Page 84 of Ruthless God

We walk into the fun house, and we scream, clinging onto each other for dear life as a clown pops up out of nowhere with a bat. We run through different mirrored rooms that make us look different sizes from each angle. Once we leave that area, we stumble into a room where a woman dressed like a dead doll runs after us with a machete. When we are near the exit, someone throws fake blood on us, and we scream again.

Suddenly, a woman wearing a Chucky mask shoves a knife into my side, and Winter screams and runs toward her, snatching the mask from her face, revealing… Savannah. Savannah laughs like a maniac and runs out of the back door.

I feel lightheaded and fall to the ground on my knees, my hands against the wound. It feels as if someone poured salt onto the cut and lit me on fire.

“Call Snow!!” I scream.

“Fuck! Your blood is getting everywhere.” She places her hand onto the wound over mine, but blood gushes through our fingers.

I feel cold and dizzy as if I were back on the yo-yo roller coaster ride, and I want to puke. The more I breathe, the more my side burns. I empty out my stomach onto the concrete.

“You have to get up, Lyrical.”

She wraps my arm around her neck, and we both get up. I keep my hand on the wound, applying pressure, hoping I don’t bleed out.

Fuck! I hope I don’t die like this.

We rush out of the fun house, and Winter screeches, “Help! Help!”

A staff member comes over and scoops me up in his arms.

I close my eyes then, and everything goes black.

Snow

Ipace the white tiles of the waiting room of the ER, watching Winter cling to Keanu as she cries silently on his shirt. When I found Lyrical, the paramedics were loading her in the back of the ambulance. If Lyrics dies… I can’t live in a world without her. Savannah is going to pay for stabbing my fiancée. She’s going to die a slow death. My father must have sent her after Lyrical to prove a point that he’s in control of the situation and that I’m going to bow down to him and do what he says, but I’m done being his lap dog.

The doctor walks into the waiting room.

“The family of Miss Haynes?”

I ball my fist, embracing the worst news. “Tell us what’s going on, Doctor.”

“Lyrical is still sedated, and she needed snitches. She’s lucky her stab wound didn’t puncture an artery.”

“I want her discharged.”

“We ha—”

“You’ve stitched her up fine, now she can come home. Draw up the paperwork and I’ll have my family doctor look after her.”

“We have to do an investigation because of the stab wound.”

“No, you don’t. Keep this quiet and I’ll make a fat donation to the hospital.”

He nods. “Very well. I’ll have the nurse draw up the paperwork.”

He leads me to Lyrical’s room, and the nurse monitoring her removes the IV from her arm as I reach her bed. I scoop her into my arms, and she snuggles into my chest, burrowing her face.

She stirs in her sleep. “You smell like Snow, Doctor.”

I chuckle. Once I make it to the lobby, Winter drops a kiss on Lyrical’s forehead.

“If you need anything, please send me a text message.” Her eyes narrow. “Can you give me a ride home? I rode with Lilac earlier.”

“I’ll give you a ride home,” Keanu says.

“Okay.”

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