Page 76 of Lilies in Autumn

Before I can react, burning pain sears my pelvis as Felicity stabs me with the machete. She pulls out quickly, tearing flesh and bone. The pain is blinding, and the fight leaves my body, along with my blood. I feel myself start to go under when a roar echoes through the room, and Felicity’s weight is abruptly thrown off of me.

I smile to myself, losing consciousness with the knowledge that Grey found me.

Greyson

Ava’s screams detonate like bombs, bouncing and imploding throughout the deserted building. I’m racing down the hall, sprinting until I get to the last door. Instinctually, I know that’s the room Felicity led her to; she’s too manipulative and calculating to resist taunting Ava with this location.

I force myself to pause before throwing the door open; the last thing I want to do is give Felicity the upper hand by knowing that I’m here and that the police are, fucking hopefully, on the way. I have my hand on the door, ready to pry the shit open when the door to the building is wrenched open. I look over to see police pour into the building.

Thank fuck.

The apparent leader of the team is motioning me to get out of the way but fuck that. It’s my girl in there. Turning from him, I slowly open the door and bite back a curse at the scene in front of me.

Straddling Ava, Felicity’s arm pulls back before lifting, holding a fucking knife coated in blood. My vision turns red, and I rush into the room, releasing a feral growl before tackling the bitch and ripping her away from Ava.

“Ava! Baby, are you okay?” I yell to Ava while holding Felicity down. “Ava, can you hear me, vixen? Baby, answer me!” Soft groans release from Ava’s mouth, but she doesn’t respond. Turning to Felicity, I fucking rage.

“You fucking bitch, what did you do to her?” I slam her hands down and pry her grip open. She drops the knife—a fucking machete—and starts sobbing. I kick the knife across the room and crawl to Ava’s blood-soaked body.

She’s bruised and bloody and battered. “Ava, baby, answer me,” I cry out. Quickly assessing her condition, I apply pressure to the wound at her pelvic bone. “Baby, just hang on. Fuck,” I call out as the police rush in, guns pointed, and charge at Felicity. “Where the fuck are the paramedics?” I yell out.

Turning back to Ava’s face, I lean down, whispering in her ear and praying to every religious entity that exists that she makes it through this. “Baby, I need you to hang on for me. Fucking please, vixen. Don’t fucking leave me.” I keep pressure on the largest open wound, but it’s by no means the only lesion.

“Greyson! Grey, I did this for us! We can be together now. Please, Grey Grey!” Felicity pleas as the police cuff her and lead her, kicking and shrieking like a goddamn banshee, from the room. “Greyson, Greyson!” She chants my name.

Still bent over Ava, I vow, “I will fucking kill her. I swear to God, I will kill her for this.”

A hand clamps down on my shoulder, startling me. “Son, I need to stop the bleeding,” the calm voice of a man says from behind me.

“She’s been stabbed, multiple times. I’m not fucking leaving her,” I growl, refusing to take my eyes and hands off of her.

“I know that, but we need to stop the loss of blood. Let us do our job; it’s the only way she’ll have a chance of making it,” the paramedic says, and fuck, he’s right. I know he’s fucking right. I nod my head, letting him know I heard him.

“Vixen, he’s going to fix you up. I’m right here,” I whisper into Ava’s ear before releasing my hands, now painted with her blood. As soon as my hands lift from her wound, the blood starts seeping out of her. “Fucking do something,” I yell at the paramedic.

Covering the wound with gauze, the paramedic places a gloved hand over her pelvis and the other on the pulse at her neck. “I need a stretcher,” he yells, and suddenly a stretcher appears next to Ava, along with two more paramedics. Calling out, he says, “Blood pressure is dropping. We need to get her hooked up now.”

Looking at me, he orders, “I need you to step away. You can join her in the bus, but we need to get her loaded and lined.” I’m shoved away, replaced by two paramedics that hoist Ava onto the gurney and hook her up to oxygen. I insert myself at her side, refusing to let her out of my fucking sight. Grabbing her cold, limp hand, I walk alongside Ava as she’s wheeled through the building and outside.

Like me, the police and paramedics bypassed the parking lot and drove through the manicured landscape of the campus. Unlike earlier, when Ava was fucking alone and defenseless, the quad is packed, everyone desperate for a glimpse of the drama. Where the fuck was everyone when she was being dragged across this goddamn lawn?

The ambulance is parked beside the picnic tables, and the paramedics lift the stretcher from the stand and slide her inside. I climb in after her, taking her hand and praying to a God I haven’t talked to in a long time.

—

I have counted every fucking minute of every hour since Ava was loaded into the ambulance. It’s been five hours and twenty-three minutes, three-hundred and twenty-three fucking minutes, that they’ve worked on her. Ava coded in the ambulance on the way to the hospital and had to be resuscitated; they asked me if she had a DNR, and I told them to fucking work on her.

Hearing the monitor flatline and then surge again was an out-of-body experience I never want to relive. She made it the rest of the ride and was transferred into surgery as soon as we got to the hospital.

A fourteen-minute drive, a three-hundred-nine-minute wait. Fucking agonizing.

I resorted to pacing the halls, trying to block out the cries of Ava’s mom and sisters, the wails of Celeste and Serena, and the stone-faced silence of her father. It’s my fault she’s in here, my fault if she doesn’t make it. My chest burns and I rub my palm over my heart. If she dies, this fucking organ dies, too.

When my mom left, it was her own choice because she didn’t love me or my dad enough to stay. I was as upset as an eight-year-old could be, but if Ava leaves me? I’ll be fucking destroyed.

“Greyson,” a voice calls behind me, and I turn into the familiar embrace of my father. Clutching me to him, I finally allow myself to break down.

“She’s fucking in there, Dad, under the damn knife because I couldn’t keep my dick in my pants last year. I can’t fucking lose her,” I howl into his shoulder. “I won’t fucking survive it if she’s gone. It’s my fault. It’s my fucking fault. I should be the one on that table, not Ava.”

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