Page 154 of Catch the Sun

My ears ring, my pulse trips, my legs turn to jelly underneath me.

I run.

I run faster than I’ve ever run before, slipping in the wet grass, my heart shooting up my throat until I almost choke on it. The back door whips open and I barrel through, knocking over a small table, dishes clattering to the kitchen floor. Curving around the corner, I careen to a time-stopped halt at the edge of the living room.

And I see it.

I can’t unsee it.

Ella, bent over my brother, her hands pressed to his torn-up chest.

McKay, lying in a pool of blood, his body twitching. Liquid crimson spurts out of his mouth and seeps through her hands as she screams and cries.

A man.

A man with a gun, standing over McKay, his shirt sprayed with red and fury in his eyes.

Gunpowder and copper fill my nose as Ella’s ragged wails fill my ears. My own howl bleeds with hers. Horror, confusion, debilitating fuckingshock.

I don’t know how to move, how to breathe. My vision clouds, a haze of red, and a second later, I’m on the floor with Ella, covered in my brother’s blood. I don’t remember moving. I’m just there, shouting, crying, spitting, begging. “What the fuck, what thefuck,” I cry out.

The man is looming over us, reaching for Ella. “Let’s go. We have to go. Now.” He grabs her bloody hands, but she swats him away, hysterical.

When I blink again, the man is gone, the front door swinging on its hinges.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” Ella shrieks, hands newly clasped over McKay’s chest. “I’m so sorry!”

I need to call 911. I think my phone is gone, but I don’t remember looking for it because my eyes are pinned on McKay’s blood-spattered face as he chokes and coughs up red fluid.

“No, no, no,” I plead, snatching his face between my hands and forcing his eyes on me. “McKay, stay with me.” His eyes flutter closed. I slap him. “Stay. The Fuck. With me.”

I don’t recognize my voice.

“I told him,” Ella cries. “I told him, I told him. He knows… Oh God, Max…”

Her words seep through the madness. I lurch forward and snatch her by the upper arms, my bloody fingers smearing her skin. “Told him? Told him what, Ella?”

She’s not looking at me. She’s staring at McKay, in shock, shaking and screaming.

“What did youtellhim?”

Another figure appears in my periphery, racing toward us, sliding to his knees. A phone. He has a phone pressed to his ear as he prattles off a location.

Chevy. It’s Chevy.

“Jesus Christ, what happened?”

I hear him but I don’t hear him.

“A man’s been shot,” says a faraway voice. “We need an ambulance, fast. I don’t know what happened. Yes. No. You need to fuckin’ hurry…”

Tears track through the warm blood on my cheeks. I grab McKay’s face again, my thumbs bruising his cheekbones as I try to keep him with me. He wheezes, tries to say something. Nothing comes out but more blood.

“McKay, McKay…don’t you fucking die on me. Stay with me.Stay with me!”

He sputters, still trying to speak.

His head tilts, eyes finding me through the black haze.

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