than I know is alright, and I have no idea what to make of it.

“Cash,” she croaks, coughing my name as blood trickles out of the corner of her mouth.

“Shhhh, baby. Just breathe, hold on for me, Piper,” I whisper through a shaky breath, brushing her face as the hole in her stomach becomes more apparent from the headlights of a car approaching us. I shuffle her lightly to lay her head in my lap as I retrieve my phone from my pocket, my hands almost numb as my body vibrates from my rapid pulse. “Fuck! Come on!” Yelling as I desperately locate my phone is not making the process go any smoother.

“9-1-1, what’s your emergency?” The dispatcher comes through my cell that I dialed with shaky hands, the light from the screen highlighting Piper’s increasingly pale face.

“Fuck! I need an ambulance! My girlfriend… she’s… she’s been shot! There’s blood everywhere! Please hurry!” I yell, just as the car approaching us stops and the driver vacates the vehicle.

“Hey, is everything okay?” The man asks as he takes in Piper lying on the ground and the blood covering both of us at this point. “Oh, shit…”

“What is the address?” The dispatcher continues, but I can’t speak, which is ironic seeing as I’m trained to act calmly and rationally in instances like these.

But this isn’t some random person in a textbook scene that I walked up to.

No.

This is the woman that I have fallen in love with, and she’s dying in front of me.

I’m frozen, lost in time even though flashing blue and red lights make themselves known in the distance and the man that drove up on us has taken my cell and filled in the details to the dispatcher for me.

Because reality is setting in. Because Piper is bleeding profusely and I can’t do anything to save her. Because I have no idea how we got here, or why we’re here.

This isn’t real. This can’t be happening.

“Piper… baby. Listen to me,” I break out of my trance as moisture clouds my eyes and my voice begins to choke. “You have to hold on, okay? The ambulance is coming… you… you can’t leave me, baby.”

Piper attempts to move, but I settle her in my lap, linking my arms around her torso so I can hold her closer to me, rocking her body back and forth and attempting to apply pressure to her stomach with my stomach.

“Don’t move. Just hold on, babe… please!” My hands are trembling and I’m choking back tears, but I’ve never been so terrified in my life.

“Mmmm…” she mumbles before growing colder in my arms and her eyes flutter shut.

“No! Piper… stay awake! You can’t leave me! I… I love you!” I shout as I pull her up further into my chest, pressing her against the hardness of my body and kissing her cheek, but the clamminess of her skin tells me we’re running out of time.

The first time I told her I love her may be the only time she ever hears it.

“Cash,” she whispers, and then everything around me goes silent even though medical personnel and deputies arrive on scene around us.

But the only noise I can hear is the pounding of my heart as the physical extension of it goes limp in my arms.

Chapter 1

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