Page 119 of Vicious Sentiments

“Are there others?” Cape holds his gun up and aims at the top of the stairs.

“I don’t fucking know!” she bellows. “Just get her. Get her. Get her.” She starts crying.

Cape shoves his gun in the back of his jeans and pulls one of the men off of Marney, tossing him to the side like he weighs nothing. Julian heaves the other, and I can’t breathe. Marney’s eyes are closed and she’s so soaked in blood that her Bella Luna pajamas are matted to her skin.

I reach out to touch her and freeze, the bracelet she got me catching the light. I can’t know if she’s cold. I just can’t.

“I can’t tell if she’s shot,” Julian says.

“She’s not!” Margo yells. “They didn’t get a shot off before I got them but they had her, and when I shot them she went down with them.”

“Her head,” Cape says so lowly that I shiver.

My eyes slowly go up from her body and I quickly clutch my stomach to stop from throwing up.

Above her ear she’s missing a large chunk of her pretty blonde hair, and I think I see skull.

“Hospital. Now!” Margo shoves Cape forward. “Get the car Julian! Now! Now! Now!”

All of them start swirling around me but I’m stuck, gaping at the hole in Marney’s head. She has to be okay. She has to be. Death wouldn’t want her. She wouldn’t want to give Marney peace. Marney already has peace. A whole life full of it and more to come. With a shaky hand, I eye my bracelet and reach out to touch her neck. Therehas to be a pulse, right? Otherwise why would Margo want them to go to the hospital so fast?

It’s like I’m moving in slow motion, my body refusing to have to do this, the bracelet glinting, and the smile she gave me at the nightclub replaying in my head. This can’t be real. This can’t—

A guttural wail from behind me has me jerk my hand back and I’m pulled from my slow moving world.

“No!” Dillon crashes down to his knees beside me and shoves me roughly to the left. I brace against the floor, my palms slipping in the pool of blood.

He’s making noises, screeches and wails but no words as he grabs at Marney, sliding her to him and pulling her up onto his thighs. She hangs loosely in his arms as he snivels over her. He’s saying something unintelligible as he chokes.

The anguish on his face has me start to hyperventilate and I can barely hear Margo.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Oh, god. They were going to take her. I didn’t mean for her to fall,” Margo rambles.

Dillon pulls his sister’s body against his chest and screams, his knuckles turn white as he grips her.

I’m transfixed, unable to look away at the tragedy playing before me and I wish the fly in my ear would stop. Hands shake me, and the fly buzzing becomes words.

“Get up. We’re going to the hospital.”

“But she’s—”

“She’s not dead.” Julian grips me by the arm and wrenches me up. As soon as I’m stable, Cape reappears with a towel and holds it against Marney’s head.

“Give her to me,” Cape shouts.

Dillon wails in his direction, gripping his sister tighter and the towel falls away.

“God damn it! Ma, help me!” Cape snaps, and Margo too seems to wake up from a trance.

“Dillon, baby… We have to get her to the hospital,” Her voice shakes, and I realize I’ve never seen Margo so scared.

“Youuu…”Dillon cries.

Cape grunts between his teeth, and Julian shoots a hand out, stopping him from bringing his gun down on Dillons head again. “Don’t!”

“What the fuck are we supposed to do? We have to get her to the hospital. He’s going Norman Bates.”

Julian’s rare vein bulges in his forehead and he kneels down.

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