Page 132 of Fracture

The sirens get louder, and black spots begin to dance in my vision.

“Levi, go. Please go.”

He’s staying there, not moving, not leaving me. They’ll find him. They’ll put him away. Stella will be all alone. I try to tell him that Stella needs him, that he has to think of her, but words aren’t coming out when I try to speak. Just gasping breaths. The wound doesn’t really hurt anymore. Everything feels strange, and warm. My limbs won’t obey me.

Levi is still looking down at me, shaking his head, his pleas sounding as though they’re coming from another room. Suddenly, his head shoots up, and he bellows. There’s movement out of the corner of my eye, and there’s a black flash, followed by the muffled shot of a gun.

Levi is thrown backwards, and I reach for him blindly.

Levi.

Levi.

Levi.

But my hands don’t work anymore. Nothing works.

The sirens wail, louder and louder. There are shouts, and more gunshots. Then there’s no more light, and no more sound.

There’s just nothing.

CHAPTER 32

LEVI

“Stop fucking touching me!”There’s hands all over my face, and a hot liquid running into my eye. My head is pounding, and everything is blurry. “Get the fuck off me! Where’s Dylan?”

“Sir, you need to calm down, you’ve been shot.” The man’s voice is stern, hovering over me as the room sways back and forth.

No, not the room, the ambulance. The ambulance they bundled me into, while I was screaming and lashing out. They took Dylan from me, after that rat bastard Michael Gray got back up like a fucking horror movie serial killer, and fired off one last shot at me. The cops shot him, I’m pretty sure of that, but he managed to hit me with his last bullet.

Now my head is pounding and I don’t know where Dylan is, I don’t even know if he’s alive.

“Where’s Dylan?” I ask again. “Is he alive?”

“I’m just worried about you right now.” There’s pressure on the wound on the side of my head, a sharp sting as some liquid washes over it.

“Please, is he alive?” My voice cracks, my hands balled into fists.

“I need you to calm down so I can control this bleeding.”

It’s useless.

I lie on that stretcher and pray, I pray so fucking hard. I beg God and the world and the universe and whatever other mythical creatures that might exist in that vastness above me to justlet him live. To let him be alive for both of us. We can’t do this without him. He doesn't deserve this. Not after everything he’s been through.

Let him live. Let him be happy with us. Please. I’ll do anything.

The hospital is blurs of white and blue, nurses and doctors in scrubs racing past me as they wheel me through the corridors. Lights pass overhead, one after the other in quick succession, filtering through the blurry haze of my one good eye.

I’ve lost too much blood. I feel lightheaded, too weak to fight and too dizzy to get up.

“Is he here?” My voice is barely a whisper. My hand shoots out to grab the arm of the person beside me. “Is he here?”

“Who?” A soft voice responds, and a warm hand is over mine. “Is who here?”

“Dylan. Dylan. Is he here?”

There’s no answer, just a pat on my hand that’s meant to be comforting, and more shouted commands. No one tells me anything. They just put needles in my arm, and a mask over my face, and call for a surgeon.

---