Page 11 of After All

He went to his knees. Son of a bitch, he’d been shot.

“Shit!”

“Oh my God!”

“Did you kill him?”

Those were the shouts he heard first. He gritted his teeth and pressed his hand against the painful spot in his thigh. His hand came away with a lot of blood. It was pulsing under his hand, the blood bright red, and Scott swore. He’d nicked an artery or something. He focused on the kids. He had to get the gun away from Chase before he accidentally shot someone else.

“Chase,” he said tightly. “Don’t drop it. But set the gun on the ground. Carefully.” Of course the fucking thing had been loaded. Of course the safety had been off.Son of a bitch. At least the bullet had come for Scott and not one of the kids.

Chase did as he was told, quickly, and then backed away. His face was pale and tears were streaming down his cheeks.

“I’m going to be okay,” Scott told him. But he felt like his head was spinning. Shock possibly. Or loss of blood. Fuck.

He fumbled in his pocket and pulled out his phone. He heard Hope’s voice next.

“Oh my God, Scott!”

She must have seen what happened or heard the gunshot from across the street.

She knelt beside him, and even with the pain in his leg and the dizziness washing over his mind, he had to wonder how she was going to get back up.

“Don’t put yourself into labor,” Scott said, trying for lighthearted. But he thought he sounded more like he was trying to talk through a lot of pain.

“If I go now, it’s fine. Baby is almost full-term,” she told him, clearly also trying for levity. It didn’t sound much better from her.

“Call Kyle,” Scott said, handing her his phone. Then he lay back on the grass and pressed his hand against his wound. It hurt like a mother, but he had to try to stop some of the bleeding.

The sound of other people thundering toward him registered as he listened to Hope talk to Kyle.

“Scott’s been shot. In the thigh. Town square. Just a minute ago.”

Short and sweet. That’s all Kyle would need. He was at the Come Again with Derek. Literally two blocks away. That was as good as calling 9-1-1. Kyle would get here and the ambulance would be two minutes away. It was parked just on the other side of the square and Derek was one of the EMTs.

Then Hope shifted in beside him. She’d pulled her T-shirt off, leaving her in a silky tank, and was pushing his hand out of the way.

“We need something more than your hand,” she told him.

He nodded. She was probably right. She was a nurse. She also did yoga and was into essential oils and herbs and stuff.

“You got any potions on you for this?” he asked.

Did his voice sound funny to everyone else like it did to him?

“To magically heal a gunshot wound?” she asked with a smile. “Sorry.”

“How about to kill the pain? I don’t want Kyle and Derek to give me shit about being a wuss.”

Hope was leaning most of her weight on his leg. It burned, but he knew that whatever was bleeding was going to need a lot of force to stem it. “Well, they’ll have to deal with me if they give you any shit,” she said. “And remember, I help Kyle out in the clinic. If he gets mouthy with you, I’ll book him with patients through lunch for the next week.”

Scott laughed. But that also sounded, and felt, weak.

Kyle was kneeling over him a minute later. “Jesus, Scott, you just have to make things dramatic, don’t you?” he asked, examining the wound. “Fuck,” was his assessment a moment later.

Yeah, that wasn’t good. But Kyle and Hope and Derek were there. So he was going to be fine.

With that thought, Scott let the darkness that had been threatening at the edges of his consciousness wash over him.

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